A while ago i contacted asobo support because of a very annoying MSFS UI issue regarding the "connection problem" popup message. I also up-voted this in the MSFS forums but this was like 6 weeks ago and nothing has happened since then.

To explain it in a short way, when the "connection problem" popup message appears, my MSFS plane is flying on without any controls. Since I do not have a mouse cursor, and I am in pan mode, I press ESC to bring it up and to be able to click "OK". Usually, at this stage, the green message appears "connection successful". So all could be good at this stage.

However, it isnt. Because when i exit the pause menu pressing ESC again, my plane is frozen in the air and remains that way until i close MSFS. I have view controls, i can bring up the ESC menu, engine sounds are working. It is like a pause state, but trying to use the "exit pause" keybindings has no effect. The only way out is to cancel the flight and to go back to the main menu. So, its clearly a UI bug.

Now i was explaining this like 3 times opening a support ticket, but all Asobo is doing so far is to insist that my connection is the problem. In theory, this could be correct...because if you have some industrial fiber optic 100GB/s connection, the message in question might indeed never appear. However, this is never 100% possible in reality.

 

Quote

Hello,

 

again, i feel like i am seriously misunderstood by the support team. The issue is definitely NOT my connection but a faulty user interface that handles the message in an unacceptable way. Please confirm to me that you have understood what i am talking about.

 

Here are my steps, again: 

 

1. The messages appears. The Sim is keeps running, since I am in view pan mode, i dont have a mouse cursor and cannot click OK.

 

2. I press "esc" to 1. bring up the pause menu and 2. pause my sim so the plane isnt crashing.

 

3. I can click the message away normally.

 

4. I cannot resume my flight afterwards, because the sim REMAINS PAUSED. I can close the "esc menu", this results in me hearing my engines but nothing is moving anymore. setting and using any "pause" or "unpause" key and trying to use it has no effect. I can change views and bring up the esc menu, but no plane controls show any response and the plane is frozen in the air.

 

The internet connection is usually re-established some 5 seconds after message appearance, but this is of no use to me because nothing in the Simulator is moving anymore. This is NOT a connection issue! There is no way to guarrantee a 100% failsafe connection under any circumstances. What needs to happen is that the dev team updates the way the MSFS UI handles this specific type of error message, so it doesnt result in a plane that is frozen in the air!

 

please confirm to me that you have understood that issue. If you are again asking me for my ISP and connection speed, save your and my time and just admit you cannot help me. Thank you.

 

 

 

 

Hi ********,
 
Thank you for contacting us regarding the message "Your bandwidth is too low for data streaming, you have been switched to offline mode." In order to investigate the most common reasons why this message appears and make improvements to this feature, we would like you to provide the following information:
 

1. A screenshot of your Data options (Launch Microsoft Flight Simulator, go to Options > General > Data)
2. Are you currently using—or have you used in the past—"Google Mods" to replace Bing Maps?
3. Does the Low Bandwidth warning appear:
   • Every time you play Microsoft Flight Simulator
   • Sometimes 
   • Occasionally
4. How far in your flight does the 'Low Bandwidth' warning appears? 
   • Less than 15 mins in
   • Between 15 mins and 30 mins
   • Between 30 mins and 1 hour
   • After one hour or more?
5. Do you notice issues with scenery/terrain before the Low Bandwidth' warning appears? (Missing buildings, degraded photogrammetry, etc...)
6. When the Low Bandwidth' warning appears, are you usually flying at a high altitude or low altitude?
7. What is the name of your Internet Service Provider
8. What is your connection type? (Wifi, Ethernet, etc...)

 
Thank you for participating in this survey. We hope the information gathered in the next couple of weeks will help us progress on this topic.
 
 
Kind regards,
Microsoft Flight Simulator Support Team
Knowledge base | Forums | Twitter | Facebook | Discord | SDK Q&A

This issue has been haunting my sim for some 2 months now and I stopped flying during daytime in dense scenery, because as soon as there is even a minor connection problem, I am just wasting my time. If anyone is familiar with the issue and found a way to at least recover from the "frozen state" described above, please let me know.

Edited May 15, 20233 yr by Soulflight

Are you sure your sim doesn't switch to Active Pause when it recovers?

The OP might want to read through a previous thread on server disconnects, and try the solution offered there.

 

35 minutes ago, David Mills said:

The OP might want to read through a previous thread on server disconnects, and try the solution offered there.

 

Thats all very interesting, do you know any VPN where I can give it a free try first? Even though I dont think that my ISP is specifically throttling MSFS, since during the night it is working normally. I live in europe and streaming lags are quite common on rainy sundays for example, when everyone is netflixing. In Theory, the performance tab in the task manager should show wether MSFS is using the full available bandwith or not. Let me give it a try.
That still, however, doesnt really help with the issue on the UI side. 😉

1 hour ago, JonathanC said:

Are you sure your sim doesn't switch to Active Pause when it recovers?

Yes and no. It is definitely not active pause as pressing the active pause key does nothing to get out of it. It looks a bit like active pause though. Props are spinning and sound is there.

It usually happens some seconds after taking off, to make it especially annoying on nicely set up airliner flights.

Edited May 16, 20233 yr by Soulflight

43 minutes ago, Soulflight said:

Props are spinning and sound is there.

This definitely sounds like Active Pause is engaging and perhaps not responding to the Active Pause key. You have that key bound differently than regular Pause, correct?

If you have eliminated the possibility of Act.Pause, then it certainly sounds like a bug of some sort. I've never had it happen to me. I hope someone else has ideas. 

9 hours ago, JonathanC said:

This definitely sounds like Active Pause is engaging and perhaps not responding to the Active Pause key. You have that key bound differently than regular Pause, correct?

If you have eliminated the possibility of Act.Pause, then it certainly sounds like a bug of some sort. I've never had it happen to me. I hope someone else has ideas. 

I just tried again, this time i got the "You have been switched to offline mode" message and this time it behaves like a real freeze. The message is there, i cannot click it away because of the absence of a mouse cursor, and the entire MSFS doesnt respond anymore to key presses. I still hear engine sounds though...

Edited May 16, 20233 yr by Soulflight

2 hours ago, Soulflight said:

I just tried again, this time i got the "You have been switched to offline mode" message and this time it behaves like a real freeze. The message is there, i cannot click it away because of the absence of a mouse cursor, and the entire MSFS doesnt respond anymore to key presses. I still hear engine sounds though...

Why don't you have a mouse cursor?

3 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

Why don't you have a mouse cursor?

because I use the mouse for camera control and i need to switch back to cursor mode to click anything, which I cant beause controls are not reacting.

I suggest searching in the controls for the keyword "pause" and make sure EVERY single item is set to a different key (IIRC there are 3 of them). Note down the keys and see if that helps next time. I had something similar back in 2020 and it was due to some key mismatch / double bind.

1 hour ago, Soulflight said:

because I use the mouse for camera control and i need to switch back to cursor mode to click anything, which I cant beause controls are not reacting.

You could get an X box controller on Amazon for about $25, use that to control your camera, and keep your mouse. 

OK i think i fould a workaround to at least recover the flight when that freeze happens. Last time I tried to resume flying after the message stuck my plane, I entered developer mode from the esc menu. There under "options" is another pause mode. After pausing and unpausing there, things are moving again. I dont know how reliable that is though....

Yeah this is Active Pause behaviour. As someone else suggested, search for the word “Pause” and check the keybindings 

12 hours ago, JonathanC said:

Yeah this is Active Pause behaviour. As someone else suggested, search for the word “Pause” and check the keybindings 

I already did but that doesnt help because all those keys do not have an effect when this particular condition occurs. its interesting to know that MSFS actually has 4 pause states: active, esc menu, the legacy "normal" one and dev mode pause. The way I see it, the connection error message causes the sim to go into dev mode pause and can only be brought back to normal from dev mode as well. I will see if this is reproducable.