Maybe a FSUIPC problem

[martin83]

Hello Pete,

I am not sure if, but there could be a problem with FSUIPC 4.28 or a problem with FSUIPC in connection with Active Sky X, Fs2Crew, FSInn or PMDG 747-400X. I will just try to give you all the facts that might help debugging the probable issue.

For the second time my joystick controls in FSX started not to work out of nowhere. The first time, I was already flying for around 10 hours from KIAD to EDDF. The flight went well without any technical problems. Today, I was doing my prechecks, FMC programming in EDDF for another flight into the US when FSX stopped accepting any control inputs from my joysticks while still beeing on the gate. Till now, sounds not like a FSUIPC related problem.

Actually, the last time and this time I had a look at the FS menu and could see that the menu entry of FSUIPC was not where it has been when I started the flight. The whole menu entry was just missing. Therefore, I guess it could be connected to FSUIPC. I had a look at the log, but couldn't find anything that would show me any error. Another thing that I was wondering about, is that during standing at the gate, the PMDG 747X load manager could not connect via SimConnect to FSX to alter the load. Also, when control inputs stopped working in FSX, a small Fs2Crew window could not be clicked or closed anymore (I guess it's working through FSUIPC).

Ok, I grabbed my Process Explorer and wanted to see, if for any reason the FSUIPC.dll that FSX loads might show anything unnormal. I have made some screenshots to illustrate the issue. First screenshot shows the missing FSUIPC entry, second and third one show the thread list of FSX. I will also include the FSUIPC logs for you.

Maybe I should add that I am running Vista x64 after some OOM errors on 32 bit systems over the last months.

Best regards,

Martin

[martin83]

********* FSUIPC4, Version 4.28 by Pete Dowson *********

Reading options from "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Modules\FSUIPC4.ini"

User Name="XXX"

User Addr="XXX"

FSUIPC4 Key is provided

WIDEFS7 not user registered, or expired

Running inside FSX on Windows Vista (SimConnect Acc/SP2 Oct07)

Module base=61000000

Wind smoothing fix is fully installed

DebugStatus=15

109 System time = 11:00:25

171 FLT UNC path = "\\NEWYORK\Users\martinM10\Documents\Flight Simulator X-Dateien\"

171 FS UNC path = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\"

998 LogOptions=00000001

998 SimConnect_Open succeeded: waiting to check version okay

3245 Running in "Microsoft Flight Simulator X", Version: 10.0.61472.0 (SimConnect: 10.0.61259.0)

3245 Initialising SimConnect data requests now

3245 FSUIPC Menu entry added

3291 C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\FLIGHTS\OTHER\FLTSIM.FLT

3291 C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes\Aircreation_582SL\Aircreation_582SL.AIR

3775 Weather Mode now = Custom

422029 C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes\PMDG747-400\B747-400.AIR

484773 Aircraft="PMDG747-400 Lufthansa"

485179 System time = 11:08:30, FSX time = 11:07:30 (09:07Z)

485600 Advanced Weather Interface Enabled

625486 Sim stopped: average frame rate for last 123 secs = 17.5 fps

1481807 Sim stopped: average frame rate for last 854 secs = 13.6 fps

2526514 **** No SimConnect events or states being received! Re-connecting now****

[...]

4733304 **** No SimConnect events or states being received! Re-connecting now****

4733304 SimConnect_Open succeeded: waiting to check version okay

[Pete Dowson]

2526514 **** No SimConnect events or states being received! Re-connecting now****

2526514 SimConnect_Open succeeded: waiting to check version okay

2532348 **** No SimConnect events or states being received! Re-connecting now****

...

You said, mysteriously "I had a look at the log, but couldn't find anything that would show me any error." Doesn't the above message suggest to you that something is seriously wrong at all?

Something is clobbering your FSX SimConnect -- in that log it was fine until 2526 seconds (42 minutes) into your session, so i would guess that is is something building up. I'm sorry, I've no idea what.

Once FSUIPC no longer sees the regular SimConnect messages it expects, after a certain time (5 seconds with no events at all), it assumes things have gone awry and closes the connection (hence the missing Menu entry) and attempts to re-connect. As you can see from that enormous log showing umpteen repetitions of the same failure, that didn't succeed -- though it managed to re-open it never saw and results in the 5 or so seconds it then allows, on every single subsequent retry.

Maybe a SimConnect log will show you what is going on (see the FSX Help announcement above). It could be some other SimConnect client somehow hogging SimConnect too much, but I’ve never seen exactly that before. There was a serious bug in the original release of SimConnect which would cause SimConnect to sieze up on certain combinations of clients, initialising in a certain order, but Microsoft did do some revisions by SP1 to work-around that 9not solved, please note -- so it could be the same thing). I remeber FSCopilot was one of the prime add-ons involved in those problems, so maybe Microsoft's work-arounds aren't working too well for you.

If you do get a SimConnect log, it will be huge, so don't post it here like you did all that repetitive stuff, please. Probably best to post it with a full description of the problem to tell_fs@microsoft.com, as they will need to fix this stuff for ESP and FSXI. I can take a look as well if you like, but it isn't something I'm likely to be able to do anything about I'm afraid. Send to petedowson@btconnect.com -- ZIP it first please!

Possibly FSCopilot is still written to use the RTM or SP1 version of SimConnect, in which case one possibly area of problems is memory-filling with TCP/IP queued blocks. FSUIPC uses the SP2/Acceleration version of Simconnect if available, and, by default that should be using Named Pipes instead of TCP/IP which avoids that sort of congestion. However, it is just possible that you have a SimConnect.xml file which is preventing Named Pipes being used, so perhaps I should take a look at that.

For experimentation I could maybe supply a version of FSUIPC which allowed the 5-seconds-with-no-contact interval to be elongated, especially when trying to reconnect, but really if it isn't getting messages on every single FS frame (which it is "promised" by SimConnect) something is already seriously amiss -- a frame rate of 0.2 fps isn't likely I hope!

Incidentally, you also said:

Another thing that I was wondering about, is that during standing at the gate, the PMDG 747X load manager could not connect via SimConnect to FSX to alter the load. Also, when control inputs stopped working in FSX, a small Fs2Crew window could not be clicked or closed anymore (I guess it's working through FSUIPC).

Now neither of those add-ons use FSUIPC at all, and are entirely unrelated to anything FSUIPC does. They would have also stopped working because they too became frozen out of SimConnect. They probably do not detect this like FSUIPC does and so sit there simply not working.

Regards

Pete

[martin83]

Hi Pete,

thanks for your feedback and fast support. About the "reconnect message", i thought that these messages were collected over a big portion of flights and it would be normal once in a while to lose the connection. Sorry, for that. Anyway, I think everything points into the SimConnect direction right now. Just now I am trying to reproduce the very same error with the SimConnect log activated.

Thanks for your help, and I'll let you knowalso about the Simconnect.xml.

Best regards,

Martin

[martin83]

Hello Pete,

that's my SimConnect.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="Windows-1252"?>


SimConnect
SimConnect.xml
False

False
IPv4
global
myserveraddress
64
500
4096
False


False
Auto
local

Anything you could suggest? I just tried to reproduce the error, but no luck. I will just let the logging run with my next flights, althought the logs are really huge.

Martin

[Pete Dowson]

that's my SimConnect.xml

That's okay.

Anything you could suggest?

Sorry, no. It's going to be down to some combination of things which is causing this older SimConnect bug to activate. The log would show the details, I think. You could try a process of elimination, dropping one SimConnect component at a time. Start off with whatever you have running remotely, as that will certainly be using TCP/IP.

Pete

[martin83]

Hello Pete,

today I was able to re-produce at least a part of the error discussed in this topic. I got some errors like this one in my fsuipc.log:

11268514 **** No SimConnect events or states being received! Re-connecting now****
11268998 SimConnect_Open succeeded: waiting to check version okay
11269029 Running in "Microsoft Flight Simulator X", Version: 10.0.61472.0 (SimConnect: 10.0.61259.0)
11269029 Initialising SimConnect data requests now
11269029 FSUIPC Menu entry added

As promised, I also recorded a log for simconnect which has a size of 1.78 GB. I don't know, but maybe you could help me on this topic and tell me how I should extract the data for a more convenient handling for you, as even zipping it makes still several hundred MB. Another point maybe of some interest for you is that I also encoutered the "PMDG 747-400 trouble with turbulence with 4.28" problem during logging.

Best regards,

Martin

[Pete Dowson]

today I was able to re-produce at least a part of the error discussed in this topic. I got some errors like this one in my fsuipc.log

Yes, the same as you showed originally. As I said then, something is messing up your SimConnect session. If the first such error occurred after 11268 seconds (over 3 hours), I assume you are saying you flew for over 3 hours with no problems at all? Were any extra add-ons added during that time or were they all running right from the start?

As promised, I also recorded a log for simconnect which has a size of 1.78 GB. I don't know, but maybe you could help me on this topic and tell me how I should extract the data for a more convenient handling for you

Why have you let it run for so long? Are you only getting problems after a long session? If so it may actually be memory problems (memory leakage), or possibly hardware, related to heat.

I'm not sure what you'd expect me to do with the full log in any case. I couldn't possibly read it all. Some clue is needed first. At present I'd only be interested in the first page or so, just to see how many SimConnect-using programs you have (assuming you started them all up at the start).

Of course you might be able to tell me that anyway. I think you may have to use a process of elimination, doing without one of your add-ons at a time till you find which one is causing it. Did you miss my suggestion on this earlier? I'll repeat it: "You could try a process of elimination, dropping one SimConnect component at a time. Start off with whatever you have running remotely, as that will certainly be using TCP/IP."

Another point maybe of some interest for you is that I also encoutered the "PMDG 747-400 trouble with turbulence with 4.28" problem during logging.

If you aren't using 4.298 (or later, when I make a later version) it probably isn't relevant. Please see the FSX Downloads announcement. Things have moved on.

Regards

Pete