KLAS troubleshoot list?

[KJ]

So for the past few days I have had the displeasure of my GSX/KLAS not working at all. I have done a complete uninstall of P3D, ALL related addons (GSX/KLAS included) and have reinstalled on a brand new out the box hard drive as of yesterday and still neither works to the point of my system freezes completely! Oh and yes, I have downloaded what I can only assume is the latest versions of both yesterday as well and still this persists.

Now reading the many posts it seems a number of people are having similar issues of textures not showing, and or things not working at all to include crashes. I too have been experiencing this which I find amazing that after properly updating P3D full and clean and then adding GSX and KLAS and upon starting the sim...the whole system freezes. Now I can go and (I have done this NUMEROUS times) uninstall both GSX/KLAS and I have verified each time that it is clear and no traces on my computer and  then restart the sim and it works as it should.

My question is that seeing all of these posts is there a definitive list of possibilities as to what is causing this? I honestly cannot see that it is the sim as I downloaded the most current available off my account (yesterday as well) proper install and it works. My system has been thrice scanned for malware/virii...etc no issues there and my drivers are all current. The common denominator is that when I install either GSX or KLAS it either freezes my entire computer (GSX installed only) or I get no textures at all (KLAS installed only).

There has to be something related to the product that is causing a conflict on a clean sim install on a brand new harddrive.

[virtuali]

Now reading the many posts it seems a number of people are having similar issues of textures not showing, and or things not working at all to include crashes. I too have been experiencing this which I find amazing that after properly updating P3D full and clean and then adding GSX and KLAS and upon starting the sim...the whole system freezes.

Nobody ever reported a "system freeze". Assuming that, with "system freeze", you mean the whole *system* freezes, and you have to restart Windows.

If this is the case, it's not technically possible that any of our software could cause a *system* freeze. Surely NOT directly.

They are user-mode programs and those, by definition, can ONLY crash themselves ( Couatl.exe ) or, in the worse case, make the SIM crash (bglmanx.dll).

This because an user mode .EXE doesn't have any way to crash the whole system and not even the sim, because they run in different address spaces and are isolated by the OS. And the .DLL, which runs in the same address space as the simulator, can ONLY crash the sim, not the whole system.

Of course, you might say "then why it doesn't crash if I uninstall GSX/KLAS ?". And the key sentence is my "Surely NOT not directly". While is 100% sure they cannot cause a system freeze (still assuming that with "system freeze" you really mean this), it's POSSIBLE that, when they are creating some scenery objects, that are normally 100% legal and correct 3d objects according to the SDK specifications, if you have a problem either in your video drivers and/or video settings in the sim, the act of creating the objects, might cause your video driver to crash, and a faulty video driver CAN crash your entire system, because it's a different class of software, that has lower level access to your hardware.

So this would explain why you are having a "system freeze", which disappear when uninstalling GSX or KLAS, without being caused by it. Just that an object that should normally work, has triggered a bug in your video driver that caused the crash.

It might be possible to confirm this, if you could find traces of the crash in the Windows Event Viewer (under the Admin Tools section of the Windows Control Panel ), the error code might have some indication about what really happened.

[KJ]

So I take it then there is no working and or comprehensive list of items that could possibly relate and or aid in troubleshooting the issue and its coming down to video drivers?

[virtuali]

So I take it then there is no working and or comprehensive list of items that could possibly relate and or aid in troubleshooting the issue and its coming down to video drivers?

I based this reply taking your report as face value.

If you are having a real "system freeze", meaning the whole Windows went down and you could only exit from it with the reset button, then yes, the ONLY possible cause of this, it's a DRIVER, because only a driver has the capability to bring down your system entirely, something that is not technically possible with a regular user program, which is anything you install from us.

The things you can try are:

- Update your video driver

- Reset your video driver settings to default

- Reset the FSX settings to default, by removing the following file:

%APPDATA%\Microsoft\FSX\FSX.CFG

This will force FSX to rebuild a new config with all default settings. After doing this, be sure you apply the HIGHMEMFIX tweak in the Addon Manager, save the settings and restart FSX.

[KJ]

When I indicated I was having a real system freeze, this is precisely what I was saying no two ways about that and yes it requires a hard reset. I'm afraid that this is not a video driver issue as I have tried seven (7)  video drivers and each instance with GSX and the Addon installed the same issue happens.  Those drivers were 337.88, 344.48, 347.09 350.12, 353.06, 353.62, 355.82 which is what I have running on my system right now. The only change was that I got the most current GSX/Addon Manager and once I uninstall them both, my system is fine and the simulator runs smoothly. NONE of this happened prior to using this update.

I have done the typical that would include insuring that any entry of Prepar3d in the Appdata Local and Roaming (config files) were cleared off my C: drive each time and doing a complete reinstall of the entire Prepar3d simulation. Yet and still this issue of my entire computer freezing persists when one or both of these are installed. I have had the Highmemfix added each time as well and that has not made any change with or without that entry line.

Now unless there are any other non-routine paths, options and or out of the normal checks then I am going to be chalking this up as a loss and will wait for a later update and see if and maybe at that time the product I purchased and used the most, KLAS, will be functional again.

[virtuali]

When I indicated I was having a real system freeze, this is precisely what I was saying no two ways about that and yes it requires a hard reset. I'm afraid that this is not a video driver issue as I have tried seven (7)  video drivers and each instance with GSX and the Addon installed the same issue happens. 

A crash with an hard reset can ONLY be caused by a driver.

Those drivers were 337.88, 344.48, 347.09 350.12, 353.06, 353.62, 355.82 which is what I have running on my system right now.

You haven't said anything about doing what I suggested.

The only change was that I got the most current GSX/Addon Manager and once I uninstall them both, my system is fine and the simulator runs smoothly. NONE of this happened prior to using this update.

Nothing we can write from our software can cause an hard reset, regardless how hard we tried. Trying to intentionally crash a system, for example writing into an invalid memory location, will ONLY result in the normal access violation crash, which will cause either a crash of the SIM (if the culprit was the Addon Manager) or a crash of Couatl.exe, if the culprit was Couatl.exe

Unless we installed something in driver-like mode (something that would appear in your devices tree), there's no way we can cause something that would require an hard reset.

However, as I've already explained, since GSX and KLAS both ask FSX to CREATE 3D OBJECTS, it's POSSIBLE (although nobody has reported this) that an otherwise 100% SDK legal 3d object included with GSX or KLAS, will trigger a video driver bug or, most likely, a bug triggered by a setting or a tweak, either in video driver itself or in the FSX.CFG, so you are MISLEAD thinking this has anything to do with GSX or KLAS, because the problem seems to disappear when uninstalling them.

The real problem, of course, is the video driver or setting issue, and KLAX or GSX are only the means to let it surface.

However, while we have added some new objects in GSX with the latest updates, KLAS hasn't been changed in a while so, if you say the problem happens *either* with GSX AND at KLAS, it cannot possibly caused by "the last update", since nothing has changed at KLAS.

will wait for a later update and see if and maybe at that time the product I purchased and used the most, KLAS, will be functional again.

Since it's not possible the problem was caused by the update to begin with, it will surely not fixed with another update.

Nobody else, of course, has reported an "system freeze with hard reset required" issue either with GSX or KLAS. Users have reported all sort of problems with GSX, but nothing that locked the system entirely.