Hi @Robakyo, & welcome to the forums!
There are many reasons why the simulator can freeze, and trying to track down the causes is not easy, as you appear to have found out for yourself.
From what you wrote, I see three separate issues:
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Checking for updates.
This has been affecting many users for the past few days - you can read about it in this topic.
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If you read through the topic, you’ll see a number of solutions that worked for individuals (but none that are guarenteed to work for everyone). On the two occasions over the last couple of weeks where the sim got stuck (i.e. more than 30 seconds) on “Checking for Updates”, I just pressed Alt-Enter to get to windowed-mode, clicked the exit button (“X” on the right-hand-side of the menu bar at the top), then restarted the sim. It has worked for me and for others, but not, unfortunately, for everyone. -
General freezes
To start with, Have a look at these self-help steps from the Zendesk:
- In-Flight freezes “after getting lined up at the airport/during the flight”
This can happen when the sim is being requested to do too much at once. This is particularly the case when on approach to airports. The sim has to both render the world around your aircraft and start loading all the scenery & AI at the airport.
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Airport traffic density - both planes & ground vehicles - have an impact on performance and can cause stutters, depending upon PC hardware, GPU software settings & MSFS settings.
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If you are getting stutters on approach or while taxiing at an airport, try lowering the Airport Life settings (under Options | General Option | Traffic) to a lower value or even zero.
Hope this helps!