Author Topic: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries  (Read 11618 times)

Mike...

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FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« on: January 22, 2010, 09:04:27 pm »
I have just installed EHAM, KDCA, and KLAX. On a fresh install of Windows 7 32-bit. Installs went fine, activations also, but I had a couple of crashes in between. Now, with all three installed and activated, FS9 will not get beyond a couple second display of the splash screen. It will show the attached error message. If I deactive bglman.dll (1.0.0.74) by changing its name to bglman.bak, the error disappears and FS9 starts up normally. With my firewall/anti-virus combo completely turned off, I also get the error.

What can I do now? Should I download the addon manager separately, even though all three installers downloaded something already? Should I turn off the FW/AV during install? Hope you can help.

virtuali

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2010, 09:33:09 pm »
Installs went fine, activations also

This means the Addon Manager worked for a while, because you were able to activate.

Quote
Now, with all three installed and activated, FS9 will not get beyond a couple second display of the splash screen. It will show the attached error message. If I deactive bglman.dll (1.0.0.74) by changing its name to bglman.bak, the error disappears and FS9 starts up normally. With my firewall/anti-virus combo completely turned off, I also get the error.

I suspect your file got corrupted in some way because, if it ran successfully once, it just can't stop running like this. Unless something external gets in the way, which is usually the antivirus.

Try a reboot, and do the following:

Try the following:

- Turn the Antivirus OFF

- Uninstall your sceneries. Reply YES to the question "Do you want to remove the Addon Manager?"

- Reinstall your sceneries. Don't launch FS9 yet

- Configure your antivirus to ignore the MODULES\bglman.dll file in the FS9 folder. Or the whole MODULES folder. Don't just leave the A/V off: CONFIGURE IT like this, please.

- Turn the Antivirus back ON, then launch FS

« Last Edit: January 23, 2010, 12:26:57 am by virtuali »

Mike...

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2010, 12:12:00 am »
You must have copied that from somewhere, because I don't have PHNL...

But here's what I did, I rebooted, I removed bglman.dll and the three bglman dat files. I turned off my anti-virus program and ran the standalone addon manager installer. I started FS9, same error...

I think I will remove all three C9 sceneries, clean up and start anew.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2010, 02:13:18 pm by Mike... »

virtuali

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2010, 12:29:42 am »
You must have copied that from somewhere, because I don't have PHNL...

Yes, but that doesn't change anything because, the Addon Manager files are always coming from the internet from the same location in all installers so, it doesn't make any difference which scenery you'll use to reinstall, because they all install the same files.

Quote
But here's what I did, I rebooted, I removed bglman.dll and the three bglman dat files. I turned on my anti-virus program and ran the standalone addon manager installer. I started FS9, same error...

You missed one step:

Quote
- Configure your antivirus to ignore the MODULES\bglman.dll file in the FS9 folder. Or the whole MODULES folder. Don't just leave the A/V off: CONFIGURE IT like this, please.

I repeat again the correct sequence. Do it exactly as it is, don't skip any step:

- Turn the Antivirus OFF

- Uninstall your sceneries. Reply YES to the question "Do you want to remove the Addon Manager?"

- Reinstall your sceneries. Don't launch FS9 yet

- Configure your antivirus to ignore the MODULES\bglman.dll file in the FS9 folder. Or the whole MODULES folder. Don't just leave the A/V off: CONFIGURE IT like this, please.

- Turn the Antivirus back ON, then launch FS

Mike...

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #4 on: January 23, 2010, 12:43:37 am »
What is the point of excluding a file or folder if the anti-virus program isn't running at all... I didn't miss it, I ignored it. Once I am satisfied that everything works without AV, then I'll exclude it so that I can keep the AV running.

It is odd however, safe for definition updates, my AV program is the same as it has been these past few months, never had an issue with it before when I installed C9 and FSDT sceneries as recent as back in late October or running FS9 these past few months. So why would this be an issue all of a sudden? The only change is that I switched from C9 installers to these new FSDT ones. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea... I was planning on installing the rest of my sceneries this evening. Bgl man had other plans.

::)

Edit: Well, no go. I'll try one more thing and that is removing the C9 registry key.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2010, 12:50:01 am by Mike... »

virtuali

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #5 on: January 23, 2010, 12:52:13 am »
What is the point of excluding a file or folder if the anti-virus program isn't running at all... I didn't miss it, I ignored it.

Because not all the antivirus software switches off entirely its protection, unless you uninstall it. So please, try to do that.


Quote
It is odd however, safe for definition updates, my AV program is the same as it has been these past few months

The definition updates are exactly what can cause a problem like this, because something that resembles the bglman signature, might been just added. Everything the antivirus knows comes from the definition updates.

Quote
The only change is that I switched from C9 installers to these new FSDT ones.

The C9 installers might have instead created this problem, which the FSDT installer should fix but, for any reason, the fix might have not worked:

Check the following locations for this file:

C:\Windows\Esellerateengine.dll
C:\ProgramData\Esellerate\Esellerateengine.dll
\YOUR_FS9_Folder\Esellerateengine.dll

If you find any of these files, manually remove them, then reinstall the sceneries because, the C9 installer might have put an older, incompatible version of the .dll, that our installers weren't able to update, especially if it was on the C:\Windows folder.

Mike...

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #6 on: January 23, 2010, 01:06:31 am »
Just to be clear, this is a fresh install of Windows 7. In this environment I have not run a single C9 installer, only FSDT installers, three to be precise, EHAM, KDCA, and KLAX. I had registry files for all three which I merged with the registry after installation. Of EHAM I actually have the boxed version, I bought it just south of Schiphol in an aviation store several years ago, just after I had dropped my parents off at the airport. It was as far as I can remember the first scenery I ever bought.

Okay, I've excluded the entire separate partition FS is on, even though I'm pretty sure ZA is completely turned off when I tell it to shut down. I will check for the other dll files and try one last time tonight.

Mike...

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #7 on: January 23, 2010, 12:25:08 pm »
Okay, I have done everything you said I should do, FS crashed not with an error, but with nothing, poof and it was gone. It activated, it continued loading and then it was gone. Same thing happened earlier. I'm gonna launch FS9 again, last time it started and stopped alright and then followed the crashes with error message. We'll see what happens. I can always grab my C9 installers from a backup and see what happens with them.

Edit: btw, my anti-virus program shows me a message when it finds a virus or other problem and it quarantines the file in question. This has never happened with bglman.dll, so why would this be an anti-virus problem?
« Last Edit: January 23, 2010, 12:28:24 pm by Mike... »

virtuali

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #8 on: January 23, 2010, 01:04:42 pm »
Edit: btw, my anti-virus program shows me a message when it finds a virus or other problem and it quarantines the file in question. This has never happened with bglman.dll, so why would this be an anti-virus problem?

This is what I've was saying all along, and it's exactly what is happening: you are getting the new files, except for the .DLL which is blocked by the antivirus, so you have a mixup of old and new files, which causes the quit to desktop.

I think to already have explained it: even if you don't change your antivirus, when you update your definitions, a program that might have been considered safe until the day before, might start to be flagged as dangerous.

This is the typical mistake of heuristic virus detection: in order (for marketing reasons) to be able to advertise the ability to catch viruses that are not discovered yet, the antivirus software is not just using a database of programs that have been proved to be threats, but it also does wild guesses by similarity.

A software that tries to defend itself from tampering or hacking (would you trust put your Credit card number in a software that doesn't ?), and uses strong cryptography, is exactly what a legit ecommerce software does but, unfortunately, these are also methods viruses use to conceal from antivirus software. So, the heuristics decides, to be on the safe side, to flag it as a threat, and block its execution.

It's obviously not something that is related to our own software: if you go on Flight1 forum, they have exactly the same issues with some antivirus software:

http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=24061

The reason is exactly the same.

Unfortunately, there's no way to just suggest an antivirus software because, the same software that might have worked one day, might start blocking a program because of a definition update. THAT'S why it's VERY important to be able to explicitely exclude files/folders from scanning, because you just CAN'T blindly trust the heuristic. With this regard, we completely agree with Flight1, that one shouldn't use an antivirus without the ability to exclude files under user's control.

Please, do not use the C9 installers, they will just mess your system again, and you'll be back are to start from scratch.

The solution is always what I've said and please, do it exactly as I've said, DO NOT ignore ANY step.

- Turn the Antivirus OFF

- Uninstall your sceneries. Reply YES to the question "Do you want to remove the Addon Manager?"

- Reinstall your sceneries. Don't launch FS9 yet

- Configure your antivirus to ignore the MODULES\bglman.dll file in the FS9 folder. Or the whole MODULES folder. Don't just leave the A/V off: CONFIGURE IT like this, please.

- Turn the Antivirus back ON, then launch FS

virtuali

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Mike...

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #10 on: January 23, 2010, 02:10:21 pm »
You can explain, repeat, and copy and paste it all you want, but that doesn't change a thing. I use ZoneAlarm Anti-virus. ZoneAlarm makes arguably the best firewall in the business and the anti-virus component is powered by Kaspersky Lab, arguably the best anti-virus available.

Now, that doesn't mean that there are no false positives, but my program doesn't do anything without asking for my permission or without at the very least notifying me about what it has already done. In case of ZAAV, when it finds a virus or other malware, it quarantines the affected file immediately and it pops up a clear message. I have recieved no such message, nor has the file in question been quarantined, so I can only conclude that ZAAV is not the culprit. I'm not saying bglman is, although I'm not a fan of it, at all.

Anyway, I said I did exactly what you asked of me, so why are we having this discussion anyway...

After that first crash, it went as I predicted, FS9 started fine the next time. And although the real problems started after that the last time, now the subsequent installations of KDCA and KLAX went fine and FS9 starts up fine as well. I turned off the exclusion (yeah, I know) and rebooted. I started up FS9 and lo and behold, it starts up fine... no exclusions... Does that prove anything, I don't know.

So for now, I'm all set and done. Five different scenery developers to go before I get to the FS Dream Team folder of four installers...

;D

Mike...

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #11 on: January 23, 2010, 04:19:26 pm »
I've now done everything up to and including the four FSDT sceneries I have and without an anti-virus exclusion, everything went fine, no further problems, thank the big bang... Plenty more to do, but I need a break first.

;)

virtuali

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2010, 07:05:02 pm »
And although the real problems started after that the last time, now the subsequent installations of KDCA and KLAX went fine and FS9 starts up fine as well. I turned off the exclusion (yeah, I know) and rebooted. I started up FS9 and lo and behold, it starts up fine... no exclusions... Does that prove anything, I don't know.

Yes, it proves your problem was probabably antivirus/firewall related, but of a different kind: the file wasn't blocked when it was in the FS9 folder which, as you are saying now, it finally runs from the FS9 folder.

The problem might have been that your firewall/antivirus has probably blocked the file *before* it was in the FS9 folder, probably while it was the the Windows temporary folder.

ALL installers I know of, don't copy files directly in their destination folder but, they first uncompress everything in a folder they create with a random name under the Windows %TMP% folder, and THEN files are copied from there to their final destination. The temporary folder is of course removed when the installation is done.

The issue might have been that your firewall might have some kind of rule to prevent access to the %tmp% folder OR, might block by default things there, before they get the chance to be copied in their final location.

So, the problem was the correct version of the .DLL that was just downloaded, didn't get the chance to be installed and, if there's a mix-match between the .DLL and its related .DAT files, FS9 will quit to the Desktop.

That's the most probable explanation, with the facts you reported.

virtuali

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Re: FS9 Crashes after installing C9 sceneries
« Reply #13 on: January 23, 2010, 07:07:34 pm »
Quote
I've now done everything up to and including the four FSDT sceneries I have and without an anti-virus exclusion

So, what was it that you changed that finally fixed it ? A firewall setting, a reboot maybe ? In any case, it seems the problem has been solved.