At 17:30 +/- local time...

[FM Lage]

First, sorry for my bad english but I'll try to explain my problem...
When I put on my clock 17:30 on a flight simulator chash.
That only happens when I select this time +/-. In the remaining hours it does not.
Already installed a flight simulator several times and that always happens, only with the KJFK scenery.

[mackintosh]

Do you use any AI planes? What is the faulting module? If the answer to the first question is "yes", have a look at the faulting module, if it's fe.dll, then in all likelihood, the crash is caused by a bad AI texture, which happens when that particular plane is at JFK (around 17.30 as you say).

Of course, it could be something entirely different, but rule this out first

[B777ER]

Hmmm.. I just got an fe.dll error (see Periodic Error thread) and guess what, I dont use AI. I have AI turned off. Guess it cannot be an AI texture. Like I said in the other thread, I think with some of us getting these .dll error's (which I think FS9 just picks one sometimes to use when the sim crashes!), there is something amiss with the scenery itself. FSDT designed something or modeled something different than they did with ORD or Zurich as I have both them and no crashes ever with them.

[mackintosh]

FE.dll errors are generally bad texture errors. If you have a bad texture somewhere, FE.dll is what you'll be crashing to desktop with. They don't have to be related to AI every time they happen (they can be related to terrain textures for example - the infamous IAD area black hole in winter being the most notable example). They are caused by AI textures most of the time though and in this case, as it happens @17:30, it would seem the most plausible cause

Edit: Nevertheless, I'm not discounting the possibility that there's something generally amiss with KJFK and FS9, seeing all the other problems people are reporting

[B777ER]

Based on this info Mackintosh, I think it would be most probable that it is highly likely that the issue is with the FS9 JFK scenery. The problem is...how the heck to you find which texture file in the scenery is causing the problem! Nevertheless, I hope FSDT figures it out.

[virtuali]

Based on this info Mackintosh, I think it would be most probable that it is highly likely that the issue is with the FS9 JFK scenery.

Based on the evidence, a crash only at a specific time of the day, it's quite clear it's NOT a problem of the scenery, because there's nothing that happens at that time or around that time in the scenery itself. 17:30 local time is still too early for dusk (unless you are flying in Winter), because that's the only transition we have based on time. And, the only thing that happens at dusk is to have day/night textures blended. But, when a day or night texture is missing in a scenery, you wouldn't see a crash, but simply a grey object. FE.DLL are usually errors in AI or Terrain texture problems.

It's surely an AI missing or corrupted textures, for an AI that has a schedule that makes it appearing at JFK only around that time of the day. Fact that doesn't happen in other airports, only means that AI doesn't happen very often at all airport, or the user hasn't found yet another airport were the same problem happens.

[mackintosh]

But, when a day or night texture is missing in a scenery, you wouldn't see a crash, but simply a grey object.

That's true, but wouldn't this also create a memory leak that over time would lead to an out of memory error? I'm pretty sure that FS9 keeps on polling the location over and over as it searches for the texture, which over time leads to a leak. We've done these kind of experiments over at Aerosoft's forums. Not saying this is happening here though. FE.dll errors are pretty much only texture-related errors. OOMs are "serviced" by g2d.dll, g3d.dll and facilities.dll crashes.

Edit: Also, missing terrain textures lead to CTDs. B777ER, you might want to have a look with Filemon and see if it shows anything as missing in the area.

[virtuali]

That's true, but wouldn't this also create a memory leak that over time would lead to an out of memory error?

Not a memory leak, but rather an call to Windows to open a file with a file not found as a result, this alone wouldn't result in memory leaks.

Anyway, if the crash happened always after a long flight, or (more exactly) after standing for long time over JFK, we might start talking of memory leaks, because a memory leak takes time to manifest. Since, from the description, this crash happens always at a specific time of the day, it's not a memory leak, but rather something that is very likely caused by an AI scheduled to appear at that time.

[B777ER]

One of my ctd,s happened after a 6hr flight and landing at 4am sim time. Again I have AI disabled. I obsevered that the red lettering that shows lat/long, altitude, airspeed, etc in the upper left corner was flickering just before the the fe.dll crash. This is for sure not AI related.

[Dimon]

One of my ctd,s happened after a 6hr flight and landing at 4am sim time. .

Sounds like hidden OOM issue. KJFK is huge virtual memory hog (even bigger than KORD), so I would forget forever about long-hauls (especially with PNDG747) into this airport unless you have either 3GB patch for XP or Vista-64. 

To prevent this, I normally save a flight within 200nm from airport, exit the sim, then load again and resume with no problems.

[mackintosh]

One of my ctd,s happened after a 6hr flight and landing at 4am sim time. .

Sounds like hidden OOM issue. KJFK is huge virtual memory hog (even bigger than KORD), so I would forget forever about long-hauls (especially with PNDG747) into this airport unless you have either 3GB patch for XP or Vista-64. 

To prevent this, I normally save a flight within 200nm from airport, exit the sim, then load again and resume with no problems.

It's a memory hog, that's true, but it also depends largely on what approach path you take into KJFK. I've had one flight in a PSS 757 end in a OOM from KSFO (and I chose to route via LENDY and then direct ILS 13L, right over Manhattan). Other flights from KPDX (PMDG 737 routing via LENDY -> LGA with Imaginesim's KLGA installed) and from EGLL (PMDG 747) and EPWA (Level-D 767), both routing via ENE.ENE4 STAR, ended without incident, all the while running with 100% AI and Activesky weather. I don't have the 3Gb patch installed and run FS9 on XP. My conclusion thus far therefore is that despite being in a very memory intensive area, you literally have to throw the kitchen sink at the sim before JFK causes it to tap out.

B777ER's FE.dll crash is not an out of memory crash. FE.dll crashes are in 99.9% of the cases texture-related crashes. OOM errors manifest themselves via an "out of memory" popup and/or a g2d.dll, g3d.dll or facilities.dll crash. Now obviously I won't bet my house on this conclusion, but evidence points to a texture problem rather than anything else...

[Dimon]

If you have UT USA, I would make sure that you have all the patches installed. Also, old Shez LGA has couple of textures files near Yankee stadium - make sure you removed them.

Anyway, NY is very problematic area, so I even removed Imaginesim KEWR and KLGA to see how new JFK behaves. So far I have no problems at all (except for dramatically high swap file) and if I will see nothing wrong in the next 3-4 weeks, I will start to add other stuff such IMS goodies and Megascenery

[virtuali]

One of my ctd,s happened after a 6hr flight and landing at 4am sim time.

The question posed by the original poster was quite specific about a crash happening at a precise time. To that, I replied.

A memory leak is more easily created by an airplane, which includes lot of executable code in all gauges.

The fact that doesn't happen in other sceneries, doens't mean much. If the culprit is the airplane you are flying, it might very well be that, if you are on the *borderline* between being still able to fly even with a memory leak, it would be just barely enough for a scenery to take just a little bit more of memory, WITHOUT having a memory leak by itself, but just to be enough for to allow for the memory leak you already had, to go to the other side of the borderline that would make it crash.

Example: if you have a memory leak caused by an airplane that start (for example) with 800MB and consumes 1.95 GB in 6 hours, over a certain scenery, it will still let you land at your destination. If you use a scenery that takes those 50MB extra (without that necessarily means is leaking), you'll end the memory, have the sim crashing, and think it's the scenery.

[Dimon]

g2, g3 -errors are bad(corrupted) textures, such as wrong DTX1/DTX3 formatting. It were issues with Imaginesim KDTW and 1st version of Aerosoft EGLL. I rememver very well all these cries for help on Aerosoft forums last year.

BTW. Based on what I read on PMDG forums, their MD11 will be more VM-eating hog than 747. Seems like there is no way but to switch to Vista-64 eventually.

[Dimon]

One of my ctd,s happened after a 6hr flight and landing at 4am sim time.

Example: if you have a memory leak caused by an airplane that start (for example) with 800MB and consumes 1.95 GB in 6 hours, over a certain scenery, it will still let you land at your destination. If you use a scenery that takes those 50MB extra (without that necessarily means is leaking), you'll end the memory, have the sim crashing, and think it's the scenery.

Right - that's why I strongly advocate for "in-flight" save option within 200nm - it helps in 99.99%.... I know that VATSIM folks will hate me.