P3D not shutting down properly **SOLVED**

[Terblanche]

I've had this before and it's back - after installing the update for GSX yesterday, when you exit P3D and try to open another program (for example FlyTampa Scenery Config; or Addon Organiser; or whatever) it says, "Prepar3D is running!"
If you go to your Task Manager there is NO sign of P3D anywhere which means something didn't close the door behind it and the only thing that has changed is GSX the last 24 hours.

So, I uninstalled GSX completely from P3D4 and voilà ....... P3D closes properly and everything else can open, edit, config without a warning that P3D is still lurking in the shadows of the second blue moon of 2018.

Is there a fix or suggestion to have this sorted out?

Regards
Terblanche

[virtuali]

Be sure you ran the Live Update again, because the first release had a problem with P3D 4.1, and it was fixed some hours later, very late in the night.

[Terblanche]

 
FIXED ...

Thanks Umberto

[Terblanche]

Be sure you ran the Live Update again, because the first release had a problem with P3D 4.1, and it was fixed some hours later, very late in the night.

Sorry Umberto -

The 'problem' is back. Got a notification to download the latest AddonManager today which I did and installed it and now it's the same story as end of March ... when I close P3D4 and try to open something it says P3D is still running with no reference to P3D in TaskManager. My suspicion is that GSX has left the simconnect door open again.

[Dave_YVR]

 How long are you waiting after shutting down P3d as it's common for it to take 30-50 seconds before it's actually completely closed. Check in your task manager and see for yourself.

[Terblanche]

How long are you waiting after shutting down P3d as it's common for it to take 30-50 seconds before it's actually completely closed. Check in your task manager and see for yourself.

That I know ... I'm talking minutes, and even hours later ..... and there is NO sign of P3D anywhere in TaskManager or Lasso

[Dave_YVR]

Oh that is an odd one then.

[virtuali]

My suspicion is that GSX has left the simconnect door open again.

GSX never left anything opened. The issue in March, which was fixed a couple of hours later, was that it simply didn't *start* under 4.1, because it was missing a file it required but, it never caused a shutdown problem.

Nobody reported this problem so, even if you say that uninstalling GSX "solve" the problem, the only possible explanation is that you have another software which is causing this, but only in *combination* with our software. This might not be necessarily related to flightsim. A faulty antivirus might be able to cause this problem, which is why we always say to add the whole Addon Manager folder to the antivirus exclusions.

[Terblanche]

GSX never left anything opened. The issue in March, which was fixed a couple of hours later, was that it simply didn't *start* under 4.1, because it was missing a file it required but, it never caused a shutdown problem.
Nobody reported this problem so, even if you say that uninstalling GSX "solve" the problem, the only possible explanation is that you have another software which is causing this, but only in *combination* with our software. This might not be necessarily related to flightsim. A faulty antivirus might be able to cause this problem, which is why we always say to add the whole Addon Manager folder to the antivirus exclusions.

Then I don't know because nothing else changed in P3D and nothing else was installed.
And the Addon Manager, as a matter of fact, the WHOLE Addon Manager folder in c:\Program Files (x86)\ is excluded in Kaspersky.

[Terblanche]

Completely uninstalled GSX and P3D4 shuts down and I can open any other app without it complaining that P3D is still running if there is no sign of it in Task Manager. I'm prepared to pay for GSX again, three times if need to, to find out what is SO unique, so different, so extraordinary on my rig that I'm the only one having this issue and only because of GSX ?

My gut, and my experience tell me it has something to do with simconnect ....... and I've uninstalled and reinstalled the necessary *.msi files from p3d/redist folder

[virtuali]

I'm prepared to pay for GSX again, three times if need to

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Nobody ever had to buy GSX twice. All GSX updates so far has always been free.

what is SO unique, so different, so extraordinary on my rig that I'm the only one having this issue and only because of GSX ?

If you continue to assume the problem is GSX, you will never find the real cause. What it's really causing it, it's probably another addon, which is AFFECTING GSX and yes, the reason is likely a Simconnect issue, most likely this addon use a different version (an old FSX version, perhaps), which conflicts with the one we use with GSX so, the problem happens because they are installed together, so you think it's caused by GSX because it goes away when you uninstall it, but it will probably go away even if you uninstall that other addon and leave GSX installed.

So, instead of uninstalling GSX, try to uninstall (or just DISABLE) everything else, reinstall GSX, and I'm sure your sim will close down normally, which is what it does for everybody.

[Terblanche]

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Nobody ever had to buy GSX twice. All GSX updates so far has always been free.

That's a joke of desperation. Different cultures, different irony.

It doesn't matter if another app tries to install their own version of simconnect, I always (re)install the correct ones that come with P3D4 when I install anything that uses simconnect. All I know is this: everything was working perfectly. GSX asked to install an update which I did. Then the same problem as in March is back. What causes it, is a mystery and whatever is clashing with GSX will be (almost) impossible to find out because almost everything nowadays are using simconnect in one way or the other.

For now I'll just fly without GSX, it's okay, I'm anyway spending the last couple of weeks more time in XP11 where there is no blurries, no stuttering, no shimmering and no simconnect-conflicts ... and where the whole of XP11 can be found in 9 folders under the main folder and not ALL OVER THE PLACE on my harddrive.

There's a rumour that sometime later the year this year there will be a huge upgrade for GSX and then we'll try again. 

[virtuali]

What causes it, is a mystery and whatever is clashing with GSX will be (almost) impossible to find out because almost everything nowadays are using simconnect in one way or the other.

That's just because you are still assuming the problem is *caused* by GSX, when it's likely GSX is the victim here, not the cause.

So, instead of disabling all the other addons, and leave GSX in place, which I'm sure will result in the sim shutting down properly (as it does for everybody else), you uninstalled GSX, which of course wouldn't really fix your problem, since you'll never know what the cause what in the first place.

So, what you should do, instead, is what I've said:

- Leave GSX installed

- Disable ALL the other addon modules. NO NEED TO UNINSTALL ANYTHING. Just disable them TEMPORARILY.

You can disable an addon either from the Options->Add-ons menu (if it's a good add-on that uses the proper add-on.xml method), so it's very easy to disable it OR you can disable addons that still use the legacy DLL/EXE.XML methods, by setting this line:

<Disabled>True</Disabled>  ( it's normally False )

in all the 4 .XML files that controls such addons, which are located here:

%APPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3d v4\DLL.XML
%APPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3d v4\EXE.XML

%PROGRAMDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3d v4\DLL.XML
%PROGRAMDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3d v4\EXE.XML

You must check all 4 files.

This, of course, it's ONLY A TEST. I'm not suggesting you should stop using all your addons, but this is the only way to:

- Verify that GSX is not preventing to quit the sim

AND

- Being able to proceed by exclusion to find the cause, because now you can re-enable each module, ONE BY ONE, test, exit, try again, until you'll eventually find which one is conflicting.

[Terblanche]

Being able to proceed by exclusion to find the cause, because now you can re-enable each module, ONE BY ONE, test, exit, try again, until you'll eventually find which one is conflicting.

Thank you Umberto ... I've made a note of this and when I have time, I will follow the steps one by one and see which app has a conflict with GSX.

[Side Note with a Smile] For someone who works every single day in the world of psychotherapy, the whole idea of an app being the "victim" and not the "cause" is rather peculiar but with an Alzam (5mg 1x) and good therapy there is always hope to shift the "victim" mentality to the consciousness of responsibility.

[virtuali]

For someone who works every single day in the world of psychotherapy

Science usually teach us to wait for some experimental evidence, before drawing any conclusions...note that, the problem might also be non-flight sim related, like any external software (antivirus, etc.)

But since the more likely it's another P3D addon, I'd start with them first.

And of course, I'm always available for a remote assistance session. Many users in this forum that did this, could easily testify we *always* found the real cause and (guess what), it was never our software, not in a single case. And all of them, were happily running a cleaner system, after my help...