Couatl having serious issues

[AaronMyers]

Ok, I could really use the help in tracking this down. I basically shutdown and killed any process that was not vital to keeping the OS running and this is still a problem. See the process tree below. It's basically down to just system processes. You'll note the AvastUI is still running (which it does not allow you to kill), but all of its services are stopped, and all scanning is disabled. This is confirmed by the OS alert message the minute it is stopped.

What other process could cause it? Also see the second process tree after launching couatl.exe. Doing its now usual looping in spawning unending new processes.

http://www.digitalaviator.net/MiscPics/process.jpg


http://www.digitalaviator.net/MiscPics/aftercouatl.jpg

[virtuali]

You'll note the AvastUI is still running (which it does not allow you to kill), but all of its services are stopped, and all scanning is disabled. This is confirmed by the OS alert message the minute it is stopped.

That seems to indicate the antivirus is either bugged (not closing even with service stopped) or, maybe, it's suffering from the SAME problem that is affecting Couatl.exe

Does it happen even when the other user account ?

[AaronMyers]

It's by design to keep other viruses and trojan horses from being able to stop the UI. The running process is only the graphic interface; the scanning processes are stopped and disabled.

[virtuali]

I'm sorry but, since you verified that the problem doesn't happen in the new user account, I don't see any other solution that trying to understand the offending program in the normal user account, possibly by exclusion.

You can also try comparing both the running processes and the list of running services between the two user accounts, maybe you'll notice it.

[AaronMyers]

I will try that. It has to be something other than Avast though because that runs under the newly created user account as well.

When removing the addon manager and couatl engine are there any registry entries or files on disk that are left behind? Many apps do that and sometimes it's helpful to manually remove them before a re-install. Anything like that?

[virtuali]

When removing the addon manager and couatl engine are there any registry entries or files on disk that are left behind? Many apps do that and sometimes it's helpful to manually remove them before a re-install. Anything like that?

Only your Serial Number and its activation data, and for good reason, otherwise you would need to reactivate each time you uninstall the scenery. Of course, this can't have any effect on the problem your are having.

Really, don't waste your time trying to figure out that something might be "wrong" either in Couatl itself or its installer, there's nothing wrong with them, and it has been proved both by the fact that nobody else reported this and that creating a new user account fixed it.

There can't be any other explanation that the problem has been created by something installed in the normal user account. And it can't be anything from FSDT, since you installed our installed into the new user account too, and it worked.

[AaronMyers]

I'm at a loss. I don't see any processes running in my normal profile that aren't running in the newly created test profile. In fact the test profile has all the same running processes plus many more as I'm not bothering to stop anything on the test side. Including Avast antivirus. All running away and couatl seems to start normally. Doesn't make sense unless there is information in the normal profile that couatl is getting confused by. Would it make sense to remove couatl along with any specific registry and/or configuration information, reinstall, and just reactivate my purchases if that works? What else is there?

[virtuali]

As I've said, there's nothing wrong in the registry that might "confuse" Couatl, the problem is surely caused by some other addon. The only thing that are "left" in the registry, it's your Serial Number, but that can't possibly create that issue, since it's stored in each user profile just the same so, fact that is running in the other user account, clearly proves is not the registry the problem.

No other registry keys are used by Couatl, except that is reads the keys created by FSX, to know where it's located.

First, the list of process is not the only thing that is running, there's also the list of services. You should also check processess and services created by all users, not just yourself, there's an option in Task manager for that.

And, you can also use the msconfig program to enable/disable startup processes. Type "msconfig" at a command prompt.

[AaronMyers]

Process explorer shows all running processes regardless if it's specific to the user account, or a global one. It also shows running services as well. A service calls an executable which is assigned a process ID and added to the list. Process explorer should show all of those things. I guess a system restore is the next possible option, I just don't know how far back I'll need to go.

I understand that running everything through a centralized application is more efficient at getting them all to run, but clearly it is also quite efficient at killing everything if there is a problem.

[virtuali]

Process explorer shows all running processes regardless if it's specific to the user account, or a global one. It also shows running services as well.

That's not what I've meant: if you prefer to use Process explorer, that's fine, but you still need to make a comparison between what is running in the two user accounts.

This, assuming that what is causing the problem is an executable that is running at that moment, and not something that ran at Windows startup then quit when it was done.

Which is why, I've told you to use MSCONFIG, to see what is being started, make a comparison between the two accounts, and disable items of needed.

[AaronMyers]

Well, the problem is now resolved, and sadly it was indeed with the couatl application itself. Or more specifically with a configuration item in couatl.

It took searching for all files on my system that had the name couatl in it to find it, but in my user profile couatl has a couple ini files for specific configurations, but more importantly it also creates an error log. The error log was over 100MB in size (all plain text) with thousands of entries all pointing to the same problem in one of the configuration files.

Ultimately I had made an entry in the config file long ago when testing the "disable_on_airports" setting for using GSX and AES together. This setting worked, but recently I removed the entry I had made for KBOS, and having an empty list for that setting apparently really makes couatl upset. I removed the disable_on_airports statement from the CouatlAddons.ini file entirely and couatl is now happy.

Unfortunately if I had known there was another log file I could look at, or that there were profile specific ini files that could be deleted/looked at (and I did specifically ask that question), the problem could have been resolved long ago. Hopefully if someone else has this issue it will keep them from chasing the same wild goose I did.

At any rate, it's fixed, and I have my add-ons back.

EDIT: For future reference the couatladdons.ini file was in my C:\Users\Aaron\AppData\Roaming\Virtuali folder along with the associated error log named couatl.err. It contain thousands of references to the following error:

couatl v2.0 (build 2309)
panic log started on Mon May 14 14:39:33 2012
error in config file C:/Users/Aaron/AppData/Roaming/Virtuali/CouatlAddOns.ini: no value given in 'disable_on_airports ='

[virtuali]

That's very strange because, the problem with an empty disable_on_airports list was discussed already here:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=5649.msg51662#msg51662

And I was fairly sure some code was added to prevent this illegal command in the .INI file, that's why I haven't thought about it, it was supposed to be fixed long ago, I'll make sure it is.

Sorry for not having mentioned your user profile, you were always asking for registry keys left over by the uninstaller, and there are none, except for your Serial Number.

The existence of several .INI files in your user profile is in any case documented in the manual, since they are used for the GSX preferences, all your customized airports, all your customized airplanes, sorry for not having thought about this.

In any case, if you are not diagnosing a problem, it's best if you turn off logging, since even if there are no errors, your log file will grow, because it's not overwritten, but appended, in order to get an historical log.

[FunknNasty]

As of today I'm experiencing the same problem as the original poster.
I don't really have the energy or time to filter info through these threads, so a quick solution would be appreciated.

Thanx in advance,
Ken

p.s. Im curious as to why this happened.

[virtuali]

As of today I'm experiencing the same problem as the original poster. I don't really have the energy or time to filter info through these threads, so a quick solution would be appreciated.

How can be so sure you are having the same problem, if you don't want to read all the thread, considering the cause of the problem was found only in the last message ?

In this case, it would have been enough reading the last message, which was caused by hand-editing the Couatladdons.ini to disable an airport, and if the disable_on_airports line contains an empty list, this being an illegal command for a .INI file, crashes Couatl.

This can't happen by using the product normally, since our installer puts "disable_on_airports = NONE" when installing, so the list is not empty, it can only happen by hand-editing the file, and then removing all the airports AND the default "NONE" item.

If you haven't done anything like that, and you disable_on_airports line in the Couatl.ini file doesn't contain an empty string after the "=" sign or there's no disable_on_airports command at all, then no, your problem is NOT the same as discussed here, so you should really open a new thread, describing your problem, otherwise it will become very confusing to keep two threads opened discussing entirely different issues at the same time.

[ahuimanu]

I'm in for the same problem.  Occurred after installing Aerosoft's Toulouse.  Like FunknNasty, I don't have the energy to chase this around.  FSDT stuff is great when Couatl works well.