Long Freezes

[igorbischi 11]

Hello,

I’ve been experiencing long freezes for years, like many other users. MSFS freezes for a few minutes and then resumes. I’ve tried everything: different planes, removed the community folder, tried various suggestions and graphic settings both at the card level and within MSFS, changed the graphics card, disabled antivirus, reinstall msfs etc., but nothing works. The freezes consistently reoccur at least once every two flights. The behavior is similar to when a device is connected or disconnected from a USB port, but in this case the USB ports are not involved (I used a low-level tool to check the events on the ports to verify this). 
I’ve now used the utility Process Monitor to delve deeper into what happens when the freeze occurs. During the monitored freeze event, Process Monitor logged multiple file system activities from FlightSimulator.exe. Most notably, there were repeated attempts to access files related to input device drivers. The freeze start coincided exactly with the first instance of the file input.PNF being marked with the status “FILE LOCKED WITH ONLY READERS”. This indicates that the file was accessed while it was locked and available only for reading.
Here is the first occurrence of the event:

Time:19:06:43,4643059

Process:FlightSimulator.exe

PID:11124

Operation:CreateFileMapping

PATH:C:\Windows\INF\input.PNF

RESULT:FILE LOCKED WITH ONLY READERS

DETAIL: "SyncType: SyncTypeCreateSection, PageProtection: PAGE_EXECUTE_READ."

 

The thousands of repetitions of such event stop exactly when the freeze ended, a few minutes after it started.

Does anyone have any ideas about this?

[Noel 4,507]

How long has your current install of Windows and MSFS been going for if you will?  I ask because sometimes it's worth doing some radical "spring cleaning" so in this instance bite the bullet and do a complete new install of Windows and reinstall of MSFS and all the rest.  How your hardware near as you can tell?  Everything rock solid when running stress tests and so forth?

[Fiorentoni 4,253]

1 hour ago, igorbischi said:

Hello,

I’ve been experiencing long freezes for years, like many other users. MSFS freezes for a few minutes and then resumes. I’ve tried everything: different planes, removed the community folder, tried various suggestions and graphic settings both at the card level and within MSFS, changed the graphics card, disabled antivirus, reinstall msfs etc., but nothing works. The freezes consistently reoccur at least once every two flights. The behavior is similar to when a device is connected or disconnected from a USB port, but in this case the USB ports are not involved (I used a low-level tool to check the events on the ports to verify this). 
I’ve now used the utility Process Monitor to delve deeper into what happens when the freeze occurs. During the monitored freeze event, Process Monitor logged multiple file system activities from FlightSimulator.exe. Most notably, there were repeated attempts to access files related to input device drivers. The freeze start coincided exactly with the first instance of the file input.PNF being marked with the status “FILE LOCKED WITH ONLY READERS”. This indicates that the file was accessed while it was locked and available only for reading.
Here is the first occurrence of the event:

Time:19:06:43,4643059

Process:FlightSimulator.exe

PID:11124

Operation:CreateFileMapping

PATH:C:\Windows\INF\input.PNF

RESULT:FILE LOCKED WITH ONLY READERS

DETAIL: "SyncType: SyncTypeCreateSection, PageProtection: PAGE_EXECUTE_READ."

 

The thousands of repetitions of such event stop exactly when the freeze ended, a few minutes after it started.

Does anyone have any ideas about this?

1)Did you also try to disable any hibernation / power saving whatever setting for the USB devices? There are settings at three different places IIRC, both in the windows settings and in the BIOS. Just to be sure it's not what it looks like.

2) Try those steps and restart afterwards: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/ctd-fix-info/471880

3) Windows reinstall and hard disk format. Not much else to do here I guess if you ruled anything else out.

[Bob Scott 7,721]

A .pnf file is a precompiled version of its corresponding .inf file--it enumerates the information needed to install a driver, in this case the Windows USB HID driver.  MSFS should have no reason to open it with write permissions, so accessing it read-only shouldn't by itself pose a problem.

What I might try is to reinstall the system USB HID driver in case that pnf file is corrupt--make a copy of the old input.pnf file, then move or delete it.  Right-click on input.inf and select "install"--this should reload the driver and create a new input.pnf file.

 

[igorbischi 11]

Thank you for your responses. As mentioned in my post, I have tried everything without success, so I am particularly interested in focusing on how the event I described could be related to the freezing issue, namely the repeated locking of the input.PNF file by the flight simulator executable. Does anyone have any insights into what might be causing this? Thank you very much.

P.S. My issue does not involve CTDs; the process does not crash.

[JYW 2,984]

2 minutes ago, igorbischi said:

Thank you for your responses. As mentioned in my post, I have tried everything without success, so I am particularly interested in focusing on how the event I described could be related to the freezing issue, namely the repeated locking of the input.PNF file by the flight simulator executable. Does anyone have any insights into what might be causing this? Thank you very much.

P.S. My issue does not involve CTDs; the process does not crash.

Bob posted at the same time as you, so you might have missed his post, just above your last one.  He's referring to the PNF/INF issue. 👍

[igorbischi 11]

3 minutes ago, Bob Scott said:

A .pnf file is a precompiled version of its corresponding .inf file--it enumerates the information needed to install a driver, in this case the Windows USB HID driver.  MSFS should have no reason to open it with write permissions, so accessing it read-only shouldn't by itself pose a problem.

What I might try is to reinstall the system USB HID driver in case that pnf file is corrupt--make a copy of the old input.pnf file, then move or delete it.  Right-click on input.inf and select "install"--this should reload the driver and create a new input.pnf file.

 

Thank you very much, I will try your suggestion.

 

[igorbischi 11]

Just now, JYW said:

Bob posted at the same time as you, so you might have missed his post, just above your last one.  He's referring to the PNF/INF issue. 👍

Yes, thanks!

[CapnCrunch 89]

2 hours ago, igorbischi said:

repeated attempts to access files related to input device drivers

Between your research and Bob's comment it sure seems like yes, it's driver-related. You might try using the Windows repair function if you haven't already, since it's designed to find and fix exactly these types of OS errors.

And, less likely, if you're running any kind of antivirus program, it would be worth checking that you've excluded the MSFS path from scans. Short of a corrupt driver install, it's about the only reason I can think of that your system would try to read one of it's native files and find it locked.

Good luck!

[igorbischi 11]

1 minute ago, CapnCrunch said:

Between your research and Bob's comment it sure seems like yes, it's driver-related. You might try using the Windows repair function if you haven't already, since it's designed to find and fix exactly these types of OS errors.

And, less likely, if you're running any kind of antivirus program, it would be worth checking that you've excluded the MSFS path from scans. Short of a corrupt driver install, it's about the only reason I can think of that your system would try to read one of it's native files and find it locked.

Good luck!

Hello.

I have already made sure to exclude the MSFS directories from my antivirus scans, and I have also tried using the Windows repair function, but unfortunately, these steps haven't resolved the issue.Thank you for your suggestions!

[JYW 2,984]

3 hours ago, igorbischi said:

Hello.

I have already made sure to exclude the MSFS directories from my antivirus scans, and I have also tried using the Windows repair function, but unfortunately, these steps haven't resolved the issue.Thank you for your suggestions!

It sounds like you're using an external, 3rd party anti-virus?

If so, have you tried a flight in MSFS with it turned off completely?  Rather than just trusting the exception.  These 3rd party AV softwares are highly invasive, bloated and resource-intensive.

[pete_auau 1,163]

If you going  to do a windows   re  install   this  might help   did  it  once  before  with no issues

 

[igorbischi 11]

3 hours ago, JYW said:

It sounds like you're using an external, 3rd party anti-virus?

If so, have you tried a flight in MSFS with it turned off completely?  Rather than just trusting the exception.  These 3rd party AV softwares are highly invasive, bloated and resource-intensive.

Hello,

no, I don't use 3rd party anti-virus

[Pete165 5]

Have you tried turning off all power management for usb devices within the device manager? Don't forget the 'Human Interface Devices' section.  I missed one there one and it caused problems with an Arduino project I was working on.

EDIT: Nevermind, i see someone else suggested already.

 

Edited April 15 by Pete165

[fppilot 4,387]

On 4/13/2024 at 5:00 PM, igorbischi said:

P.S. My issue does not involve CTDs; the process does not crash.

What settings do you have in place for General Options, Traffic?  There have been documented associations between those settings and freeze ups of MSFS recently.  Reportedly to be addressed in the upcoming SU15.  I too have been affected and for the meantime have switched all traffic to off.