Hi, very strange issue happening here today. Yesterday I flew the new DHC-5 in New Zealand without issues but today whenever I click Fly on the map, the sim just hangs. I have tried to unplug every control (but mouse and keyboard) without result. I have cleaned several folders without success. Removed Community without success. I have tried starting just at a parking slot without a flight plan but it hangs immediately as I click Fly.
Discovery flights on the other hand are working where all my controls like joystick etc. are working just fine. I’m completely stuck here 
No idea what to do. I have gone through all FAQs out there, have I missed something I should try? Do I have to reinstall the whole sim??
I attached the hanging process to Visual Studio and it seems to wait for something. To me it looks like a bug, maybe happening when some obscure scenario is triggered?? Still completely stuck here
Unfortunately I cannot see what the sim is doing.
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Swede001 I feel your pain! I have exact same issue but might have picked it up after SU11 update. I too have tried everything including a reinstall of MSFS 2020. In addition, I also screened the system 32 files for errors, reinstalled DirectX, visual C++, the XBOX app and a few other things I can’t remember. Got my hopes up when I first read your thread cause it seems a lot of folks have similar but not exactly the same issue. Anyway, hope we both find a solution soon.
Rickatsea
Yes this is a nightmare. I have now spent I don’t know how many hours on this. I have traced what the sim is doing using that process monitor tool from sys-internals and the only thing that come to my mind is that it could be some issue on the server side with my account or something? That could explain why a reinstall does not work, though i haven’t tried that yet. Have you filed a ticket with MS support?
By the way, when you reinstalled the sim, did you clean the Windows registry? The process monitor utility from sys-internals shows that the sim is accessing the registry a lot. In the old days, the registry could be a nightmare and since the sim is (probably?) reusing a lot of old code, maybe something in the registry is corrupt? Just guessing, I have no clue what is happening under the hood. Trying to pull every string I find.
No I have not yet started a tech support ticket. I assume you have? I was waiting to gather more info. I’m impressed with the troubleshooting you have done! You defiantly are more talented than I in the realm of Windows software. A few more details of what I did just for background cause nothing worked anyway. I was hoping (beyond) hope I would come across a fix that someone else had. The first time I turned my attention to the system32 files, I did a health scan and restore image scan via the CMD prompt of course. After the first time I did this the Sim worked! Ok I thought, its fixed. Only lasted maybe three flights. So I went deeper in looking for other things to try and I think I tried them all short of up grading my Bios. After I reinstalled DirectX and flew two custom flights, I knew I was getting lucky. Sure enough the sim started to hang again. Now I’m desperate. I hate having to reinstall the main game, I always try and hold off as long as I can before I do that, especially with all the add-ons I have. So I did re-install (Store version) but I will confess, I totally forgot about clearing the registry after uninstalling. I’m glad you mentioned that even though it’s too late I assume. Anyway as stated earlier the reinstall didn’t work, not one single custom flight but discovery flights work fine. Boy was that depressing. So I’m very intrigued by what you uncovered via visual studio. I hope you are on the right track and as soon as the right person see’s it, the cause and solution will be identified. I’ll start a tech support ticket soon I guess. Thanks for the extra chat. Let’s keep sharing if you think we and some other poor sod w same issue can benefit. 
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Ok, I have done some more research. I first tried to do a repair but with no success. Then I tried a reset (see below image) and what happened was that the whole Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe folder was emptied but the packages folder containing Official and Community remained intact. When I started the sim, the whole Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe was repopulated again and the sim took ages to start. I probably lost all my bush trip history but I can live without that stuff.
Unfortunately the reset didn’t solve the main issue but the good thing is that I can exclude any corrupt file in that AppData folder. This folder seems to hold personal data and maybe also compiled wasm files. The real game data is probably completely stored in the Official folder so if there is something that is corrupt it must be in there, or at least that is my hypothesis right now. Of course there can be some other issue like hardware (I doubt it after a lot of investigation and I can fly bush trips without issues), some other software (I doubt it because I haven’t installed any new software since this issue appeared), or some communication issue where my computer cannot ping a server somewhere. My primary suspect is though the core sim files or something I have bought from the Market Place. The latest thing I bought was the DCH-5 which I flew last Saturday though.
The question is how to proceed. Should I uninstall all paid airports or should I start with any aircraft? The whole sim seems to be very data driven to a huge extent. Scenery and aircraft are made up from definitions stored in different files in the Official folder and even more details are coming from the cloud. I haven’t changed any code (I haven’t seen any software update from MS after I bought the DCH-5) so maybe some data file is corrupt but why?? If they contain plain data they should only be read and a sudden death of the sim process should not cause a corrupt file.
This is a big mystery. I doubt a reinstall will fix this. Maybe the only option left is to wait for SU12 and meanwhile fly all the bush trips (they work fine!!) to keep the abstinence level low. I guess no help from MS is expected. If SU12 doesn’t fix it, then I’m out of options. No more community flying or adventures around the globe
Interesting work you continue to do. Looks like you are returning to the idea of corrupted data on your computer vs. something on the network causing the hang? I to tried the repair but not the reset. I assume you started a ticket and presented some of your ideas and have not gotten a reply yet?
SU 12 is still a few weeks away and of course may not solve this issue. Our problem does not seem wide spread at all. I’m trying to decide on my next step which might be wiping all flight sim related apps off my PC. Reinstall, with a clean registry this time, MSFS 2020 and leave it in it’s most vanilla state and see if I can get that to run. I’d like to know the difference from running custom flights and the canned discovery flights as far as the app mechanics are concerned, cause therein lies the issue or at least a major clue.
I can’t see this as being a hardware issue either. I guess after all that , if I still have no joy, I’ll post a ticket. I hope you get yours running right soon, deserve it after all the time you have put in.
Hi, thanks for keeping posting here, it feels good that I’m not alone here! I dug further into the Windows reporting stuff, see below screen shot. Maybe it would be possible to extract more info out of the Hang Type and the Hang Signatures if you just know how to interpret them! One interesting thing is that the report has been sent so Microsoft should have information/statistics about all these hangs. The question is what they do with that.
I’m now thinking about a complete uninstall/reinstall, the question is how to guarantee that everything is removed. For example the executables for the sim are located in a hidden folder and I’m not sure if it is safe to change ownership of that folder. Since MS doesn’t want me to poke around in there, maybe I shouldn’t? How can I be sure that everything is deleted? I hope MS keeps track of me in the cloud so I’m not lost if I remove everything 
(Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Security and Maintenance\Problem Details)
All this is very strange, now I’m flying the California bush trip and I have never had such a smooth experience but normal flights hang immediately. Maybe the next step is to remove all paid items? The question is how to know what is paid and what is default, in the content manager you have no filtering options
LOL! LOok you have have ground services on that hill! Can’t get that in real life! Congrats on getting up and running again! That’s awesome! I was just reading the MS guide to restoring to the vanilla state and the process is sorta similar to what you did. I’ll try your technique tonight! Oh, If that Gaya airport was indeed the issue or closely related, you might want to let them know. I wish you many happy flights and that “hanging” days are over!
