Hello everyone, my name is Neil and I bought MSFS2020 when it was released back in 2020.  All was good until my PC died and I got a new one and decided to install the Simulator on a dedicated ssd due to its large file sizes.

Everything worked for a while, updates were successfully installed and caused no problems until the latest one.  The sim will open, I select Profile, Content Manager, and click "Not Installed", "Select All" and things progress very slowly until everything comes to a grinding halt.

 

I will admit that I have done the usual and trawled the internet for help but to no avail, I submitted a ticket to the Zendesk and was given a generic answer to follow to revert the sim to its "Vanilla State".

I was asked to, "DELETE THE CONTENT.XML FILE & .DAT FILES"  but can't locate them anywhere so I am either being stupid or as I read somewhere else that they don't exist in later revisions?

Is there anybody who could give me an idiots' guide on how to get my sim flying again please, I love this product but have now spent 5 days trying to get flying and am now at the point of uninstalling everything and giving up.

 

Please help

 

Thanks in advance

Neil 

2 hours ago, Neil P said:

Everything worked for a while, updates were successfully installed and caused no problems until the latest one.  The sim will open, I select Profile, Content Manager, and click "Not Installed", "Select All" and things progress very slowly until everything comes to a grinding halt.

Which update are you referring to? Was it a world update? Can you fly without installing things in content manager?

2 hours ago, Neil P said:

I was asked to, "DELETE THE CONTENT.XML FILE & .DAT FILES"  but can't locate them anywhere so I am either being stupid or as I read somewhere else that they don't exist in later revisions?

Content.xml is located here (MS Store version): %localAppData%\packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache

.DAT files should be in the subfolder SceneryIndexes. 

 

5 hours ago, Neil P said:

I was asked to, "DELETE THE CONTENT.XML FILE & .DAT FILES"

The scenery .dat files are here:
C:\Users\your user name\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\SceneryIndexes
By default, the Windows Appdata folder is hidden, so you might need to visit the Windows File Explorer view settings
and select "Show hidden files, folders and drives".

There is now no Content/xml file, unless you create one to change the scenery order.
As you cannot even run MSFS, this is unlikely to have happened.

If you use a "Rolling Cache" and you can reach the General Options page in MSFS, delete that.
Empty your Community folder and you will then have a "vanilla" copy. 

You might be able to avoid the present situation by selecting just one of the items that are not installed, instead of all of them,
especially if there is a large number of "not installed" items.
 

10 hours ago, Reader said:

Empty your Community folder and you will then have a "vanilla" copy. 

"1.If your community folder is as large as mine is this will take a long time and unless you have a back up you will lose all your data.

A far better method is to rename your community folder to ie Community.bak and then create a new folder and name that community.

Then you can restart MSFS with a "Vanilla State.

Also, I know it is a PITA but if you download and install content in Content Manager incrementally you may well find out which download and install is the "problem child" I very much doubt, however that this is where your problem is.

Deleting cache is a good idea and if you have a good enough computer system it may well pay you to up the rolling cache as well after deletion. Mine is set at 32MB but I do not know if or why it is a good thing to do. I certainly eliminated crashes by doing that but again, I do not know why it solved my problem.

That just about exhausts my knowledge base but keep us informed on your progress and invariably someone will know exactly what to do to solve your problem, This is far and away the best feature of this forum ie the help that is available from people who really know what they are doing.

Best of luck

Tony

17 hours ago, Neil P said:

things progress very slowly until everything comes to a grinding halt.

Could you provide more details on what you mean when you say that "everything comes to a grinding halt?"

Do you mean that the sim freezes while installing add-ons from the Content manager? 

Depending on your hardware, temporary freezes when an add-on from the content manager is installing (after it has downloaded) are actually normal. It may stay for minutes in that state, but then it should continuie and download the next.

Have you tried to leave the sim to download and install the addons for a few hours (it takes that long for a full reinstall) without touching the PC?

Edited September 2, 20241 yr by Abriael

1 hour ago, Abriael said:

Could you provide more details on what you mean when you say that "everything comes to a grinding halt?"

Do you mean that the sim freezes while installing add-ons from the Content manager? 

Depending on your hardware, temporary freezes when an add-on from the content manager is installing (after it has downloaded) are actually normal. It may stay for minutes in that state, but then it should continuie and download the next.

Have you tried to leave the sim to download and install the addons for a few hours (it takes that long for a full reinstall) without touching the PC?

^^^^ All of this. 

Same happened to me during a reinstall about a year. Everything looked "stuck" but I kept hearing the sim music so I left (pretty angry) and came back to it still loading. 

 

3 hours ago, himmelhorse said:

A far better method is to rename your community folder to ie Community.bak and then create a new folder and name that community.

I was trying not to insult the intelligence of the OP.
Of course that is the easiest method and you don't even need to create a new one, MSFS does that when it is next started.

Many of the above posts have good advice.

I had similar symptoms years ago, and as you note, it arose after a recent update when everything had been running fine previously.

IMHO, first step is to rename your Community folder to Community.bak. This is a zero-risk move that will help you isolate whether your troubles are coming from an errant/corrupt addon, or from problems in the sim itself.

With a new, empty Community folder, the sim will bypass whatever addons you have in the ".bak" folder and load cleanly.

In my case, tho, that didn't work...

The fix for me was getting rid of the Rolling Cache file. 

IIRC, I couldn't get the sim to launch fully in order to turn it off, so I had to nuke it thru Windows Explorer

Once gone, I launched again, and everything worked as expected.

As also noted previously, I suggest taking the World Updates and other large downloads just a few at a time. You can't hit all those territories in the same flight, anyway 😉 

17 hours ago, Reader said:

Empty your Community folder and you will then have a "vanilla" copy. 

 

3 hours ago, Reader said:

I was trying not to insult the intelligence of the OP.

Reader,

I am aware that this is going to sound somewhat defensive but i was not trying to do insult him either, however I simply wanted to clarify the ëmpty Community folder" bit.  

I also assumed that he had a few clues as he has been using MSFS from the start. However, making a statement like that can actually ring a bell and is also helpful to people just starting out.

I simply hope he is able to sort it out.

Regards

Tony

UPDATE:

I have tried all of your suggestions, but again to no avail 😢

The SIM has been completely uninstalled, reinstalled and this time I have managed to get the SIM to load up quite quickly, asked to Press Any Key to start and accept various settings, however, after selecting a departure airport and destination airport and then hitting the Fly button I now have the Blue Bar frozen.

Ctrl/Alt/Del, ended SIM, restarted SIM, disconnected internet at start screen, loaded departure from London City to London Heathrow, Cessna 152, Flight has loaded fine and I am now 6.61 NM from landing.

So happy to be flying again, but confused as to why the flight will only load with the internet disconnected?

 

Any ideas folks?

 

What happens if you pause the flight, connect to the internet, and then resume flying?

Edited September 2, 20241 yr by cobalt

3 hours ago, cobalt said:

What happens if you pause the flight, connect to the internet, and then resume flying?

Hi Cobalt, if I do as you have suggested it works.

 

However, this afternoon I have been moving file directories around and redirecting where files are saved and so far, good news, have just flown a C17 from RAF Brize Norton to RAF Marham with no issues at all, other than not being able to turn the battery master switch off to end the flight and get it logged 🙄

29 minutes ago, Neil P said:

other than not being able to turn the battery master switch off to end the flight and get it logged 🙄

I think there’s a setting that will allow you to do that. Can’t remember where it is though.

On 9/2/2024 at 2:35 AM, Neil P said:

UPDATE:

I have tried all of your suggestions, but again to no avail 😢

The SIM has been completely uninstalled, reinstalled and this time I have managed to get the SIM to load up quite quickly, asked to Press Any Key to start and accept various settings, however, after selecting a departure airport and destination airport and then hitting the Fly button I now have the Blue Bar frozen.

Ctrl/Alt/Del, ended SIM, restarted SIM, disconnected internet at start screen, loaded departure from London City to London Heathrow, Cessna 152, Flight has loaded fine and I am now 6.61 NM from landing.

So happy to be flying again, but confused as to why the flight will only load with the internet disconnected?

 

Any ideas folks?

 

Open a command prompt with admin rights…

Go through each of the following steps one at a time. Copy each line, one at a time , paste it into the Dos window (crtl + V) and press return

and it will then run. Wait until each runs and finishes before you move on to the next one.

When you are completely finished, Restart your computer and then try to see in MS2020 will start and run properly

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /checkhealth

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /scanhealth

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /Restorehealth

sfc /scannow

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore

Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

RESTART your computer as the last step. Then go for a test flight.

On 9/2/2024 at 2:35 AM, Neil P said:

UPDATE:

I have tried all of your suggestions, but again to no avail 😢

The SIM has been completely uninstalled, reinstalled and this time I have managed to get the SIM to load up quite quickly, asked to Press Any Key to start and accept various settings, however, after selecting a departure airport and destination airport and then hitting the Fly button I now have the Blue Bar frozen.

Ctrl/Alt/Del, ended SIM, restarted SIM, disconnected internet at start screen, loaded departure from London City to London Heathrow, Cessna 152, Flight has loaded fine and I am now 6.61 NM from landing.

So happy to be flying again, but confused as to why the flight will only load with the internet disconnected?

 

Any ideas folks?

 

Yeah, if you've gone through the trouble of a complete reinstall of everything I think you should wait a long while after hitting "fly now."

I would leave the PC for a while.

Which plane were you loading? Some take a while the first time they load....