FS Crashes during AH Flight

[Troy 0]

Hey All,

I got motivated while reading a recent AH topic, so I went out and started a company.

I selected the easy option and and started an airline with 2 737-600 (PMDG). I also have the latest update available from Just Flight and was using FS 9.

I was doing my third flight which was a relocation flight from RDV - PASL. I had just commenced descent and my FS crashed.

When I clicked 'Don't Send' FS restarted. I quickly closed it down and restarted my AH. When I did it came up telling me that I, the pilot, was in KSEA and I had to pay $1300 to relocate to the nearest airport. My aircraft was 13.7 nm from the nearest airport, presumably as I was in the air at the time. So I had to pay approx $13,000 to relocate it to the nearest airport on the ground.

I also did a flight from PACD to PAGA. Went nice and smoothly had landed and been sitting ont he ground while I ate dinner. I had pushed back, started the engines and lowered the flaps, and was about to start taxi when FS crashed again on me. Before doing anything, I said no to reloading FS and closed down AH.

When I restarted AH it said that I, the pilot, and my aircraft was in Seattle.

Can anyone explain?

[Tim_A 995]

I can't explain, but FS crashes are costing me a lot of money too

AH seems to make FS significantly less stable, and in my case has resulted in 3 power off resets. Just from two flights!

I'm considering relocating it on the Lan, to see if that helps

(oh, and the fact that it insists on starting maximised on my 5040 wide screen is driving me nuts! :mad: )

[allardjd 1,853]

From the Useful Info and Top Tips thread at the JF/AH forum...

 

RECOVERING FROM A FS CRASH DURING AN AH FLIGHT

 

Credit for the concept behind this goes to AH user Pilot1. His original post, contained in this thread…

 

http://forum.justflight.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=9416

 

…put me on to this solution. His words, edited a bit:

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“When either FS9 or FSX crashes or exits normally it saves a flight called "Previous Flight.FLT" in…

 

My Documents -> Flight Simulator Files for FS9 or

 

My Documents -> Flight Simulator X Files for FSX

 

Create a shortcut to Previous Flight.FLT on your desktop or somewhere you can find it easy. You must associate the .flt extension with either FSX or FS9. To do that right click on the shortcut and select 'open with' then select the exe file of your FS and make sure the 'always open with' box is ticked. You only need to do this once, when creating the shortcut.

 

If FS crashes during an AH flight, double click the short cut and FS will restart a few seconds before it crashed, in flight, where you left it.

 

Don't touch AH while you do this; when FS restarts you will hear the bongs as AH reconnects and you can carry on with your flight as if nothing has happened. You get paid and your cargo is still intact.”

 

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When I used the above method it worked, after a fashion, but put me in the AC that was saved as my default flight, not the one I was flying. Because of that, many other things were not correct either, however the basic objective was met - I was placed at the correct location and altitude and AH was still alive and monitoring the flight. I was able to restore/reset everything manually and continue to my destination and received full credit for the job completion.

 

One quirk is that AH records an extraneous landing when this occurs, sometimes at your last stop, sometimes somewhere else nearby. You’ll be assessed the normal landing fee for it and it shows up in your Flight Log tables. It’s a small price to pay for not losing an in-progress flight/job to a FS crash.

 

An enhancement I recommend for FS9 users is to install Autosave 1.501 from Pete Dowson, available at…

 

http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.html

 

Instead of restoring from the saved Previous Flight file, restore from one of the ten rolling Autosave files, which are done at 1 minute intervals. For me that did a much better job than Previous Flight of restoring things as they were before the crash.

 

A tip of the hat to Pilot1 for coming up with a real life-saver for those who experience FS crashes while flying AH jobs. It’s gone from catastrophe to a mere bump in the road thanks to his insight.

 

John Allard

[ddavid 149]

John - Thanks for explaing this work round. I hope it's O.K. to PIN this topic and to change the title a bit ( sorry Troy!!) to make it more self explanatory?

Cheers - Dai.

[Tim_A 995]

I don't think it helps when the crash takes down your PC though.

[ddavid 149]

I guess another option would be to SAVE your flight at regular intervals - just in case. I think there is a way to resume an AH flight from a SAVED position, but I'm not 100% sure. Maybe John will confirm this?

Cheers - Dai.

[allardjd 1,853]

Quote

I hope it's O.K. to PIN this topic and to change the title a bit ( sorry Troy!!) to make it more self explanatory?

 

Sure thing, Dai - no problem with that at all.

 

Quote

I don't think it helps when the crash takes down your PC though.

 

That's correct - if the PC goes away, you're toast because AH stops running too. If AH goes away, you've got serious problems. The method detailed above only works where FS crashes but AH keeps running. Fortunately, AH normally ticks along just fine when FS crashes - you'll hear the klaxons indicating it has lost connection but it will wait for as long as you like for FS to reappear and will then re-connect.

 

There are two important things - - -

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1) Don't shut down AH or monkey with it - just let it be.

2) Don't let FS automatically restart - it will start the flight it was on and that's not what you want because it will reset to the beginning. Start it yourself and make sure it comes back with the correct saved flight.

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The key is to bring back FS with a saved version of your current flight. Obviously, the further along the path of flight the save was made, the less you will have to fly over. Restoring a save made one minute before FS folded it's tent is quick and easy and is just a minor bump in the road.

 

I use the Autosave utility and it works very well and is very reliable. It saves your in-progress flight once a minute and keeps the most recent ten saves. Each new one pushes the oldest one off the table. It's very good about capturing most everything and bringing it back just as it was, but once FS restarts, pause it right away and take a moment to take stock of things - radio frequency settings, autopilot settings, etc. If you're in the approach phase, double check gear and flaps are where you think they are. Fuel should be just as it was. The one issue is that Radar Contact, if your're using it, will not reset properly and you'll just have to close it and finish the flight without it.

 

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I guess another option would be to SAVE your flight at regular intervals - just in case.

 

Yes, but it's important to be clear that we're only talking about the ability to salvage a flight in progress that was interrupted by a FS crash.

 

In the case of an FS crash where AH is still running and waiting for FS to show its ugly mug again, you can use any saved FS flight, whether done manually or automatically. In any case, it's obvious that it must be a save made during your current flight. Saving AH flights in FS has no other useful purpose.

 

I strongly recommend the AutoSave utility - it can relieve you of having to remember to do that. There may be other similar FS utilities, but that's the one I'm aware of.

 

Quote

I think there is a way to resume an AH flight from a SAVED position, but I'm not 100% sure. Maybe John will confirm this?

 

There is an in-flight save option that was added to AH in one of the service packs but it's not like other game saves where you can save as an insurance policy before trying something risky. If you invoke the AH in-flight save, it saves for you but shuts down AH and your only option is to re-start AH at that point and resume the flight. You can't save in AH and then continue flying - it won't let you. You can think of it more as a long-term pause than a save, though unlike a normal "pause" feature, you can shut the PC down and come back to it later.

 

Saying it another way, an AH save is not a potential branching point, just an interruption. It won't allow you to "re-play" the past. Slopey is far too savvy to allow that to slip in.

 

John

[ehunyadi 0]

I encountered my first crash of FSX while flying in AH today and was saved due to this thread. I enabled the incremental backups in the registered version of FSUIPC and I went to the last/most recent save and resumed and AH took it I saved over 30 minutes of "work."

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. It saved me some heartache.

[allardjd 1,853]

EJ,

 

Happy it worked out. That's a really frustrating thing if you're not prepared for it and can't recover gracefully. Glad it went OK for you.

 

John

[Soepkip 0]

Hoi, i had daily FSX crashing too and solved the problem...

FSX crashes when a lot of textures must be replaced especially in the vicinity of mega-airports.

..... insufficient cooling of graphics card memory chips .....

FSX generates low framerates to be processed by de graphics card GPU.

The GPU has an easy task and needs not much cooling.....low fan speed.

Low fan speed delivers extra warm cooling air to the memory chips.

Solve this by manualy increase the setting of the graphics card fan speed.

My HD5770 had an automatic 33% fan speed during FSX.

Manualy increased the graphics card fan speed setting to 60% ... no crash during flight since then.

[allardjd 1,853]

Wow - that's pretty neat. I didn't even know such a thing was possible. I'm going to put a link to this thread in the AH forum at JF. Thank you.

 

John

[ddavid 149]

I noticed the same problem when preparing the Review fo Treescapes, which puts more trees into your scenery as Autogen increases. At Extremely Dense, my PC occassionally just stopped. No CTD, no BSD, just stopped! I downloaded an app called RealTemp, which displayys the temperatures of the cores. Together with the Resource Monitor, accessed from the Task Manager, I found that, with Treescapes at high Autogen densities, all 4 cores went 100% and their associated temps went through the roof. And then the cpu stopped... Only solution for me, at the time, was to pull back on the Autogen. I guess it's the same problem in FSX - can't put a quart into a pint pot! Must wait for that 580 card...

Cheers - Dai.

[Soepkip 0]

Hoi ddavid Dai,

I agree with you for the CPU load.....even my 6 AMD cores @ 3.3GHz run 100%.

Notwithstanding Intel cores that are speedy enough to generate a few extra frames/sec in exchange for a 1000 eurodollars premium, the CPU remains the weakest part in our PC-systems.

Be sure to check for sufficient cooling of de graphics card memory chips.

[RS Lim 0]

Why does my FSX say there is something about when connecting to about to change tab and connect to FSX say corrupted or cant be found. NEED explanation

[allardjd 1,853]

Is this related to AirHauler, or just stand-alone FSX. Can you post a screen shot of the error? Can't follow your explanation.

 

John

[RS Lim 0]

How to paste?

[allardjd 1,853]

You have to save the image at Photobucket or some other hosting service, then put a link to the saved image in your post here. If you don't know how to do all that, e-mail me the screen shot and I'll post it.

 

John

[brett 2,283]

How to paste?

 

There is also a tutorial here at the site.

[RS Lim 0]

Thanks, here is the photo.

[RS Lim 0]

I know its a bit big.

[allardjd 1,853]

Nice job...

I copied this advice from a similar thread from another forum. This is from Slopey, he developer of AirHauler.

 

First up - install the Service Pack at http://www.justflight.com/supportfaq/air-hauler if you haven't already.

Then ensure that there is a BGL directory within the AirHauler directory, and that the BGL directory contains two directories, X and 9 respectively.

i.e.:
<airhauler program>\BGL\X
<airhauler program>\BGL\9

Also - ensure that you're running AirHauler "As An Administrator" if you're on Windows 7 or 8 (right click, run as administrator).

Finally, if you have non-English date, time and decimal point settings (i.e. £1,001.34 NOT 1.001,34) change them to EN-US settings.

 

 

If none of that works, come back an we'll keep trying.

 

John

[RS Lim 0]

thx now my FSX working now

[Oflikovich 0]

To fix the issue where it says the file is corrupt, run the Air Hauler in Administrator mod. I used to get the same problem and it fixed it for me. As for the flight Simulator crashing, mine used to crash but I read around on the internet and found that you can try running it in Administrator mod, and if you have a desktop background that changes the picture every so and so minutes, you should disable that and just put a regular desktop picture. Exiting other applications also could help as they would not interfere with the game itself. Hope some of my information helped and best of luck to you.