Active Sky 2004 and FSUIPC 3.30

[ronzie]

This is a brief rehash but with some new info of a previously posted topic:

The environment is FS9, W98, 766 MB RAM recognized with VCACHE chest, FSUIPC 3.30, AS2004 MR2, Radar Contact 3.1 latest release, AdvDisp 2.11. The problem started, maybe with the previous 2.2x FSUIPC release but going back one further than the last 2.2x all is OK.

When exiting a flight, I get back the main menu with the bitmap but no text showing. Going to windowed mode does not help. If I stay in full screen mode with no other key presses, I can get out with the ESC key which brings up the exit Dialog. Any other key execution, even after the alt-enter window mode, hangs FS9 and task manager (ctrl-alt-delete list) is required to exit.

I have further with 3.30 narrowed it down to the following:

FS 9 alone, load flight, exit flight OK.

FS9 with RC alone, load flight, exit flight, OK.

FS9 with AS2004 alone, load flight, refresh AS, exit flight, not OK.

FS9 with AS2004 alone, load flight, refresh AS2004, exit AS2004, exit flight, not OK.

It seems in my specific environment that weather updates or writes are causing the problem. In all tests above the aircraft (at different locations and aircraft) are parked so no enroute updates are occuring.

Any pointers to give before I post on the AS forum?

[zip]

Well, I'm using FSUIPC 3.30 and the release candidate of AS2004MR2 and have no problems as you mention here (aside from a losing my mouse every so often, which is why I have two now on different USB ports, but that is not related to either FSUIPC nor AS2004 :shock: )

Sounds like a previous problem I had with ATI catalyst drivers. Other than that, I'm at a loss.

[Pete Dowson]

When exiting a flight, I get back the main menu with the bitmap but no text showing. Going to windowed mode does not help. If I stay in full screen mode with no other key presses, I can get out with the ESC key which brings up the exit Dialog. Any other key execution, even after the alt-enter window mode, hangs FS9 and task manager (ctrl-alt-delete list) is required to exit.

Hmmm. How very strange.

I really don't understand how either FSUIPC or any add-on using it can achieve such a result. If such a thing happened to me I would suspect one of three things:

1. Something in FS or its data is corrupt.

2. There's a video problem, drivers or, less likely, hardware.

3. There's a hardware memory problem

For the first, a complete FS re-install is probably the only way to be sure. And this does mean complete -- including removal of data files as in the C: drive's FS files area and saved flights and plans (and especially weather files). I've seen one user have problems of crashing in WEATHER.DLL which turned out to be a corrupt weather station file, generated by FS on installation and possibly updated on occasion by the FS weather downloads.

For the other two I suppose a process of elimination is in order. Different video drivers, swapping memory chips around.

I have further with 3.30 narrowed it down to the following:

FS 9 alone, load flight, exit flight OK.

FS9 with RC alone, load flight, exit flight, OK.

FS9 with AS2004 alone, load flight, refresh AS, exit flight, not OK.

FS9 with AS2004 alone, load flight, refresh AS2004, exit AS2004, exit flight, not OK.

The different memory patterns obtained in each case combined with one of the possibilities I mentioned could account for this.

Another way to experiment with memory patterns is to change the order in which modules load. To do this you move them out of the FS Modules folder, then back in in a specific order. Module loading orders used to be particularly critical as I remember in several FS releases, most noticeable FS98 which had an error in FE.DLL which was memory-pattern dependent.

It seems in my specific environment that weather updates or writes are causing the problem. In all tests above the aircraft (at different locations and aircraft) are parked so no enroute updates are occuring.

Any pointers to give before I post on the AS forum?

Well, unless AS2004 is writing to unexplored parts of FS, which seems unlikely because

1. It wouldn't just be happening on your system then, and

2. It is getting increasingly difficult for any program to write to any unpredictable unknown parts of FS simply because more and more of the offsets in the FSUIPC interface are becoming specificaly allocated and routed to known things.

The only advantage I can see of posting to the AS forum is to see if you can find anyone else to disprove reason 1.

Sorry I can't be more helpful at present. It's an area of FS so unrelated to anything touched by anything I know or do that it is difficult to understand how it can happen.

Regards,

Pete

[JSkorna]

ronzie,

Looks to me also like a video driver issue. I would tell you the same thing over at AVSIM!! I stop by here once a day or so!

[ugandaone]

I had similar problems with 3,3 and Active Sky; also with the BAV monitor. As soon as I reinstalled the earlier version (3.12) everything fine

[JSkorna]

If you are going to use AS MR2 or later you will have to use FSUIPC 3.3 or later.