Autosave recently causing long pauses

[Mike777]

Hi Peter,

I have been using registered FSUIPC and particularly Autosave for years with advanced aircraft with no problems other than occasional micropauses (so I increased the time between saves to 300 seconds). 

For the last week or so I have had many long pauses that appear to accompany autosaves (by looking at the time on the saved file during a pause).  This is happening with the PMDG 737/NGX, PMDG 777, and Level-D 767.  Toward the end of the flight the pauses seem to become longer.  I know you discourage using Autosave with these aircraft, but I have been flying them for a long time with no problem until recently.  I use FSX Steam, in a single install, but I used to have a dual install.  The problem may coincide with uninstalling the dual install and then installing Steam alone (note: all the Steam folders now have their normal FSX names and the files are saved to them as they should be).  Both the current and previous installations of Steam were/are on my D: drive, which is a 500GB SSD.  But the files are saved on C: which is a 500GB normal hard drive.  I defragged C: and ran chkdsk on it (no errors found) but the problem didn't go away.

I have the following addons: Active Sky Next and fullscreen.ahk (I always run in windowed mode -- this addon converts the appearance to full screen).  I have other addons, but the problem happens when they are not running, and probably happens without ASN.

I have FSUIPC version 4.966c.  The problem went away for a few flights when I updated from a previous version (not sure which, but I update fairly frequently) but now it's back.  I also noticed that SimConnectStallTime was set to 20 after the most recent update (but it might have been there earlier).  I didn't do this as I only found out about this setting a day or so ago by reading posts in your forum.  Setting it back to 1 didn't fix the problem.

I use FSUIPC for ailerons, elevators, rudder and throttles on all the above aircraft and the joystick axes are disabled for these functions in FSX.  As a side note, recently there have been occasional deletions/rebuilding of the controls.xml file and I have to restore it from a backup. 

System is Windows 7 64, I7-200 series, NVidia 560M, 6GB memory, Qosmio laptop. 

Thanks very much,

Mike

Edited April 25, 2017 by Mike777

[Pete Dowson]

11 hours ago, Mike777 said:

For the last week or so I have had many long pauses that appear to accompany autosaves (by looking at the time on the saved file during a pause).  This is happening with the PMDG 737/NGX, PMDG 777, and Level-D 767.  Toward the end of the flight the pauses seem to become longer.  I know you discourage using Autosave with these aircraft, but I have been flying them for a long time with no problem until recently. 

All FSUIPC does is pass on the flight save request to FSX. It does nothing else. It is almost the same as pressing the ; key (with its default assignment) and entering a name, except that it does it based on the timer, and creates the name by itself. Automating those parts will not create any pauses. It is something to do with the aircraft or its systems.

Pete

 

[Mike777]

13 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

All FSUIPC does is pass on the flight save request to FSX. It does nothing else. It is almost the same as pressing the ; key (with its default assignment) and entering a name, except that it does it based on the timer, and creates the name by itself. Automating those parts will not create any pauses. It is something to do with the aircraft or its systems.

Pete

 

Hi, Pete,

Thanks for your response.  I am hoping you might give me some insight as to how to fix this problem.  The PMDG 777 and NGX have not changed for quite awhile.  I didn't fly the Level-D much in my original Steam setup, but in my FSX Box setup I flew it a great deal.  Never saw frequent long pauses owing to Autosave or anything else on any of these aircraft (I flew the 777 and NGX a great deal in Steam when it was part of a dual install).  There is now an update for the Level-D but I am not using it since it is for Windows 10 and/or P3D. 

The problem appears to have started -- but intermittently -- when I got rid of my dual install and installed FSX Steam as a single install (on same D: drive, an SSD).  I used the Flight1 registry tool after installation.

So: I would appreciate any insight on how FSX Steam (now a single install) saves files, and whether there is some FSX module involved that might need replacing or some related setting that might need adjusting. 

Do you have any idea what would have changed SimConnectStallTime to 20 (I couldn't have done it since I never knew about this setting until I started reading through your forum)? 

Do you have any other thoughts on where to pursue this issue?  Possibly PMDG forums but it also affects the Level-D, and the PMDG aircraft I'm using haven't changed for awhile - gauge dlls are from 2015.  FSX forums on Avsim?

Thanks again,

Mike

 

 

[Pete Dowson]

1 hour ago, Mike777 said:

I am hoping you might give me some insight as to how to fix this problem. 

Sorry, I really have no idea. Steer clear of large complex aircraft add-ons, or don't use Autosave ,is really all I can say. I assume you tried using the ; key and nter a name method of saving, just so you could see for yourself that it's the act of saving which is the problem, not getting it done automatically?

Instead of using autosave, try to solve the problems which cause you to want to use it. With my complex cockpit setup there's no way I can make use of autosaved files in any case -- I can't simply start in the middle of the flight and expect all the relevant components be there with me, let alone ensuring all the hardware is the same (switch positions and dials etc in the cockpit). And I don't use any complex aircraft add-ons -- no FS cockpit panels and so on ay all. All the systems are handled by ProSim. If my system crashed I'd need to find out why and fix it. In a well setup system with all working ad-ons you should never really need autosave for crash recovery.

If you are using it just so you can "try that again" in the event of something unexplained happerning, or making a mistake, then try manually saving on occasions when you think it might be worthwhile.

1 hour ago, Mike777 said:

Do you have any idea what would have changed SimConnectStallTime to 20

Nothing I know of. It's a manual setting only.

But that cannot be actually responsible for anything. If the system is overloaded so much that SimConnect data supplies dry up for even the default or 1 or 2 seconds (whatever it is now) then there's something wrong in any case. And certainly if SimConnect does stall you WILL get pauses whilst FSUIPC re-requests all of its data and sets everything up again. If it does happen and you can't find out whay it might be necessary to increase from the default so that the stall doesn't simply repeat over and over, clobbering things entirely. With 20 (the maximum) set then FSUIPC won't care if no data arrives for a full 20 seconds. None of the add-on aircraft you are using cares about that as they don't use SimConnect (well, the PMDG ones don't in any case). Andit won't happen more just because you increase the time -- that's just increased tolerance.

Pete