FSX won't start

[Peertje767]

hello,

Well i'm having still issue's with FSdreamteam scenery.Running on Windows7 64Bit.Dutch language.

After a complete clean install of FSX. And installed everything except FSdreamteam scenery, everything worked FINE. But
installing the next products:
-Chicago OHare
-Las Vegas
FSX failed to start up. Double click the shortcut, It starts waiting waiting and then on the right corner of the windows taskbar a popup say's: "A Fatal Error Occurred".

FSX shut down. When removing FSdreamteam scenery, like mentioned in many topics, is FSX back. It works like before.

So installed Chigago and Las Vegas again. And the newest add on Manager. afterwards. No result still Fatal Error.
Also tried it with Administrator rights and Compability check on Windows7, still no cure.

There is no error report generated. So i can not look into the real problem. Are there any other outthere who are having the same issue?

Still processing it:
Little update, leaving the scenery installed and removing the add on manager, also from my FSX.CFG file, did let FSX work again. Going to KLAS and KORD gives a nice airport, with gates, only no buildings.

[virtuali]

Little update, leaving the scenery installed and removing the add on manager, also from my FSX.CFG file, did let FSX work again. Going to KLAS and KORD gives a nice airport, with gates, only no buildings.

The two most probable causes of this are:

- The FSX/Windows trust system that has gone mad after having trusted a new module, which is a known FSX problem, which can be cured in the way explained here:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=2358.msg19604#msg19604

Try a few times, if you have the crash, it WILL eventually work, usually after a Windows reboot, or a couple of tries and, allow 10-20 seconds between each try, to be sure FSX has closed properly.

Now, the missing buildings: the most typical issue, it's a faulty antivirus program, that is mistakenly identifying our modules as threats.

This is usually cured this way:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=2261.msg18813#msg18813

Sometimes, the two issues are related: the crash is *caused* by the antivirus, because is blocking the files from being updated, which in turn creates the crash.

Also, it's ok running with admin rights, but the compatibility flag checked usually creates more issues than it fixes.

[Peertje767]

Oke, well i will have a try with the suggestions. and will report further.

[Peertje767]

Well after a afternoon testing and doing what is written in these topics still no joy!

I just removed the add on manager and for instance i did not say YES in removing the other parts when you remove the add on Manager. And gues what.

FSX started, the scenery is still not pressent, our buildings, but FSX works again.
For the building problem: I HAVE NO ANTIVIRUS SCANNER INSTALLED AT ALL!

So that can not be the problem!
Isn't there anyway to work around the addon manager? Like for instance, individual airports with a regestration screen. Because if you ask me, this is not going
to work. And searching the internet, i'm not allone out there!

So can we work something out?

Peter

[virtuali]

I just removed the add on manager and for instance i did not say YES in removing the other parts when you remove the add on Manager. And gues what. FSX started, the scenery is still not pressent, our buildings, but FSX works again.

That's obvious, if you remove the Addon Manager, you wouldn't see any buildings. And, if something in your system is crashing the Addon Manager, FSX will not load.

For the building problem: I HAVE NO ANTIVIRUS SCANNER INSTALLED AT ALL! So that can not be the problem!

I haven't said it's always the antivirus only. I've said it's usually the antivirus OR it's the FSX trusting mechanism that has gone mad, OR it's the two things together.

[quote[Isn't there anyway to work around the addon manager? Like for instance, individual airports with a regestration screen. Because if you ask me, this is not going to work. And searching the internet, i'm not allone out there![/quote]

First, this is not an Adddon Manager issue, it's an FSX issue or a Windows issue that we WILL found out, which is *affecting* the Addon Manager on your system, it's not *created* by the Addon Manager. The clear proof of this, is that we don't have any of this issues in the FS9 version of the Addon Manager.  And, once we'll sort it out, you'll see it wasn't an Addon Manager problem in the first place, since it will run without the need to change it or updating it.

Also, you are making the mistake of assuming the only need for the Addon Manager+Couatl programs is to "register" the scenery, which is not the case.

We are depending on the Addon Mananger for EVERYTHING, because we don't use the .BGL file format for object and, thanks for this, we can both have features that FSX doesn't offer in .BGL (like interactivity ) and better performances, because we can control precisely how objects are displayed without being hampered by the lack of these features in FSX that other developers have to endure, from lack of fine display range control, to lack of LOD that plagued FSX Sp2. We don't have any of these limitations *beacuse* of the Addon Manager, and they don't have anything to do with activation or registration.

Meaning, even if we decided to sell sceneries without any activation (which we'll never do: we'll close shop long before that...), they will STILL using the Addon Manager! This is also explained in the FAQ.

Now, back to the problem. Since you said you don't have any antivirus (btw, how can be sure you don't have a *virus* instead?), it's probably something related to Windows Trust mechanism.

- Edit your %APPDATA%\microsoft\FSX\FSX.CFG with a text editor. Find ALL the occurences of the bglmanx.dll and couatl.exe files in the [Trusted] section, and remove the whole line that contains either reference to those files. This will reset the trusting question.

- Open the REGEDIT program, and look for this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 10.0\Launch

Remove the whole key. It will be recreated by FSX on start anyway.

- Reboot Windows (IMPORTANT). Don't launch FSX yet.


- Uninstall ANY scenery (or the stand-alone Addon Manager), and (IMPORTANT) reply YES to BOTH questions about removing the Addon Manager AND the Couatl engine. Reply YES to BOTH question. This is important, and it will remove all files.

- To be sure, check you don't have any bglmanx* (.dll and .dat files) in your FSX root, and you don't have the fsdreamteam\Couatl.exe. If you still have them, remove them manually.

- Reinstall the scenery you just uninstalled (or the stand-alone Addon Manager, if this is what you uninstalled in the previous step)

- Launch FSX, and note it should ask you permission to run BOTH the Addon Manager and the Couatl Scripting Engine. Reply YES to both, and reply YES to both the question made by Windows (yellow Shield) AND the question made by FSX. If you are not getting both questions, it means you haven't properly cleared the [Trusted] section in the FSX.CFG as above.

- If you get any error, disregard the fact that is suggesting not to run the module, and ALLOW the module to run. It doens't matter if the FSX crashes now.

- Try again to launch FSX, and see if it works. If still crashes, reboot Window AGAIN (IMPORTANT), and try again.

[Peertje767]

Oke, well i will start with the suggestions you mentioned here, sorry for the conclusion i made, but it's a big question to me why it is not working anymore.
It did before, and great to!

SO i hope we will find a solution, i'm already verry happy to have a support from you, there are software suppliers who don't give any support. I will keep you updated and informed.
Right now on nightshift, so not really much time to start with it.

Regards Peter

[Peertje767]

Oke, i'm finished.

I worked trhough the entire process as mentioned above. And still it is crashing.
Did this procedure 5times.

After removing the whole story and installing KORD and KLAS again as stated in step 6 and restarting FSX i also did not get the question for thrusting it.

Checking my FSX.cfg file before starting:

H:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\fsdreamteam\couatl\couatl.exe.rnaczbkeiiewbrtkwwqkzuwareoweaialzeitqba=1
H:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\bglmanx.dll.ebqcbhzlebbcihcawiihnutnzluzwiakrboneiri=1

it wasn't there.

After starting FSX (step7) no questions at all, and waiting waiting, crash!
checking my FSX.cfg gave already the:

H:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\fsdreamteam\couatl\couatl.exe.rnaczbkeiiewbrtkwwqkzuwareoweaialzeitqba=1
H:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\bglmanx.dll.ebqcbhzlebbcihcawiihnutnzluzwiakrboneiri=1

back in the [THRUSTED] section. doing this several times, still the same happends.
the only thing i tried else at the end, the sixt time, is not installing KORD but KLAS, this resulted in a positive start in to FSX, i created a free flight, on KLAS, FSX started to load, only after loading to 100%, it crashed.

Also when removing the scenery's like mentoined in step4 something strange i did see:
At removing KORD, and the questions of fremving the Add On manager, and applying YES, windows stated there was no such file. On the other hand, removing KLAS  questions about removing the Addon Manager AND the Couatl engine. It succesfully removed this. and i did not het the error message like at KORD that there wasn't any file with that name that could be removed.this happend al the 5times.
Six time it did not, because i did not install KORD.

Hope we have another suggestion to solve this issue?

Peter

[virtuali]

Checking my FSX.cfg file before starting:

it wasn't there.

Being there or not, it's not a problem. The reason to remove that section, is only to force FSX to ask you the question again, in order to restart from scratch the whole thing. However, it's interesting to note the number in the section says 1, which means the modules HAS been loaded correctly! Meaning, there's no reason why they don't run. If they were refused by FSX, you would have seen a -1 there.

back in the [THRUSTED] section. doing this several times, still the same happends.
the only thing i tried else at the end, the sixt time, is not installing KORD but KLAS, this resulted in a positive start in to FSX, i created a free flight, on KLAS, FSX started to load, only after loading to 100%, it crashed.ˆ

You are not saying if, after removing the lines in the [Trusted] section, you were presented or not with the question about Trusting the module. Both questions: the one made by Windows, and the one made by FSX, which will appear only if you said Yes to the first question.

And, you don't say if you followed my other suggestion, which was the remove the Launch key in the FSX registry entry, located at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 10.0\Launch

Have you done this ?

Also, is not clear from your description, if:

- FSX just *crashes*, without any message so, it might not really be a "crash", but a *quit* to desktop

- FSX crashes with the Windows dialog box that says FSX has crashes and Windows is trying to find a solution

- FSX crashes with ITS OWN "3rd party module has encountered a problem" dialog box.

These are 3 entirely different problems, which requires different steps to diagnose them and very different solutions so, it's important to know which one you got.

Also when removing the scenery's like mentoined in step4 something strange i did see:
At removing KORD, and the questions of fremving the Add On manager, and applying YES, windows stated there was no such file. On the other hand, removing KLAS  questions about removing the Addon Manager AND the Couatl engine.

It's all normal. You probably used an old installer for KORD, which didn't included the Couatl engine so, its uninstaller will not ask if you want to remove it. KLAS was always supplied with it, so the Uninstaller will ask you to remove it.

And, there's nothing strange with the message after uninstalling about not being able to find some files. It's not an error, it's just the uninstaller will also clean up some files that you might or not have, depending what installers you ran in the past so, it's not certain you have them but, they should be removed in any case. If they are not found, there would be a message but, it's not a problem, because it simply saying that a file that should be removed, was not there in the first place. Not an error.

Please, don't try to find "bugs" in the installers, or find the reason for the crash, as if it was caused by the installer: it's not.

As I've said already, the problem is something that is *preventing* the modules to load, which is 100% external to the progam, like an antivirus, or something else, like a security setting or similar issue.

Hope we have another suggestion to solve this issue?

There are other things you can try, other than the registry thing I've already suggested, which affects only the 3rd kind of crash in any case.

You can also try:

- Try to run the scenery installer in Administrator mode.

- Try to remove Windows 7 DEP, as explained here:

http://www.itechtalk.com/thread3591.html

- Try to set UAC at a differet (lower), as explained here:

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/01/07/windows-7-whats-up-with-the-uac

If all of this is failing, then you clearly have a different issue to find. Note that, this user solved his loading problems, by reinstalling Windows and FSX:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=1867.msg15287#msg15287

However, before doing this, please try ALL the other things first, then contact me via email, because we have a special debug version, that can produce informations for us to understand what's going on, and I can send you that to try.

[Peertje767]

Hi Virtuali,

So that is a lot to answer to.
Well let me start:

You are not saying if, after removing the lines in the [Trusted] section, you were presented or not with the question about Trusting the module. Both questions: the one made by Windows, and the one made by FSX, which will appear only if you said Yes to the first question.

When the line is removed from FSX.cfg i did not get any question about Trusting the module. Not by windows and not by FSX.

And, you don't say if you followed my other suggestion, which was the remove the Launch key in the FSX registry entry, located at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 10.0\Launch

Have you done this ?

Yes i have done this. Sorry for not mentioning it.

- FSX just *crashes*, without any message so, it might not really be a "crash", but a *quit* to desktop
- FSX crashes with the Windows dialog box that says FSX has crashes and Windows is trying to find a solution
- FSX crashes with ITS OWN "3rd party module has encountered a problem" dialog box.

it is the second one:
-FSX crashes with the Windows dialog box that says FSX had crashed and windows is trying to find a solution.
I will add a screenshot i made.

and the text under "A fatal error occured". is dutch saying:
"There is being searched to a solution for this problem"

There are other things you can try, other than the registry thing I've already suggested, which affects only the 3rd kind of crash in any case.

You can also try:

- Try to run the scenery installer in Administrator mode.

- Try to remove Windows 7 DEP, as explained here:

http://www.itechtalk.com/thread3591.html

- Try to set UAC at a differet (lower), as explained here:

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/01/07/windows-7-whats-up-with-the-uac

If all of this is failing, then you clearly have a different issue to find. Note that, this user solved his loading problems, by reinstalling Windows and FSX:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=1867.msg15287#msg15287

However, before doing this, please try ALL the other things first, then contact me via email, because we have a special debug version, that can produce informations for us to understand what's going on, and I can send you that to try.

I will try these above suggestions, and keep you informed. Good to hear that it's most likely not a problem from FSdreamteam our that kind. Because in the near furture i would love to buy more scenery's.
So i will have a try on other suggestions and read the explenations in the links and keep you informed.
For nu, THANKS SO FAR, FOR YOU'RE PATIENTS. I know that mayby my answers our reply's are sound rude, but they are not rude at all, to you our developpers. Sometimes it's hard to write something clear if my foreign language is not English, but Dutch. And all the English i know is normally technical. I'm not a noval our roman writer. SORRY for that.
regards peter

[Peertje767]

Well i think it's over..... FSX gives more and more faults! Errors and so on...

Started to back up all my files and nothing is left for me i think to do a COMPLETE CLEAN INSTALL  of Win7 and FSX etc.

Hope when i get back in about a week, it will work again! If not, i will be back in this topic to continue with the trouble shooting.

Regards Peter

[virtuali]

When the line is removed from FSX.cfg i did not get any question about Trusting the module. Not by windows and not by FSX.

Ok, this might indicate a Windows problem. But only if you are sure you haven't selected the option to automatically trust everything signed by Virtuali s.a.s. because, in this case, it would be normal that you don't get any further questions, even if removing those lines in FSX.CFG

If you are sure you never choose that option (in order to do it, you need to press the arrow with additional options when the screen with the yellow shield appear, then select to always trust everyting digitally signed by us), then it's sure it's a Windows problem, because the trust system has basically stopped to work.

Note that, this *might* be also related to a virus, because there are viruses that corrupts the trusted store, which might also explain the random crashes.