Can't even start MSFS on Steam any more?

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Honestly I think reinstalling windows is an act of desperation and largely a waste of time. I have never not been able to solve an issue without resorting to this overkill method of approaching the problem. I think this is akin to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The first thing I look at when I get an issue is add-ons and the second, drivers, particularly graphics drivers. Event viewer gives a lot of information on what is failing and there are even W10 applications that can tell you what crashed and why.

I know some insist on reinstalling windows every few months, in a business environment that sort of approach would be both impractical and incredibly expensive and it just isnt done. We fault find and correct the problem, we dont knock the house down because a roof tile is leaking.

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22

Good thing we’re at home flying in a Home Flight Simulator and not in a business or commercial environment…

I do reinstall windows at least 3-4x a year. And definitely once when a major Windows version comes out.

I don’t knock the house down because a roof tile is leaking. I knock the whole house done so I can have an entirely brand new house so it can fix the leaking roof tile, while preventing the wall paint from peeling if I left it alone for too long. And since it’s not in a business environment, it costs practically nothing but your own free time.

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By all means spend your time on that if it makes you feel better. :slightly_smiling_face:
You’ll never know if it made a real difference.

Windows 10 on my gaming rig is an upgraded Windows 8 installed 7-8 years (I think) ago, and I have zero problems with it. With MSFS and with Windows in general.

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If you have nothing more than FS on your system (home flight simulator) why on earth would you feel that it is necessary to reinstall the OS every 3-4 months? What is it that is trashing your OS so badly that you think the solution is to scrap the whole install that many times a year?

Have you ever heard the phrase “If it aint broke dont fix it?”

Reinstalling a new OS afresh I get but what you do should not be necessary on any stable system.

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I use my PC along with everything else. I don’t spend $5000 on a PC just so I can play MSFS. I use it for everything else. Media player, play other games like Cyberpunk, Dragon Age, Mass Effect. I also download a lot of movies, music, and TV series using the same PC.

Junk files build up over time, a lot of files are getting downloaded, transferred, deleted. MSFS gets updated, junk files and caches get build up. Older version backups are building up.

Windows gets updated, and with every updates, it creates a backup file and restore points, overtime they do get build up as junk files.

Nothing is trashing my OS badly, I just like having a fresh feeling PC most of the time. You don’t only bring your car for a repair to the mechanics whenever something is broken. You bring it to them regularly every 10,000 km to prevent something from being broken. Keep it in top shape.

Now OS is different of course, being a software, but it’s still doing things that sometimes you’re not aware of. And overtime, they do slow down eventually. Reinstalling Windows OS regularly is just keeping my PC in clean shape.

I have heard of this phrase, but I always disagree with this notion. I always like change, something new has to come, something better. So I prefer the phrase “If it ain’t broke, it needs an improvement”.

It’s not necessary, of course on a stable system… but it’s still good to do it from time to time regardless of what state it’s in. Besides, Windows 10 has major release updates 2x a year. What better way to install the updated Windows by freshly installing it. That way, the entire OS is exactly has the files that the new version uses, instead of keeping some files from the old version dragging it down.

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26

I have bought my add-ons from different sources and the budget and the only time I get ctds is a crazy OC or corrupt mod
It also has to do with how you manage your OS

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The first step is to review the event viewer, I’m not good at that, but there are people here who are.

If you’re overclocking RAM, well, the first thing I’d do is stop overclocking and see if that helps. Doesn’t matter if it’s been working fine for months. Most programs aren’t as ram intensive as MSFS. If you have a bad stick in there, it may only get used by MSFS. If that doesn’t help, I’d try replacing the ram, or, if you have 32GB, try just using two sticks, and then swap for the other two sticks and see if it starts. IOW, figure out a way to take the RAM out of the equation. You could easily have damaged it.

I’d also look into your MS login. I had a problem like this way back when there was a glitch in the update download, and I had to go through and remove the MS Store app, the Xbox app, load another Xbox app, (rebooting all the while), and some other stuff to finally get the login working.

You could have an SSD that’s going bad, too.

In any event (pun intended), the first step is to review the event viewer and see what’s going on at boot.

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@NickHod42 it sounds to me like you have something interfering with the load/initialization process. The first step I would suggest is to disable (temporarily) any anti-virus or malware software you have running. If this allows you to start up then you can re-enable the software but will need to provide permissions to allow MSFS to do its thing.

FYI:
Contrary to what other personal preferences may be. If you had a working copy when things went sideways, it means that something in your system has changed. Drivers and security software are constantly being updated as are background apps. Renistalling Windows will not roll back those changes. You will end up with the latest versions. One of which may be the reason for your grief, so no upside there.

File corruption is a rare thing that usually only happens when the system terminates abnormally. Power outages or the dog pulling the plug. Forced termination on CTRL+ALT+DEL can occasionally cause data corruption but as this will only be on files that are being changed on the fly such as word docs or database records, it is unlikely that would have any effect on your MSFS or Win 10 files. PLEASE do not resort to Uninstall/Reinstall except as a last resort. If not done correctly this is how we get a messy registry and impossible to find bugs.

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I had to reinstall Windows to get it to work (in August, granted… none of the recent updates have bricked me thankfully.)

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@NickHod42
Where are you Nick? EU? UK?
and you, @pilotg09 ?

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I’m in the UK.

Thanks for the advice. I did try disabling AV and firewall. I can get further into the game if I disable my network connection so I’m pretty sure the issue lies with either a corrupted Steam cloud profile or Xbox profile.

There are lots of ideas for workarounds for those issues on this forum, but none have worked so far.

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There have been a whack of users recently from UK/EU regions complaining of lost cloud files and no server or bad server connections. I don’t have the IPs handy but fire up your network and open the network resource monitor (windows). Then start up the sim. Do you see outgoing but no incoming or does the net traffic seem to go both ways at a reasonable rate?

I ask this as I have seen two new posts today alone where people can’t get into the sim or have no server connection when they do.

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Sorry all I’m at work right now but I’ll post some answers to some questions later. I am US.

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When I get some free time this weekend I’m going to crack open Wireshark on it and figure out what it’s doing at the point of failure.

I tried installing on another PC, but with the same Steam and Xbox account, and it works. So it’s something specific to my gaming PC, but cloud based. Controller profiles is the obvious one, I suppose.

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xxScottxx9184 posted a solution over on the thread about CTDs with the x80000003 exception error. I’m a newbie on this forum, so I haven’t been able to figure out how to properly quote other users. His solution fixed my problems, which sound identical to yours. Good luck.

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FWIW, I’ve learned an old PSU (over 2 years) is often the culprit as capacitors have failed over time. Like many here, I had no critics errors reported - just restart! Indeed, I replaced my PSU in my high end FS computer with a newer same 850W output and no more CTDs. From what I read in Reddit, sudden high demand to the GPU can age the PSU. I can’t prove the relationship, but it was $150 well spent.

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37

Quick update all… I guess I missed something? I cleared my Steam cache… And now it is loading. And seemingly installing. Of course that is going to take all night, will report back if it is actually a good fix.

Theres just no ■■■■■■■ way it was that simple. After the uninstalls, witch hunting all related files on all drives. Verifying game files. Checking drivers and Nvidia settings, checking language packs, etc etc etc there is no way clicking one button fixed it. Id be curious for anyone else to try this and see if it works.

I did not disable XMP, I hadnt gotten that far. Nor had I compiled a crash dump file. More to follow.

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38

Still do that. That stupid thing when enabled makes my cpu run very hot even when idle.

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I can’t believe it, this actually works. Thanks! :+1: Weird thing is, after going through all the official MS troubleshooting docs, and any forum advice I could find, none of it mentioned clearing the Steam cache.

I’m guessing it’s actually the Steam logout, clear all cached user data, login action that resolved the problem, rather than cached download files.

Whilst I’m happy that I now have the game back, this isn’t great Asobo. Logins fail, cookies / tokens expire, user data can get messed up … your software needs to deal with this.

Anyway, I’ll update my ZenDesk ticket with the resolution.

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RAM overclocking has been identified as a common reason for crashes and problems. So many other treads talked about this.