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Home > Archive > Flight simulator > March 2006 > Crashes, Crashes and More Crashes to Desktop
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Crashes, Crashes and More Crashes to Desktop
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| SnakeEyes 2006-03-17, 2:32 am |
| I'm still having problems with crashes to desktop. I've tried a number
of different solutions to no avail, so I have this question:
I have a program called RealScene Terrain and Landclass 2004 installed
which enhances the U.S. and Alaska.
I also have Ultimate Terrain Canada/Alaska installed.
The crashes seem to have begun after I installed the latter, but I'm
not positive.
Is there any chance those two pieces of software are conflicting and
causing the crashes?
The crash takes the form of the screen going black leaving a few
remnants of the cockpit and the sound continues. Then I get the error
message....then the desktop.
It usually crashes at large airport in the U.S., but not necessarily.
Can be in Canada.
These crashes are driving me nuts, but I hesitate to uninstall anything
until I know a bit more.
SnakeEyes
| |
| Dallas 2006-03-17, 2:32 am |
|
"SnakeEyes"
quote:
> The crash takes the form of the screen going black leaving a few
> remnants of the cockpit and the sound continues. Then I get the error
> message....then the desktop.
I know you'd like to have it as simple as just a scenery add-on that's
tripping your system, but FS for the most part just jumps over scenery
errors without crashing. (*But, it's not outside the realm of possibility.)
Screen going black and *leaving a remnant*... sounds like a graphics card
problem. What card and driver are you using? Maybe the latest driver would
help.
Why don't you try a few tests for us:
Don't fly near big airports - Did it stop crashing?
How about setting up a flight on autopilot across the pacific and let it fly
all night to see if it crashes on uncomplicated scenery.
Get a Phillips screw driver and take the freaking cover off the machine and
fly near big airports. (I know you hate to do those kinds of hardware
things :-)
Clean the dust bunnies out of the inside with a can of spray air if it's
dirty. The airflow might be all clogged up with cat hair and overheating.
If your graphics card has a fan, is it still turning? Are all your case
fans turning?
Have you defragged your hard disk lately?
These will help determine if it's hardware or software.
Dallas
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| Not4wood 2006-03-17, 7:33 pm |
| Snake,
Besides the good advice from Dallas, have you tried to see if your version
of FS9 reverted back to its out of the box instead of FS9.1? Remember, out
of the box FS9 has a lot of spots above mountains that will bring it to
desktop.
Not4wood
"Dallas" <Cybnorm@spam_me_not.Hotmail.Com> wrote in message
news:QUrSf.5415$Bj7.63@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
quote:
>
> "SnakeEyes"
>
> I know you'd like to have it as simple as just a scenery add-on that's
> tripping your system, but FS for the most part just jumps over scenery
> errors without crashing. (*But, it's not outside the realm of
> possibility.)
>
> Screen going black and *leaving a remnant*... sounds like a graphics card
> problem. What card and driver are you using? Maybe the latest driver
> would
> help.
>
> Why don't you try a few tests for us:
>
> Don't fly near big airports - Did it stop crashing?
> How about setting up a flight on autopilot across the pacific and let it
> fly
> all night to see if it crashes on uncomplicated scenery.
> Get a Phillips screw driver and take the freaking cover off the machine
> and
> fly near big airports. (I know you hate to do those kinds of hardware
> things :-)
> Clean the dust bunnies out of the inside with a can of spray air if it's
> dirty. The airflow might be all clogged up with cat hair and overheating.
> If your graphics card has a fan, is it still turning? Are all your case
> fans turning?
> Have you defragged your hard disk lately?
>
> These will help determine if it's hardware or software.
>
> Dallas
>
>
>
| |
|
| You can try and have Dr Watson (The windows crash catcher) create a detailed
log file of the state of FS when it crashed. If you send the log to me, I
can try and take a look through it to find the faulting module (DLL). First,
you need to tell Dr Watson to watch for crashes by doing this on the command
line:
quote:
> drwtsn32 -i
When you do that, next time FS crashes it activate and you should see a
dialog come up: "fs9.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows
.... an error log is being created."
When the dialog goes away, look in the folder (assuming you have Windows
2000 or XP) C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\DrWatson. There
should be a Drwtsn32.log file there. If it's big, zip it up and send to me
and I'll analyze. My e-mail is diesel_mike_250 --at-- hotmail.com. Sometimes
it's possible to determine the reason for a crash by looking at the log
file, but unfortunately this can turn into a complex analysis, quickly 
Also, before you run FS after setting Dr Watson with the command above, run
"drwtsn32" and make sure all options (except "Sound Notification") are
checked and number of instructions/errors is 10. Also set for "Full" crash
dump.
Mike
"SnakeEyes" <agalspector@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1142571691.952839.76400@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
quote:
> I'm still having problems with crashes to desktop. I've tried a number
> of different solutions to no avail, so I have this question:
>
> I have a program called RealScene Terrain and Landclass 2004 installed
> which enhances the U.S. and Alaska.
>
> I also have Ultimate Terrain Canada/Alaska installed.
>
> The crashes seem to have begun after I installed the latter, but I'm
> not positive.
>
> Is there any chance those two pieces of software are conflicting and
> causing the crashes?
>
> The crash takes the form of the screen going black leaving a few
> remnants of the cockpit and the sound continues. Then I get the error
> message....then the desktop.
>
> It usually crashes at large airport in the U.S., but not necessarily.
> Can be in Canada.
>
> These crashes are driving me nuts, but I hesitate to uninstall anything
> until I know a bit more.
>
> SnakeEyes
>
| |
|
| Btw, this procedure should be a last case scenario. Check obvious things
first, like what Dallas and Not4wood have mentioned.
"Mike" <nospam@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:fPqdnXMrMOqqLofZRVn-sg@comcast.com...
quote:
> You can try and have Dr Watson (The windows crash catcher) create a
> detailed log file of the state of FS when it crashed. If you send the log
> to me, I can try and take a look through it to find the faulting module
> (DLL). First, you need to tell Dr Watson to watch for crashes by doing
> this on the command line:
>
>
> When you do that, next time FS crashes it activate and you should see a
> dialog come up: "fs9.exe has generated errors and will be closed by
> Windows ... an error log is being created."
>
> When the dialog goes away, look in the folder (assuming you have Windows
> 2000 or XP) C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\DrWatson. There
> should be a Drwtsn32.log file there. If it's big, zip it up and send to me
> and I'll analyze. My e-mail is diesel_mike_250 --at-- hotmail.com.
> Sometimes it's possible to determine the reason for a crash by looking at
> the log file, but unfortunately this can turn into a complex analysis,
> quickly
>
> Also, before you run FS after setting Dr Watson with the command above,
> run "drwtsn32" and make sure all options (except "Sound Notification") are
> checked and number of instructions/errors is 10. Also set for "Full" crash
> dump.
>
> Mike
>
> "SnakeEyes" <agalspector@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1142571691.952839.76400@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
>
| |
| SnakeEyes 2006-03-17, 7:33 pm |
|
Dallas wrote:
quote:
>
> Why don't you try a few tests for us:
>
> Don't fly near big airports - Did it stop crashing?
Yes
quote:
> How about setting up a flight on autopilot across the pacific and let it fly
> all night to see if it crashes on uncomplicated scenery.
It doesn't crash over uncomplicated scenery. I can fly across Canada
or the US without a problem. I slid a few of the sliders over to the
left to reduce the detail. No diff.
quote:
> Get a Phillips screw driver and take the freaking cover off the machine and
> fly near big airports. (I know you hate to do those kinds of hardware
> things :-)
I've taken the cover of the machine and noticed all kinds of weird
stuff which seem to be working just fine.
quote:
> Clean the dust bunnies out of the inside with a can of spray air if it's
> dirty. The airflow might be all clogged up with cat hair and overheating.
> If your graphics card has a fan, is it still turning? Are all your case
> fans turning?
The fans are turning. The graphics card is an ATI Radeon 9000 and I
downloaded the latest drivers. They did improve the image nicely and I
was happy I got them AND
I gave it a good blow job last week and the thing is spotless (I should
be as lucky).
quote:
> Have you defragged your hard disk lately?
A number of times. It's the first thing I thought of doing. Actually,
when I defrag, it helps a little bit...I get manage to taxi to the
runway before it crashes instead of at the terminal.
quote:
>
> These will help determine if it's hardware or software.
>
> Dallas
Many, many thanks for taking the time to reply. I really appreciate it
and will keep working at it.
SnakeEyes
| |
| SnakeEyes 2006-03-17, 7:33 pm |
|
Mike wrote:
quote:
> Btw, this procedure should be a last case scenario. Check obvious things
> first, like what Dallas and Not4wood have mentioned.
>
Many thanks, Mike. I'll resort to the doctor if it doesn't get better
and would appreciate your input very much.
SnakeEyes
| |
|
| SnakeEyes wrote:
quote:
> The fans are turning. The graphics card is an ATI Radeon 9000 and I
> downloaded the latest drivers. They did improve the image nicely and
> I was happy I got them AND
> I gave it a good blow job last week and the thing is spotless (I
> should be as lucky).
>
Do NOT use spray air to blow the dirt around, it can force particles into
places it never would have gotten otherwise - use a vacumn cleaner
attachment, along with a small paint brush to loosen the dirt in heat sinks
and fan blades. Even with the street vernacular definition of a blow job,
it's suction that's applied, or so I'm told... ahem........
| |
| Beech45Whiskey 2006-03-17, 7:34 pm |
| SnakeEyes <agalspector@hotmail.com> wrote:
quote:
> These crashes are driving me nuts, but I hesitate to uninstall anything
> until I know a bit more.
As someone who dabbled in scenery design, I once caused the sim to crash to
desktop by creating some corrupted shoreline vector scenery files.
It actually took me a few flights to figure this out, since the CTD would
only occur when that scenery file was needed by the sim (based on flight
location). Thus, I would suspect that you may have some corrupted scenery
files somewhere.
Do you experience these CTD throughout the world, or just in specific
locations? Keep in mind that if the corruption is widespread, a larger
area could be impacted.
If you have the hard drive space, you may want to a) rename your existing
FS2004 home directory to something like FS2004-BAK, b) reinstall the sim
clean to the original FS2004 folder name, then slowly reinstall your
favorite scenery files one install at a time, testing the known CTD
location in the sim before moving on to the next install.
Also, are you using a default aircraft or an add-on aircraft when the CTD
occurs?
--
Peter
| |
| SnakeEyes 2006-03-17, 7:34 pm |
|
Beech45Whiskey wrote:
quote:
> SnakeEyes <agalspector@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> As someone who dabbled in scenery design, I once caused the sim to crash to
> desktop by creating some corrupted shoreline vector scenery files.
>
> It actually took me a few flights to figure this out, since the CTD would
> only occur when that scenery file was needed by the sim (based on flight
> location). Thus, I would suspect that you may have some corrupted scenery
> files somewhere.
>
> Do you experience these CTD throughout the world, or just in specific
> locations? Keep in mind that if the corruption is widespread, a larger
> area could be impacted.
Mostly the U.S. airports.....KLAS, KJAX, KDEN to name a few, but it
also crashed once at Toronto CYYZ just to make my life more
complicated. I've also encountered severe stuttering of both sound and
instruments over populated areas. The ATC sounds like it needs a
speech therapist on some occasions. I can live with that, although
it's quite annoying.
quote:
>
> If you have the hard drive space, you may want to a) rename your existing
> FS2004 home directory to something like FS2004-BAK, b) reinstall the sim
> clean to the original FS2004 folder name, then slowly reinstall your
> favorite scenery files one install at a time, testing the known CTD
> location in the sim before moving on to the next install.
>
> Also, are you using a default aircraft or an add-on aircraft when the CTD
> occurs?
I use the default aircraft and the larger the plane, the worse the
program behaves. I generaly use the 737. I have hesitated using
add-on aircraft (free or payware) because of the technical problems
with the computer rather than the aircraft.
quote:
> --
> Peter
Many thanks for your suggestions, Peter. I'll consider trying them as
soon as possible.
SnakeEyes
| |
| Dreamer 2006-03-17, 7:34 pm |
| On 16 Mar 2006 21:01:32 -0800, "SnakeEyes" <agalspector@hotmail.com>
wrote:
quote:
>I'm still having problems with crashes to desktop. I've tried a number
>of different solutions to no avail, so I have this question:
>
>I have a program called RealScene Terrain and Landclass 2004 installed
>which enhances the U.S. and Alaska.
>
>I also have Ultimate Terrain Canada/Alaska installed.
>
>The crashes seem to have begun after I installed the latter, but I'm
>not positive.
>
>Is there any chance those two pieces of software are conflicting and
>causing the crashes?
>
>The crash takes the form of the screen going black leaving a few
>remnants of the cockpit and the sound continues. Then I get the error
>message....then the desktop.
>
>It usually crashes at large airport in the U.S., but not necessarily.
>Can be in Canada.
>
>These crashes are driving me nuts, but I hesitate to uninstall anything
>until I know a bit more.
>
>SnakeEyes
Does it only crash in FS?
If not. then check these things:
Memory -could be just one chip on one of the sticks so it doesn't
always crash.
Powersuply - difficult to test. Maybe you could borrow one from a
friend?
Harddisk- what brand do you have? Most manufactures have a utility
that you can download to (stress) test the drive.
If the crashes only happen in FS it could be that one of your install
disks has a scratch so that (one?) files are corrupt. You would expect
an error during install but that doesn't always happen.
GL
Mario
| |
|
|
"SnakeEyes" <agalspector@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1142608037.426863.20150@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
quote:
>
> Beech45Whiskey wrote:
>
> Mostly the U.S. airports.....KLAS, KJAX, KDEN to name a few, but it
> also crashed once at Toronto CYYZ just to make my life more
> complicated. I've also encountered severe stuttering of both sound and
> instruments over populated areas. The ATC sounds like it needs a
> speech therapist on some occasions. I can live with that, although
> it's quite annoying.
Severe stuttering might indicate that you're low on virtual memory. What's
your *physical* RAM usage?
This and the fact that speech is distorted may indicate slow data I/O. I
haven't done any work with
scenery, but I'm sure it's a bit harsh on the CPU depending on scenery
complexity.
Mike
| |
| SnakeEyes 2006-03-17, 7:34 pm |
|
Mike wrote:
quote:
>
> Severe stuttering might indicate that you're low on virtual memory. What's
> your *physical* RAM usage?
> This and the fact that speech is distorted may indicate slow data I/O. I
> haven't done any work with
> scenery, but I'm sure it's a bit harsh on the CPU depending on scenery
> complexity.
>
> Mike
My virtual memory is set at 783 megabytes. That seems to be the
default value because I haven't touched it. Can it be increased and if
so, by how much? Would it do any good??
SnakeEyes
| |
|
| I have 1GB of RAM in my computer and my page file is set to 1533MB. Usually
the page file will be OK at around 1.5x physical RAM. Mine is set to be
managed by Windows. You can find options for setting under "System
Properties" >> Advanced >> Performance (on XP). I think 2000 is in a similar
location.
By glancing at task manager, if you're "Total commit charge" exceeds the
amount of physical RAM, you can be assured that your computer is using your
hard drive for memory, which sllllooowwssss things down dramatically. If
that's the case when your running FS, try and stop any open programs or
system processes (virus scan, unused startup apps, etc.). You may already be
doing that, in which case you may be able to resort to stopping unnecessary
services, which would free up some memory. Trying searching for "unnecessary
services" on Google for some tips here.
Mike
"SnakeEyes" <agalspector@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1142628873.301873.69340@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
quote:
>
> Mike wrote:
>
>
> My virtual memory is set at 783 megabytes. That seems to be the
> default value because I haven't touched it. Can it be increased and if
> so, by how much? Would it do any good??
>
> SnakeEyes
>
| |
| Sinbad 2006-03-17, 7:34 pm |
| I think I already mentioned this in another thread, so my my apologies
for the reptition, but it's (is the apostrophe correct, Quiljar ?)
risky to vacuum clean the insides of your computer. This can generate
static electricity that will fry your components. Don't ask me the
physics of it but I learned the fact to my cost and sorrow.
Sinbad
On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 08:10:44 -0600, "CRaSH" <sorry@aint-here.spam.com>
wrote:
quote:
>SnakeEyes wrote:
>
>Do NOT use spray air to blow the dirt around, it can force particles into
>places it never would have gotten otherwise - use a vacumn cleaner
>attachment, along with a small paint brush to loosen the dirt in heat sinks
>and fan blades. Even with the street vernacular definition of a blow job,
>it's suction that's applied, or so I'm told... ahem........
>
| |
|
| Sinbad wrote:
quote:
> I think I already mentioned this in another thread, so my my apologies
> for the reptition, but it's (is the apostrophe correct, Quiljar ?)
> risky to vacuum clean the insides of your computer. This can generate
> static electricity that will fry your components. Don't ask me the
> physics of it but I learned the fact to my cost and sorrow.
> Sinbad
>
I've vacuumed hundreds, never a problem. Also hundreds, if not thousands, of
thermal paper recorders used in medical applications, also jammed with
electronics - the paper 'dust' build up was horrendous! But I've also seen
keyboards zapped with the static charge from a carpet, so you never know...
I wouldn't use a big shop vac however.. <G>
| |
| Dallas 2006-03-18, 2:32 am |
|
"SnakeEyes"
quote:
> Mostly the U.S. airports.....KLAS, KJAX, KDEN to name a few, but it
> also crashed once at Toronto CYYZ
Why not spend some time flying around some big airports in Europe to see if
it crashes there.
If it does not crash, that rules out hardware, drivers and all that other
stuff and narrows the problem down to some sort of scenery corruption in N.
America.
If it does crash, we're back to where we are now.
Let us know what happens.
Dallas
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