Not a happy camper!

[Guest Tailspin]

I just installed FSX SP2 and all went well. After installation the installer said the program installed correctly. I was under the impression that one must then "activate" the program on starting FSX. This never happened. FSX never asked for "Activation." I ran FSX under the previous saved flight and that was OK too, and I did notice improvements in fps and a much faster loading time. When I tried to load a different flight, the program crashed. This consistently happens.FSX SP1 ran very well. Fps anywhere from 16-60 depending on location, aircraft and addons.Anybody have any ideas what is wrong?Vista 32Intel Dual Core 2.66 G, 4G memory, Nvidia 8800GTX 768 MegsThanks for any advice,Ted

[Guest fsxmissionguy]

Ted,You'll need to supply a LOT more data to get efficient help."The program crashed ..." is just not enough, so if you can provide more, you'll get some responses I'd bet.Not for nothing, but I notice you have the NVidia 8800GTX. Driver issues with this video card have been implicated in many FSX problems. Nvidia is alleged to be working on these issues with their driver.

[Guest Stoopy]

True....but it does sound familiar to an issue I ran into which is not driver-related:Tim, if I read you right, it worked OK on one or two flights, but on a different flight (different area?) it crashed, right? And consistently crashes on that flight?If that specific flight in a certain area makes FSX crash consistently, one thing is to check your add-on scenery library for ANY add-on scenery in that general area (and I mean, like a very large radius). Specifically scenery from FS9.I say this because I had a very similar problem. Starting a flight from KSEA would crash the sim to the desktop, after instaling Accelleration (which contains SP2). I traced it to some custom scenery that I have at KORS, over 50 miles away I believe. Disabling that scenery cured the problem entirely. Enabling it, brings the problem back. Crash to desktop, for no given reason, with FS9 scenery that worked in pre-SP2 FSX (RTM and SP1).Pretty much all the of issues with SP2 being reported right now have to do with aircraft that don't display correctly. This was found out early on after Accel came out and many of those problems are fixable. The issue with legacy scenery is a bigger part of the iceberg and not much has been said about it (myself and a few others would LOVE dearly to get that custom KORS scenery working again but we don't know what's hosed it or why) but it's been a silent topic from what I've seen with no answers, nothing said when I asked about it here a couple weeks back, and so it's no surprise that you and a few others may be caught off guard by this. The cureable issues with backward-compatability on aircraft seem trivial compared to this, which is a show-stopper in every sense of the word when the sim dumps to desktop. Good luck!Erich

[Guest fsxmissionguy]

Stoopy,Exactly. Part of the information that needs to be supplied is what add-ons have bene installed. These are almost always the most likely cause of a "crash."FSX (on XP ... I don't have Vista, so can't say) doesn't crash when:1) Only its bits are involved2) A functional video driver is usedFSX may crash if you add third-party applications to it that cause it to crash.

[Guest Tailspin]

Whatever problem there was was not a "third party add-on problem." An uninstall and reinstall of SP2 solved the issue. All saved flights now start properly and accesing other aircraft while flying also works as it should.Thanks for your suggestions,Ted

[Guest Stoopy]

I'm glad it 's working. Wonder what it was that made it happen (no scenery add-ons at all?fsxmissionguy: (not to take over this thread)....Thank you and yep I agree with this:>FSX may crash if you add third-party applications to it that>cause it to crash....but one thing I'd clarify is: do we consider a simple airport scenery to be an 'application'? Just from my own background I consider something that has executable code (as in, an add-on program or even a gauge written in C/C++) to be an application, and it has attendant risks becuase who knows when it might decide to divide something by zero or have a pointer go out in the weeds. Scenery, however, would seem to be in the 'data' category (copiled BGL file and textures). And we're talking here about data that worked previously - this is what has me confused or concerned (not in the hand-wringing, moping whiner complaining way either, as I'm a 'look-forward' kind of guy). It would just be a huge, huge help to just know from a technical standpoint exactly what changed so as to know how to address a fix, or if a fix is possible, or if it just has to be simply canned and redesigned from scratch. Ultimately I recognize that may be a better solution and as such would be an inevitable step to take anyway.Just didn't see it coming and aside from it probably being worth noting in the days ahead as another potential troubleshooting step for CTD's, it would be a significant help to know some of the details, if anyone at a more technical level (not ACES necessarily as we see them deluged with requests for input all the time) might have some inside knowledge about the topic. But then again I haven't posed the issue or question in the scenery forum and perhaps more light will be shed sometime in the new era as we forge ahead....Sorry to go on about it but the scenery was really something quite special, for a close-knit group of people and not just me. Like saying goodbye to an old friend I guess, until it's reborn one way or another....