Upon checking the Windows Event Viewer, the consistent culprit for the crash is couatl.exe.
The typical mistake of assuming that, because "something" is in the Event Viewer, it's the "culprit".
But let's assume for a while this is correct, and whoever is listed in the Event Viewer is the "culprit", don't you ALSO have "Flightsimulator.exe" listed there? I'm sure you have it so, by your reasoning, the "culprit" is Flightsimulator ITSELF!
And that's exactly what happened in your case: because of the disconnection from the internet, which caused the sim to do a complex switch in/out from online photoreal textures to synthetic textures and back again when the connection resumed, this was the REAL cause of the crash and, it MADE the Couatl engine crash as well.
Since Couatl is not a .NET application which relies on Windows to handle memory, but it's a native Win64 app that is supposed to clean up its own memory explicitly, it must wait for a "QUIT" command sent through Simconnect, which will signal to it it's time to clean up used memory and then exit.
But if the simulator has crashed abruptly for any reason, it couldn't send that command, so Couatl wouldn't have a chance to exit cleanly, so you will see a Couatl Event in the Event viewer, and you will be misled assuming Couatl is the "cause" of the crash, when it was the opposite way around: the cause was MSFS itself, and it made Couatl crash.
I even revisited the 2.8.5 update on November 16, 2023, where the ability to disable GSX above 10,000ft was mentioned by changing the 'disable_at_cruise' setting in the Couatladdons.INI file. Surprisingly, that setting is nowhere to be found in the INI file. It's frustrating when even the developer's suggestions are incorrect
Nothing is "incorrect" here. You simply failed to read the 2.8.5 release notes accurately enough, so I'll post them again here:
To enable it, add disable_in_cruise=1 in the [GSX] section of the file.
So yes, it was entirey normal that, in 2.8.5, the setting wasn't there: that's what
add meant: you had to add it yourself! Of course, having to add it manually lasted just for 4 days because, with 2.8.7, released Nov. 20th, there's a proper setting in the GSX Settings page, so you won't have to deal with editing the .INI file manually:
GSX (all versions) NEW: Disable GSX in Cruise option - Now can be set from the Settings page, with no need to edit the couatladdons.ini file.
I genuinely don't want to stop using GSX because when it works, it's a fantastic tool. However, the unnecessary and frustrating issues arising after recent updates are pushing users like me to the brink. Experiencing simulator crashes 3.5 hours into a 7-hour flight is incredibly disheartening.
I'm sure the developer might come up with excuses in response, but there are only so many times the Event Viewer can be wrong, and blame can be shifted to other programs!
I fully agree that a crash into a long flight is very frustrating, but it's clear in your case it was caused by the sudden issue with internect connecting dropping, triggering a very complex complete reload of all simulator textures (from satellite to synthetic and back again), which is very prone to issues, not unlikely when in earlier release the sim used to crash by simply connecting/reconnecting an USB device, which is in theory something way less critic than completely switching over the loaded scenery twice.
What you shouldn't do, instead, is dismiss my explanations as "excuses", when I always provide hard facts and it should be clear we are always doing everything possible to minimize the risk of crashes.
For example, your report that as soon the sim reconnected, the Couatl menu popped up. This is clearly not something we do but, it seems that, the reconnection must have triggered the same behavior as when you return to the Main Menu, which triggers a "Flight Loaded" event, which we intercept to Restart Couatl automatically, since when you return to the Main menu, it's likely to change airplane, so we restart automatically to be sure we reload the airplane configuration.
So, the GSX menu popping out automatically, was because this is what MSFS automatically does: when a flight is restarted, it will automatically re-open the Toolbar windows which were kept open before the flight reloaded. This because, you kept the Couatl menu ACTIVE after take-off, which is something we suggest not doing it, see this from the GSX manual where the Menu is discussed:
This is now your normal workflow should be:
• Open the GSX menu from the Toolbar icon when first starting Ground services.
• Don’t close it from the Toolbar while Ground services are performed, always use the Hot-key or the X icon to close the menu.
• Close the menu using the Toolbar icon when you are done with Ground services, usually before take-off.
There IS a reason for this suggestion, and it's because if you follow it, GSX won't do anything during the flight other than checking your position/altitude, which is 100% safe (lots of add-ons do that). But if you keep it ACTIVE (icon white), when the GSX menu opens, regardless of if YOU opened or the sim re-opened it automatically before the flight restarted, GSX would immediately make a call to the Navdata API to check all the nearby airports, in case you wanted to open the GSX menu to pre-select a gate in flight.
So, it's possible that, because of your internet disconnect/reconnect, the sim behaved as if the flight reloaded, so it re-opened the GSX menu automatically (because it wasn't closed after take-off), and this forced GSX to make a call to the Navdata API and, if the Navdata wasn't fully available, because the simulator was still completing its reconnection, it might have caused a crash, one that might have not happened if there wasn't the disconnection/reconnection event.
- BEFORE 2.8.5, the only way to prevent GSX from making calls to the Navdata in flight was to CLOSE the menu after take-off. That's why we suggested it in the manual.
- AFTER 2.8.5, if you enable the "Disable in Cruise" option, which after 2.8.7 doesn't even require editing the .INI file anymore, you might even forget to close the GSX menu after take-off because, with that option used, if you press the GSX hotkey, you'll get a message that you can't use GSX in cruise, and of course, NO call to Navdata to get a list of nearby airports will be made.
