Loss of flight controls/SimConnect stalls isolated....

[Gypsy Baron]

This relates to a problem that I posted on here a couple of weeks back

which characterized itself by loss of controls on many long flights.

Well, I believe I have found the reason for the FSUIPC reports of:

"**** No SimConnect events or states being received! Re-connecting now****"

that I have been seeing.

These events cause severe stuttering and often loss of flight controls.

Every 30 minutes FSX feels the need to verify that it has been

activated. This shows up as multiple file accesses to:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys\

At the first 30 minute mark, I recorded 810 operations

related to this "validation" process, spread over about

about 6 1/2 seconds.

This doesn't seem to bother SimConnect activity as FSUIPC doesn't

log any losss of connect data.

However, at the 1-hour mark from the start of FSX, I logged

3330 operations related to "validation" over a 16 second period!

This obviously had a detrimental affect on SimConnect since at

that time FSUIPC reported 9 "No SimConnect events...." episodes.

So, when you are flying and see severe stuttering, check to see

how long it has been since you started FSX ( not flight time ).

Chances are it will be multiples of 30 minutes, with the 1, 2, 3,

etc hour marks being the worst.

I ran this test with the default Beech Baron just sitting on the

ramp at KROC with one engine running, so there were no scenery

re-load issues, etc. I used FileMon to record the accesses to

the "Crypto" path.

Peter: I have my File Monitor logs if you would like to have a look.

I also have a SimConnect log of a 3-hour flight but it's 166 MB.

It is too big for my text editor to handle.

Paul

[Pete Dowson]

This relates to a problem that I posted on here a couple of weeks back

which characterized itself by loss of controls on many long flights.

Well, I believe I have found the reason

Interesting indeed!

Before going into detail, could you please put everything you have, logs etc, and this report together in an email+attachments together, to tell_fs@microsoft.com. Do this as soon as possible, because I know the Simconnect folks in the FS team are struggling with all this at present.

I will forward the details from here directly too and ask them to look out specifically for your email. Make sure you have 2SimConnect" in the subject heading f your email.

Thanks.

Now:

the FSUIPC reports of:

"**** No SimConnect events or states being received! Re-connecting now****" that I have been seeing.

The things I need to know here are:

1. The version number of FSUIPC4.

2. If you are using the recent update, 4.067 (from above), then have you tried increasing the FSUIPC4 timeout on receiving data from SimConnect at all? (SimConnectStallTime). It would be useful to know the number of seconds this has to be increased to to avoid the problem.

3. Please show me the FSUIPC4.LOG extract for the bunch of reconnections, so I can see the time involved there. I think if you had been using 4.067 you would only have one or two instead of a spate.

Peter: I have my File Monitor logs if you would like to have a look.

I also have a SimConnect log of a 3-hour flight but it's 166 MB.

It is too big for my text editor to handle.

If you Zip these up they should be quite small, relatively. Please do that before sending them to FS. If the FSUIPC4.LOG is also too big for you to extract parts (which is less likely I think), then Zip that up and send it to me at petedowson@btconnect.com.

Thank you!

Pete

[Gypsy Baron]

This relates to a problem that I posted on here a couple of weeks back

which characterized itself by loss of controls on many long flights.

Well, I believe I have found the reason

Interesting indeed!

Before going into detail, could you please put everything you have, logs etc, and this report together in an email+attachments together, to tell_fs@microsoft.com. Do this as soon as possible, because I know the Simconnect folks in the FS team are struggling with all this at present.

I will forward the details from here directly too and ask them to look out specifically for your email. Make sure you have 2SimConnect" in the subject heading f your email.

Thanks.

Now:

I've just sent the details to you via email, Peter.

I will wait a bit before sending the package with an email to "tell_fs"

to give you time to alert them.

Paul

[Pete Dowson]

I will wait a bit before sending the package with an email to "tell_fs"

to give you time to alert them.

Already done -- from your first message. I treat these things with urgency. I am thinking that Microsoft will be wanting to rush out some sort of "performance" update as soon as they can, and I'd like some of the more important SimConnect problems resolved at the same time if at all possible, not have to wait another few months.

Regards

Pete

[Pete Dowson]

I've just sent the details to you via email, Peter.

I've had a brief look at the FSUIPC4 logs, and I'm rather puzzled. The reconnections are retrying far too quickly after the first error -- within 120-330 mSecs. That should be more like 5-10 seconds. I'll have to double check. I know I dealt with one type of time-out correctly, I'll need to "simulate" this one, especially if you've set the Stall Time to 5. That's certainly a bit of a puzzle. Looks like I've not covered all the possibilities.

It won't stop the errors occurring in the first place, of course. I''m only trying to tidy up and smooth over the aftermath.

Thanks,

Pete