FSX-SE... CTD Headaches Again!

[TARPSBird]

[RANT/ON] I'm tired of having to periodically do an uninstall/reinstall of FSX-SE because of CTD's when I attempt to change aircraft during a flight, or simply exit from a flight or the sim itself. Another bad result of this is anything you did during the flight session, like modifying control keystrokes or saving the flight, gets dumped if the sim does a CTD. I know there's a tutorial on this but I've yet to successfully fix this when it happens to me, other than the reinstall thing and then all the clean-up work to restore files and settings. Has anybody figured out how to avoid the CTD issue for good? [RANT/OFF]

[Aharon]

Error messages in the event viewer of your Windows operating system will tell you what is wrong.

Regards,

Aharon

[TARPSBird]

I've never been able to use Event Viewer to resolve any problem I had with Flight Simulator or my computer. Don't mean to dismiss your suggestion, I just don't have the tech knowledge to figure out what Event Viewer is telling me is wrong... except maybe I can see if the error is caused by the flight sim or my PC and I still don't know how to fix it.

[expat]

These and similar problems with FSX is why I moved to P3D v4.5. The 64 bit runs faster and smoother - on the same PC - than FSX. No more CTD's when I a am about to land after a perfect long flight. No more OOM's. It's a no brainer.

[Tako_Kichi]

I suffered from that same issue for a long time and just stopped trying to change aircraft in flight, I only changed when on the ground. I never went as far as re-installing as that just seemed like a lot of effort for a temporary result. I retired from active flight-simming due to burn-out and life changes for about 18 months and when I came back just a few weeks ago I realized virtually all of my ancillary programs were out of date and needed updating. Things like Little Nav Map, Active Sky, Join FS, Teamspeak 3, Nvidia drivers etc. were all way out of date so I set about updating them all. The only thing I didn't update was the sim itself.

After such a long time away my controllers were a bit reluctant to perform correctly, hampered in part by a new puppy actively chewing through the cables on my rudder pedals and my keyboard! I was able to rewire the pedals and bought a replacement keyboard in the Prime Day sales which fixed those issues but once I got back into the sim I started to notice intermittent problems with buttons and axes on the throttle half of my X56 HOTAS system. These became so bad that I made the decision to replace the throttle section (the stick is still working just fine) and after a lot of research and talking to other SOH members on the SOH Teamspeak channel I bought a pair of Logitech/Saitek USB throttle quadrants. At some point I must have started the sim without any controllers connected which messed up the controller config settings and I had to write a new one for the new throttles anyway. I use the full version of FSUIPC (which also got updated) to set up my controls as there were always issues trying to set up the X55/X56 controllers in Windows 10 64 bit when using the Logitech provided software or the sim controller section directly.

After all these changes I started flying again and one day, for some unknown reason, I had a need to change aircraft in flight and fully expecting a crash I went ahead and switched aircraft. Lo and behold I was able to swap aircraft without the sim locking up or going into a CTD! I was so amazed I did it again, several times, to make sure it wasn't a fluke! Bottom line is I don't know what fixed my system as I changed so many things in a short space of time but something obviously fixed the issue but I do know for certain that RE-INSTALLING FSX IS NOT THE FIX AS THAT IS THE ONE THING I DID NOT CHANGE!

Make sure all your ancillary programs/tools/modules are up to date and I would suggest re-doing all your controller configs too. As I say, I don't know specifically what fixed the problem but something did and it wasn't re-installing the sim (that is always a last resort for me). Good luck and let us know if you find a fix for your particular system.

[TARPSBird]

After all these changes I started flying again and one day, for some unknown reason, I had a need to change aircraft in flight and fully expecting a crash I went ahead and switched aircraft. Lo and behold I was able to swap aircraft without the sim locking up or going into a CTD! I was so amazed I did it again, several times, to make sure it wasn't a fluke!

Believe it or not I had the same thing happen shortly after I posted my "rant". Fired up FSX-SE, everything's back to normal... I can switch aircraft in flight or exit a flight (or the sim completely) without a CTD. I thought AI Carriers might be causing the problem but it's behaving normally too, it closes when the sim closes. Maybe the gremlins decided to leave me alone for the New Year!