14 minutes ago, Luke said:

Just spent two days downloading again and reinstalling. One clean startup, installed PMDG. Then BANG - freeze on fly.

Uninstall, clean up, still broken.

 

GARBAGE.

 

hardware problem. 

 

5 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

hardware problem. 

A discovery flight runs fine in NYC with the Cessna. Then try and start a flight at JFK? Works fine.

Restart MSFS. Try free flight at JFK. Freeze.

Restart MSFS. Discovery flight over Central park? Loads fine. Free Flight at JFK. Immediate freeze. It's software.

Cheers!

12 hours ago, Rockliffe said:

You will need an external drive to save your backups on

I agree, Macrium Reflect is a great backup tool, have been using the paid version for years. But you don't need an external drive, any drive letter, in- or external will do.

Edited January 1, 20233 yr by turbomax

Doesn't even make the clink when I hit "Fly Now". Just hangs. (It made the clink when I did free flight just before, then when I tried switching aircraft, hang.)

Definitely the most frustrating and absolute worst version of the simulator franchise I've run since the Apple ][.

A Google search suggests this may not be an isolated incident with SU11 or whatever version we are on now.

8 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

8 hours ago, Noel said:

I remember when MSFS launched in 2020 I was amazed at the almost immediate clamoring to buy or pick up as many addons as could be found which in my mind seemed like automatic legacy behavior from the prior sims where default scenery was absolute garbage so one had to install new content.  I thought this is the pathway to heightened risk for problems and it surely is (yes, of course you can cope with 100's of addons all you need is another tool to manage it all, like addon linker which I have no need for.)  I have a few choice airports I bought, 2 planes now, and a grand total of 23 entries in the community folder and hardly ever see CTD.  It seems like for some adding content is more meaningful than flying and for that issue I highly recommend A Pilot's Life v2 so you can focus on using this incredible sim versus the continuous quest to add content to satisfy oneself.  APL2 scores all flights and keeps you on your toes and focused on flying this amazing flight simulator extreme.   Critical in my Comm Folder:  FSLTL, AccuSeason, Subtle Taxi Ribbon (absolute perfect solution), AS CRJ, PMDG 738, B78X HD mod, and several liveries and that's it.  

I am with you, the less garbage that one loads into their sim, the more reliable it will be. 

Bob, Noel,

I have literally thousands of entries in my addons linker folders. Most of the time the sim is pretty stable. Of course not all those thousands will be active at the same time.

I have had periods when the sim has been misbehaving for me. Rarely CTDs, but a lot of stutters, pauses etc. In no case have I found any specific addon or sim setting to be the culprit. Every time I have had an unhappy period with MSFS it has started after a system update. SUs 5, 9, and 10, from memory, were bad for me. Some of those SUs were bad for other folk, but for a lot of folk they were ok. I have also seen plenty of complaints about the sim after other SUs that caused me no problems at all.

The point I'd like to make is that there is so much variation in people's hardware and software setups, plus of course the range and number of addons in use, plus the variety of settings used in sim, that there is very little that can be categorically stated as a cause of or solution to any particular problem event. I suspect it would be very difficult to find two users anywhere amongst all the global MSFS users that actually have identical setups.

Sure, there are some things that need to be checked and eliminated as a matter of sound practice, and a lot of those have been mentioned here.

But it's also true that the sh*t can hit the fan pretty consistently for any user at any time if their particular combination of hardware, software, drivers, settings, addons or whatever causes even a couple of bits of data to misalign somehow. And another user, or even hundreds of users, may think they have the same setup but are not having a problem and so therefore are convinced the complainant/reporter of the issue is wrong/stupid/an word not allowed/troublemaker (delete according to preference), but in fact their systems are not the same, and the original problem is real.

I am only quoting the two posts above because I'd like to contest the view that addons are unnecessary and troublesome.

It's a lot more complex than that. The OP may have a bad parm/driver/setting or similar, or may just be the victim of the sim fairy having a bad day. It happens.

Edited to add - and of course, if it does happen to you (the royal 'you' that is, so not talking to you Bob/Noel here). if it's happening often enough you will quite likely and underderstandaby vent a bit here.

Edited January 2, 20233 yr by andy1252
text

8 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

I am with you, the less garbage that one loads into their sim, the more reliable it will be. 

Truth be told I have very little garbage in my  addon linker folder, it's mostly very good payware.

5 hours ago, Luke said:

A discovery flight runs fine in NYC with the Cessna. Then try and start a flight at JFK? Works fine.

Restart MSFS. Try free flight at JFK. Freeze.

Restart MSFS. Discovery flight over Central park? Loads fine. Free Flight at JFK. Immediate freeze. It's software.

Cheers!

OK.. the common element in your scenarios is free flight at JFK..

Does free flight at other airports work?  Or other aircraft?

Some have reported hangs if you restart with the same aircraft that you were flying before.. is that possibly what is going on?

Edited January 2, 20233 yr by Bert Pieke

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Doesn't even make the clink when I hit "Fly Now". Just hangs. (It made the clink when I did free flight just before, then when I tried switching aircraft, hang.)

Definitely the most frustrating and absolute worst version of the simulator franchise I've run since the Apple ][.

A Google search suggests this may not be an isolated incident with SU11 or whatever version we are on now.

It’s most likely hardware. There are also possibility of 3rd party software that can interfere especially those that “optimize” pc for specific gaming purposes .
 

There are plenty conflict with audio devices and drivers .

Lastly if you want get to bottom of that you should be patient keep trying no matter how frustrated it gets.

Most of us run MSFS perfectly fine. But of course there are time when thing need to be tweaked .

 

1 hour ago, sd_flyer said:

It’s most likely hardware.

You guys keep saying that, yet there's no blue screen. I can restart the sim and every 2nd or 3rd time it loads fine, and then it doesn't. It has no instability or adverse effects on other software, and I can run p3D for 12+ hours at a time with no instability what so ever.

Additionally, when it freezes the music doesn't stop, and if FSUIPC7 is running it happily keeps going and doesn't report any SimConnect errors until I terminate the sim, which I need to do through task manager since the UI is unresponsive. At that point it gets a SimConnect error.

All the evidence strongly suggests a frozen MSFS process.

1 hour ago, sd_flyer said:

t’s most likely hardware.

if it  were  hardware you expect   luke to have  other  issues  with his  pc   since  it  only  related  to msfs

I agree, it seems to make sense to rule out software before hardware given what Luke is describing.

Luke, can you respond to Bert's questions a few posts above?

3 hours ago, andy1252 said:

I have literally thousands of entries in my addons linker folders.

While you were busily shopping for and installing 1000's of addons I was very busy flying for score with my grand total of 23 addons over half of which are liveries for the 3 aircraft I'm licensed in using APLv2 trying my hardest to get my composite pilot rating score up.  I've been at this steadily, flying a whole lot, since initial launch.  This tells me we relate to the MSFS exceedingly differently.  Your story reminds me of when I was a kid and we would play 'army' using the little green GI Joes.  All the fun came from building the fort, the roads, the buildings, staging the soldiers and so forth.  After that was all completed, there didn't seem to be much point in playing, so we moved on to something else.  This is what I personally love about APLv2, and before that I used FSCaptain which offered a similar scoring piece and so forth.  

My point stands and very simply it is this:  all else being equal--the more the number and variety of addons by various developers, the greater the statistical risk of an issue.   Doesn't mean anything more than that, it's just a fact of probabilities related to complexity.

1 hour ago, Luke said:

You guys keep saying that, yet there's no blue screen. I can restart the sim and every 2nd or 3rd time it loads fine, and then it doesn't. It has no instability or adverse effects on other software, and I can run p3D for 12+ hours at a time with no instability what so ever.

Additionally, when it freezes the music doesn't stop, and if FSUIPC7 is running it happily keeps going and doesn't report any SimConnect errors until I terminate the sim, which I need to do through task manager since the UI is unresponsive. At that point it gets a SimConnect error.

All the evidence strongly suggests a frozen MSFS process.

Blue screen? What edition of Windows are you running? I haven't seen a blue screen in twenty years.

Has FSUIPC7 been upgraded to work with SU11 of MSFS? I heard the developer retired.

If the music keeps running, go to the Sound section and change the sound device from Default to your personally-selected device from the menu options. There were problems in the past where the selection of "Default" greatly impeded sim performance, even though the Default choice was the correct choice. Still, you needed to hand-select by name the correct sound device. Don't leave it on Default.

I would love to see a readout of your Task Manager.

7 minutes ago, David Mills said:

Has FSUIPC7 been upgraded to work with SU11 of MSFS? I heard the developer retired

his  son has  taken over fsuipc program

2 hours ago, Luke said:

You guys keep saying that, yet there's no blue screen. I can restart the sim and every 2nd or 3rd time it loads fine, and then it doesn't. It has no instability or adverse effects on other software, and I can run p3D for 12+ hours at a time with no instability what so ever.

Additionally, when it freezes the music doesn't stop, and if FSUIPC7 is running it happily keeps going and doesn't report any SimConnect errors until I terminate the sim, which I need to do through task manager since the UI is unresponsive. At that point it gets a SimConnect error.

All the evidence strongly suggests a frozen MSFS process.

Try with FSUIPC7 completely removed.