Touch Down Shutters 1-2 sec apause

[mbeck89]

Just did another flight without any issues, simply by disabling the services in aircraft.cfg for the aircraft you're flying. As long as you keep jetways enabled, I haven't seen any bad side-effect using this method while waiting for Umberto and team to come up with a proper solution.

To me, this is more simple than downloading and installing older versions of GSX.

For anyone else in here having this issue, below is what it looks like over here and working just fine with the latest version of GSX Pro installed. The path to aircraft.cfg in my case is ...\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages\Community\ifly-aircraft-737max8\SimObjects\Airplanes\iFly 737-MAX8 but will of course differ depending on aircraft and where you have it installed. This is the MS Store version of MSFS2020.

[SERVICES]
FUELTRUCK = 0
BAGGAGE_LOADER = 0
CATERING_TRUCK = 0
BOARDING_RAMP = 0
GROUND_POWER_UNIT = 0
PUSHBACK = 0
SMALL_PUSHBACK = 0
MARSHALLER = 0
JETWAY = 1

Can confirm this worked for me, thank you!

[bantha121]

Not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but I uninstalled the new version of GSX, ran the 3.5.6 Addon Manager, and now GSX isn't loading and isn't showing up in my Community folder. The folders are present in the addon manager folder but the links never got created.

[WebMaximus]

That's good to hear and hopefully, being able to work around the problem this way can also serve as a hint when Umberto is trying to fix the issue.

[Driver8]

Yeah i have this issue too....  I'm going to try disabling services to see if that helps, but honestly i can't see that being feasible to do for all the aircraft i have...  Might have to rollback to 3.5.6 unless some new hotfix gets posted.

I have a couple of things i want to add though...
First, i want to point out that what i am experiencing is not what i would call "stutters"...  This is a flat out sim freeze on touchdown, lasting anywhere from maybe a half second up to something like 5 or 6 seconds depending on the combination of aircraft and airport.  This is NOT the same as some occasional performance dips while scenery is loading in a dense area or something that one may occasionally get from time to time if their system is heavily loaded.

Second, for the purposes of helping to reproduce the issue, i would like for the developers to let us know if it would help for us to include not only our system specs and what aircraft/airport we were landing at, but the whole flight plan, how we started the flight (like unloaded at the gate or something), what if any ATC or traffic add-ons we have, and modules that are auto starting in our exe.xml?  I don't have a lot of free time to test things too much, but i can certainly provide information if the developers think it would help.

[swaluver88]

First, i want to point out that what i am experiencing is not what i would call "stutters"...  This is a flat out sim freeze on touchdown, lasting anywhere from maybe a half second up to something like 5 or 6 seconds depending on the combination of aircraft and airport.  This is NOT the same as some occasional performance dips while scenery is loading in a dense area or something that one may occasionally get from time to time if their system is heavily loaded.

this is my exact issue, its almost like right before touchdown the sim hangs trying to load something or restart something. i thought it was one of my other addons until i realized it was gsx causing this issue. now it may not be the soul culprit, but something is definitely making gsx the target for is issue

we will wait and see if Umberto and the team figure out what's the root cause if it's a gsx issue or a sim issue as he stated.

i am curious if there are so many reports of this issue how the team cant reproduce the issue, but i digress

[virtuali]

i am curious if there are so many reports of this issue how the team cant reproduce the issue, but i digress

If I KNEW why I cannot reproduce it, not only I would found a way to reproduce it, but it would have been fixed long ago. We can only proceed by exclusion, because the ONLY change from 3.5.6 to 3.5.7 was an automatic GSX restart performed after takeoff.

But this has been rolled back, so the current 3.5.8 version which is online now, doesn't do that anymore.

[WebMaximus]

So, if I perform a check of my 3.5.8 installation, that should hopefully sort the issue? Meaning I no longer need the "tweak" in aircraft.cfg?

[virtuali]

So, if I perform a check of my 3.5.8 installation, that should hopefully sort the issue? Meaning I no longer need the "tweak" in aircraft.cfg?

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I don't have any idea why the problem doesn't happen in 3.5.6, but started in 3.5.7 for some users, because I'm still completely unable to replicate in ANY version, no matter how hard I try ( MSFS 2020, MSFS 2024, different airplanes, different airports, etc. ), and for the same reason I can't guaranteed it would fix it for you.

If you fixed it by disabling the ground services in the aircraft.cfg, seems to indicate it wasn't caused by GSX in your case, because those entries controls only *default* Ground Vehicles, not GSX's, which acts completely independently from those (GSX will work even without those entries).

But again, just try the latest update now.

[WebMaximus]

No, you were perfectly clear Umberto but since you said the only difference between 3.5.6 and later versions has now been removed in the latest version of 3.5.8, that would indicate whatever caused the issue as far as GSX goes should no longer be an issue.

I'll give it a go and let you know 👍

[Yoda_1976]

Hey Captains and Devs. Beside all frustration, i am so thankfull, that you reported the problem here as well and that the older version was posted by virtuali. I have read all your comments and will test tomorrow after my work. Thank you all and be kind.

 

[Yoda_1976]

And what is important, i know many of us are using autoFPS tool. It increases or decreases the LOD values during flight. In my example it is at 50 when i am under 1000 feet above the ground.

I shared this information and this thread here, and someone responsed that he was able to fix this stutter by increasing LOD.

Maybe that is something, what could be helpfull to Umberto and Virtuali.

[WebMaximus]

So, after my test yesterday with the Services in aircraft.cfg back to normal (enabled) and after doing a check of 3.5.8, I did experience a short freeze again right on touchdown. What was different was how the freeze lasted only for less than a second. Where it before usually lasted for a couple of seconds.

However, what Yoda_1976 mentioned about AutoFPS in combination with GSX might very well be related to what is happening here. I'm also using AutoFPS with the settings seen below for TLOD and OLOD based on altitude. This would also explain why not everyone is seeing this issue as well as why Umberto so far has not been able to repro the issue.

What is still odd though is why this worked fine up to GSX 3.5.6. With Umberto saying the only difference in later versions is an automatic GSX restart performed after takeoff.

Anyway, good thinking Yoda_1976! I do think you have helped narrow down the culprit and hopefully as you say, this will also help Umberto figuring out what is going on here.

These are my settings in AutoFPS if of any help:

[WebMaximus]

If you fixed it by disabling the ground services in the aircraft.cfg, seems to indicate it wasn't caused by GSX in your case, because those entries controls only *default* Ground Vehicles, not GSX's, which acts completely independently from those (GSX will work even without those entries).

This is interesting when you say GSX will work without these entries in the aircraft.cfg because when I tried to disable also the jetway service a couple of days ago, GSX thrown me a message telling me passengers stairs could not be found and how I wouldn't see any passengers boarding for this reason.

[virtuali]

However, what Yoda_1976 mentioned about AutoFPS in combination with GSX might very well be related to what is happening here. I'm also using AutoFPS with the settings seen below for TLOD and OLOD based on altitude. This would also explain why not everyone is seeing this issue as well as why Umberto so far has not been able to repro the issue.

This is in fact interesting. While the AutoLOD can increase fps, the additional handling has a cost, because it might force LODs models already loaded in memory to switch to a different model, and if this happens for a lot of models all the same time, the switching *itself* might cause extra load which will manifest as a stutter.

That's why you might see a benefit by increasing the ranges, you are likely causing less frequent LOD switching and you are also reducing the chance for many LOD switching happening all a the same time.

This part from Yoda_1976 is also interesting:

In my example it is at 50 when i am under 1000 feet above the ground.

1000 feet above ground is an important number for GSX as well. It's the height threshold under which the airport data will be loaded. No matter how big the airport is (but of course the bigger the airport, the more the issue is important) receiving data about the airport is likely the biggest call GSX ever does to Simconnect. Note that, the call from GSX side is very small, what is really big is the ANSWER from the sim, which contains all the data.

If you are landing at a big airport like EGLL and are already inside the airport visibility range (by default 3.0NM), as soon as you pass below 1000 ft, GSX will ask all data for runways, taxiways, parking spots, for the airport. All data that GSX obviously need to work on it. Based on the actual load and the size of the data, the answer from the sim might not come immediately but, what if this big bunch of data is coming exactly at the same time when the AutoLod has also forced LOD switching on many objects because you also crossed that 1000 ft threshold ?

The way Simconnect works, is that if the simulator is busy, Simconnect will be delayed. So what if, if the simulator was busy switching LODs, so it delayed the reply with all that big data about the airport GSX called at the same time of the LOD switch, so it came back *later*, at the worst possible time, that is on touchdown ?

So, you might want to play with AutoFPS settings (or just not start it) and see if it makes any difference.

If this is related, there's not much we can do in GSX to fix it, other than maybe raising the threshold from 1000 ft to something more (it has been like this for a long while). 

[WebMaximus]

This is all quite interesting and I do think we're onto something here.

What you say doesn't explain though why we only see this after 3.5.6. Because I've been using both GSX and AutoFPS with the same settings for a long time without seeing this problem.

One thing though I'm thinking...could be an update of AutoFPS which actually triggered this problem...?

I do know there's been a couple of AutoFPS updates. Might be worth trying to go back to an older version of AutoFPS and see if that fixes the issue. Will try to find time for that test during what's left of the weekend and will report back.