Progress of sorts, although it makes little sense.
Looking at my system, noticed that my free space was 266GB. It was 166GB last night. Very odd. In the last hour of trying to resolve, I’d verified the Steam installation but that was the only task which stands even the most remotest of chances of blowing away the file system. Anyway, I noticed that and started to think that perhaps core install files had, for some completely unknown reason, been removed since last night.
Did a little more searching. Found a post from earlier CTD issues which suggested that deleting the cache file would help. I’d already found a post which suggested clearing out the Steam cache had helped some people, which I tried (after I’d spotted the 266GB issue) but no joy.
Anyway, took a copy of the cache file and restarted the sim. And it cleared the copyright screen and brought up the update screen, and is currently going through the 96.78GB update/install. To all intents and purposes, and thinking back to the 166GB vs 266GB point, the game files have been deleted.
Whether or not it works upon the install completing, and whether or not I have to start over with the training items and a clean log file* I don’t know - will find out and then update the thread as appropriate. Never had this with any other games. I love this sim, and cannot wait for the VR possibilities, but blimey it aint half bugged… Will check the version number before I start doing any flying. I may even just be tempted now to delete it completely and then re-install, will see how we get on.
*I guess this is one way of ‘fixing’ the idiotic ‘vicinity’ pilot’s log issue, which is yet another massive failing in this sim.