Author Topic: Black Aircraft Preview Window Problem  (Read 5257 times)

Dave Parsons

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Black Aircraft Preview Window Problem
« on: January 28, 2012, 12:45:19 am »
After I installed my first product of yours (KLAS), which uses the Add-on Manager, I began getting an intermittant problem when I started FSX. The aircraft preview window in the user interface would come up completely black (see attached screenshot). When it was in this state, it appeared to otherwise function normally but, when I tried to launch a flight, it switched to windowed mode instead of full screen, the progress bar went to 100% very quickly and then FSX crashed. When I started FSX for the first time, after booting up my PC, I always got this. When I closed FSX and start it again, it was usually ok. If I had FTX enabled, though, it would do it over and over again.

I started to suspect Add-on Manager so I looked at my dll.xml file (also attached) and I discovered that, if I moved the entry for the Add-on Manager from the beginning (where your installers normally put it) to the end, the problem went away. The only trouble is that now I have another intermittant problem. The Addons menu entry for couatl sometimes doesn't appear when I launch a flight and consequently none of your airports (I foolishly purchased some more after I got KLAS) show up.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2012, 01:28:59 am by virtuali »

virtuali

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Re: Black Aircraft Preview Window Problem
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2012, 01:28:16 am »
The Addon Manager doesn't have anything to do with this, and can't obviously cause what is clearly a video problem, since it doesn't interact in ANY way with anything related to video, and surely not at the Create Flight screen, when it's not doing anything.

What is likely the real source the problem, which is also misleading you into thinking the Addon Manager could have anything to do with it (because moving its loading order seems to "change" something), is that ANOTHER module you have installed, might either leave Simconnect or FSX itself in an unstable state.

This is usually why changing the loading order might change something. The reason why our installer puts the Addon Manager in the first section, was just because we found other 3rd party modules that, when loaded *before*, will cause problems like menus crashing or not appearing, one of them was the FSCopilot program, the Addons menu didn't appear if it was loaded *before* the Addon Manager, but there might be other we don't know yet, you have so many modules installed, that a conflict with something else is very likely.

Your DLL.XML is very stuffed of 3rd party modules, you have 32 MODULES loaded so, before being so sure it's the Addon Manager, first do what should be the most correct troubleshooting step:

- First, disable ALL the modules EXCEPT the Addon Manager  ( just change <Disabled>False</Disabled> to <Disabled>True</Disabled> in their lines ), then launch FSX and check everything is alright, so you'll have proof the Addon Manager is not causing any problems on its own.

- Then, enable each module ONE BY ONE, launch FSX, check, exit, then enable the next one, until you'll eventually find which is the conflicting one.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2012, 01:31:26 am by virtuali »

Dave Parsons

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Re: Black Aircraft Preview Window Problem
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2012, 05:44:14 pm »
Ok, I think I've fixed this now. I'd actually already done what you suggested but I removed all the entries completely from my dll.xml file rather than just disabling them and then put them back one by one, beginning with Addon Manager, and starting FSX to see if I got the black aircraft preview window. I discovered a couple of entries related to aircraft I'd uninstalled a long time ago so I left them out. In the end, I'd put everything else back in and the entry for Addon Manager now happened to be the last entry in the file instead of the first. No black window anymore but I'd lost my Couatl menu and all my airports.

So this time I put the Addon Manager entry back to the beginning of the file and started up FSX - black window again. Then I started taking out some of the other entries starting with the ones that looked a bit suspect. I discovered yet another entry which was related to an uninstalled aircraft and took that out - all problems solved! No black aircraft preview window and my Couatl menu and airports are back again.

Thanks very much for your help. I'm particularly enjoying PHNL at the moment. Any chance you could do some Italian airports, though? I love Italy and I'm guessing you're based there. I'm surprised that no-one's done either of the main Rome airports yet not even Aerosoft.