Simconnect Data Stalled!

[GHD]

Hi Pete,

I seem to remember that this has been mentioned before. I keep getting this entry in the log about every 5 seconds both on XP and Vista (FSUIPC 4.09). Has anything been done in FSX SP1 to alleviate the problem?

Incidentally, I notice that the log is called FSUIPC4.log in XP and FSUIPC.log in Vista.

George

[Pete Dowson]

I seem to remember that this has been mentioned before. I keep getting this entry in the log about every 5 seconds both on XP and Vista (FSUIPC 4.09).

It's been mentioned many many times and has always come down to one or a combination of three things:

1. Such an appalling frame rate in FSX that it sometimes drops so low as to invoke a timeout in FSUIPC.

2. Multiple clients clamouring for Simconnect attention on an already overloaded PC.

3. Third party programs, usually security things, slowing down the TCP/IP processing and building up queues and thereby invoking FSUIPC's safety timeouts.

4. A bad Simconnect nistall.

What other programs have you got using SimConnect? This won't be something new in 4.09. Have you checked the SimConnect log or tried re-installing SimConnect as per the FSX Help above?

You could try increasing FSUIPC's timeout, but there could stil be related problems like severe latency in responses and so on. The relevant parameter is SimConnectStallTime, which controls the timeout from 1 second (default) up to 9 seconds. Adjustment should really ever only be needed on systems where the normal frame rate drops to 1 fps or less.

Has anything been done in FSX SP1 to alleviate the problem?

I have no idea, at present, sorry. There have been enough complaints about how frail SimConnect is with multiple clients and other TCP/IP processing programs, so one would hope MS would have been able to look at it and sort it. But I've never been able to reproduce any similar problems here on any of four FSX installations, so it is going to be difficult for me to check if there are improvements. It may be a matter of getting feedback, again, from those who do see such problems.

I think it must be very much associated with other things on specific systems, usually programs interfering with the TCP/IP processing and getting the exchanges bogged down.

Incidentally, I notice that the log is called FSUIPC4.log in XP and FSUIPC.log in Vista.

Ooops! So it is -- Ouch! And the KEY and INI files too have lost their '4'. :-( This must have happened in the process of moving them to the "My Documents/Flight Simulator X Files" folder! I'm going to have to rename them else documentation and so forth will be wrong! Drat! That's have to wait till after SP1 now.

Regards

Pete

[GHD]

[Ooops! So it is -- Ouch! And the KEY and INI files too have lost their '4'. :-( This must have happened in the process of moving them to the "My Documents/Flight Simulator X Files" folder! I'm going to have to rename them else documentation and so forth will be wrong!

Er, could you just amend the documentation? I have a dual boot XP/Vista setup, FSX is installed on the same drive for both systems. It's bad enough that there are two registries and that FSX saves files in Documents and Settings/Roaming. I can live with the different FSX ini/log file names.

Re the stalling, even if I have no other Simconnect clients I see the same problem running on two separate machines, one is XP only and the other is XP/Vista.

George

[Pete Dowson]

Er, could you just amend the documentation? I have a dual boot XP/Vista setup, FSX is installed on the same drive for both systems.

But on XP the FSUIPC files are still in the FSX\Modules folder. I only moved them for Vista because Vista stops me writing to that folder when FSX is installed in PRogram Files (the default) unless FSX is "run as administrator".

It's bad enough that there are two registries and that FSX saves files in Documents and Settings/Roaming. I can live with the different FSX ini/log file names.

But what's the problem if the were always FSUIPC4.xxx for FSUIPC4 data files? Sorry, I'm missing something here -- if I don't correct this blunder it will make life more difficult for me if they have different names as I'll be saying things like "check your xxx file" or "show me ..." etc and getting responses like "I don't have any such file".

There won't be any work for you -- FSUIPC4 will simply rename the files for you.

Re the stalling, even if I have no other Simconnect clients I see the same problem running on two separate machines, one is XP only and the other is XP/Vista.

Something is seriously wrong then. What are your frame rates like? Are they dropping way down? Check the SimConnect log, see if there's anything odd there. I've only ever known this to happen with overloaded PCs and multiple clients, unless Simconnect has been messed up (re-install it) or you have some firewall or antivirus program blocking the TCP/IP routes.

Have you only recently moved to FSX, or only just noticed this problem?

Pete

[GHD]

Thanks for the reply Pete. I've been running FSX since its initial release but I have just noticed the large size of the FSUIPC log. On my Xeon system (XP) I get an average FPS of about 20, on the AMD (XP/Vista) it is about 40+ (I fly mainly in the UK using the Horizon Photographic Scenery).

I have just run FSX on the Xeon, it takes about 7 minutes to load to the point where the aircraft is on the runway. I then let it run for another 3 minutes. The resulting simconnect000.log was 14.3Mb and the FSUIPC4.log 21Kb. All entries were to do with:

**** Simconnect Data Stalled! Re-connecting now****

Are you suggesting that SimConnect may have been wrongly installed four times? I have separate FSX DVD's for each system and when I installed Vista about a week ago I needed to do two further installs to ensure that the registry entries were made into each OS.

I will try the repair option on the Xeon and report back.

George

[Pete Dowson]

Thanks for the reply Pete. I've been running FSX since its initial release but I have just noticed the large size of the FSUIPC log. On my Xeon system (XP) I get an average FPS of about 20, on the AMD (XP/Vista) it is about 40+ (I fly mainly in the UK using the Horizon Photographic Scenery).

Well, in that case you should be having no trouble at all with stalling. It is really sounding like either a security program conflict or a bad Simconnect install.

Are you suggesting that SimConnect may have been wrongly installed four times?

i've no idea, sorry. I've never had any of these problems on any system -- three under XP and one very recently on Vista Ultimate. I have the VFR X scenery installed on one of the XP PCs.

All I can say is that some folks who've had such problems have fixed them by re-installing Simconnect -- so it is worth a try. I don't know if MS has discovered why that part of the FSX install sometimes doesn't work properly, but it is certain that it sometimes doesn't. Possibly it is, again, related to other software on the system.

I will try the repair option on the Xeon and report back.

Okay.

Regards

Pete

[GHD]

Hi Pete,

I did a repair after renaming x86_Microsoft.FlightSimulator.SimConnect_67c7c14424d61b5b_10.0.60905.0_x-ww_429211e9 and it duly created a new one. However, it did not fix the **** Simconnect Data Stalled! Re-connecting now**** which occurs approximately every 3 seconds.

The only other program I have running is AVG antivirus.

George

[Pete Dowson]

The only other program I have running is AVG antivirus.

Hmmm. Most have said the at least the free version of AVG gives them no problems. If you have no firewalls and no spy-sweeper type programs, but you do have AVG installed on both PCs, I would suggest trying to uninstall it on one of them as a test.

I can of course simply take out the stall detection in FSUIPC4 and allow it to simply stop working when SimConnect data traffic quits -- that's what it used to do in the very early releases -- but this sort of silent failure is not nice and makes it look as if FSUIPC is to blame. Have you tried extending its timeout as I suggested? Maybe you are getting periods of very low frame rates.

The SimConnect log should show what is happening from its point of view. Every single visual FS frame there should be listed an event and several data frames sent to FSUIPC. If these stop for more than a few seconds, FSUIPC reports it in its log then re-initialises the SimConnect connection -- that causes an immense amount more data in the Simconnect log because every single Sim Variable and control has to be added again to each of the data sets maintained in the link.

Incidentally, I use Norton Anti-Virus which is always fully engaged even when running FS, and have never had any problems, but I only use the Windows Firewall, if at all. I had to scrap ZoneAlarm as it didn't get on with SimConnect at all, and many reported that all the McAfee stuff is incompatible too. Quite a few folks switched over to the freeware AVG so I thought that was okay.

Regards

Pete

[GHD]

Yes, it is weird. I use AVG 7.5 Pro but only on the XP systems, on Vista I don't run any firewall or AV, but it is always connected to the Xeon via a router.

Apart from the visibility settings (which are considered doubtful) I use FSUIPC only when I run my own programs to interrogate the position of the user aircraft. In the particular case quoted, none of these were running yet I still got a 14Mb simconnect log for the 10 minute run.

I will try upping SimConnectStallTime but I never have single figure frame rates on either system.

Thanks again,

George

[GHD]

Since I was getting the Data Stalled messages at approximately 5 second intervals, I set SimConnectStallTime=6. This appears to have solved the problem. Running FSX with two of my programs and Afcad2 produced only two occurrences during a run time of about 18 minutes:

********* FSUIPC4, Version 4.09 by Pete Dowson *********

User Name="George Davison"

User Addr="XXX"

FSUIPC4 Key is provided

WIDEFS7 not user registered, or expired

Running inside FSX

Module base=61000000

DebugStatus=15

156 System time = 16:44:53

156 FLT UNC path = "C:\Documents and Settings\Davison\My Documents\Flight Simulator X Files\"

172 FS UNC path = "\\DAVISON-9C66B69\Xeon D\FSX Programs\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\"

2891 LogOptions=00000001

2906 SimConnect_Open succeeded: proceeding to initialise interface!

42781 Running in "Microsoft Flight Simulator X", Version: 10.0.60905.0 (SimConnect: 2.0.60905.0)

50516 SimStart Event: Initialising SimConnect data requests

50516 FSUIPC Menu entry added

50547 C:\Documents and Settings\Davison\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX\Previous flight.FLT

50547 D:\FSX Programs\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Rotorcraft\Bell206B\Bell_206B_JetRanger.AIR

115297 **** No SimConnect events or states being received! Re-connecting now****

115313 SimConnect_Open succeeded: proceeding to initialise interface!

115313 Initialising SimConnect data requests now

115313 FSUIPC Menu entry added

115344 Running in "Microsoft Flight Simulator X", Version: 10.0.60905.0 (SimConnect: 2.0.60905.0)

279703 System time = 16:49:32, FSX time = 16:45:30 (15:45Z)

280063 Aircraft="Bell 206B JetRanger Paint10"

288000 Advanced Weather Interface Enabled

295047 **** Simconnect Data Stalled! Re-connecting now****

295141 SimConnect_Open succeeded: proceeding to initialise interface!

295141 Initialising SimConnect data requests now

295141 FSUIPC Menu entry added

295156 Failed on SimConnect_CallDispatch for Message, return = 0xC0000120

295156 Running in "Microsoft Flight Simulator X", Version: 10.0.60905.0 (SimConnect: 2.0.60905.0)

295922 System time = 16:49:49, FSX time = 16:45:30 (15:45Z)

304016 **** Simconnect Data Stalled! Re-connecting now****

304016 SimConnect_Open succeeded: proceeding to initialise interface!

304016 Initialising SimConnect data requests now

304016 FSUIPC Menu entry added

304016 Failed on SimConnect_CallDispatch for Message, return = 0xC0000120

304016 Running in "Microsoft Flight Simulator X", Version: 10.0.60905.0 (SimConnect: 2.0.60905.0)

304938 System time = 16:49:58, FSX time = 16:45:30 (15:45Z)

1077828 System time = 17:02:51, FSX time = 16:57:51 (15:57Z)

1077844 *** FSUIPC log file being closed

Memory managed: 740 Allocs, 740 Freed

********* FSUIPC Log file closed ***********

Thanks again,

George

[Pete Dowson]

Since I was getting the Data Stalled messages at approximately 5 second intervals, I set SimConnectStallTime=6. This appears to have solved the problem.

Well, it hasn't solved it so much as worked around it for now. As long as you don't have any uses for FSUIPC which cannot tolerate 5 second delays in receiving information, orhaving FSX acting on it, you are okay.

Since SimConnect is supposed to keep FSUIPC abreast of all Sim Values on every single change, or per frame, having it only update values at 5 second intervals, even if only occasionally, is not good at all and most certainly indicates some serious problem in your installation.

Regards

Pete

[GHD]

Since SimConnect is supposed to keep FSUIPC abreast of all Sim Values on every single change, or per frame, having it only update values at 5 second intervals, even if only occasionally, is not good at all and most certainly indicates some serious problem in your installation.

Well, I am unable to determine a serious problem in my two systems.

I have written a tiny C++ program which does a SimConnect_SubscribeToSystemEvent(hSimConnect, EVENT_ID, "6Hz") and it successfully receives data every 1/6 of a second with no apparent timeouts.

Regards,

George

[Pete Dowson]

I have written a tiny C++ program which does a SimConnect_SubscribeToSystemEvent(hSimConnect, EVENT_ID, "6Hz") and it successfully receives data every 1/6 of a second with no apparent timeouts.

Maybe it is this additional SimConnect client which is clobbering things? ;-)

How many SimVars does your program read? How many Events is it intercepting? Does it get positional and other information on every AI aircraft every time they move?

If you read them all, as FSUIPC does, based on changes, every frame not only every 166 milliseconds, would it build up TCP/IP queues, as appears to be happening to cause these 5 second timeouts?

If you are happy with everything, that's fine. Sorry if I was worried about your problems. :-(

Regards

Pete

[GHD]

Thanks again Pete,

I didn't appreciate that FSUIPC reads every simvar and every event for each frame, I thought it read only the values I was requesting :oops:

Sorry if I was worried about your problems

I do appreciate your concern, my only perceived problem is the size of the log file, all of my programs work fine despite the re-connections.

Regards,

George

[Pete Dowson]

I didn't appreciate that FSUIPC reads every simvar and every event for each frame, I thought it read only the values I was requesting :oops:

It has to maintain the offset image. The SimConnect interface is asynchronous. ou don't ask and get, you ask "to be notified", then, when the value is ready and Simconnect decides to reply, you get notified. It's a server/client model, quite different from how FSUIPC used to interface to FS.

It's efficient enough, as it only gets notified of changes, which are in surprisingly small info blocks per frame. And by always getting all the information, not continually changing the data definitions to suit each application as it comes and goes it is smoother and much more efficient in terms of memory usage. FSUIPC 1 through 3 are the same, except synchronous because of the direct reads.

All the overheads are out of the way in the first seconds -- EXCEPTING of course when a timeout causes a re-initialisation, then you have all the overhead all over again.

If you look at one of the initialisations in the SimConnect long you will see what is involved.

I do appreciate your concern, my only perceived problem is the size of the log file, all of my programs work fine despite the re-connections.

The log file isn't relevant. It is recreated on each new session in any case.

I hope you won't find some application which you want to use which is more time critical, as I think there will be a need to resolve the problems on your installation then. Maybe SP1 will resolve them anyway -- here's hoping. Please do check the logs again after SP1 and let me know.

Regards

Pete

[GHD]

Maybe SP1 will resolve them anyway -- here's hoping. Please do check the logs again after SP1 and let me know.

I certainly will and thanks again for your attention.

Regards,

George