This CTD show started with the last 2 NVIDIA driver updates. As far as I remember it wasn’t happening right after SU13 but I haven’t played too much at that period.
2 CTD events became usual and reproducable. First: topic of this thread, when zooming in to the world map. Second: loading in FBW A320 or Just Flight PA28. Even if they succeeded the sim CTD-t after a few minutes in flight (or on the ground.
By luck I found out that if I lower the speed of my so far perfectly working GPU (no OC) the sim became a lot more stable. I still had occasional issues with world map and PA28 but not with FBW A320.
HW error doesn’t seem to be an issue. Tested all my components back and forth monitoring my PSU performance and there were no errors anytime. PSU keeps stable voltages well inside the limits (+1-2% deviation), temperatures are in the comfort zone (max 70-72C for both CPU and GPU and only for short terms, it usually under 65C), mainboard components are also well cooled. Power line is protected by a stable UPS so no surges, instabilities are likely.
I got the error code: “exception code crash 0xc0000005” but no luck handling it with the linked advices, results are similar.
Tried all the ideas here with no success. My Windows and all device / mainboard drivers are the latest. I’ve reinstalled the whole sim, tried in vanilla mode and with no mods, lowered my network bandwidth to 100Mbit, disabled weather layer on world map, etc to no avail CTDs are the same and easily reproducable.
However I found out that if I both throttle my GPU back to 80-90 percent AND clear the weather layer from the World Map the CTD actually almost disappeared. That means I could rotate the planet, zoom in/out anywhere as fast as I can and it has worked. Sad that during writing this it has just CTDd without any intervention, just running on another screen…
Investigation is still going on at Asobo and we have identified possible causes for this issue. We do not have a fix for it yet, but we recommend all users who are seeing this issue, to join Sim Update 14 beta that will go live later this week.
All fixes for this issue will be pushed to beta. You are most likely still seeing the issue with the launch of the beta but it will receive many updates before the release of Sim Update 14 in December.
Details on how to join will be available on the forum when SU14 beta goes live.
I’ve just did it (clean install to an even earlier version) but haven’t tested it yet thoroughly. Just forgot to mention this but many thanks as it’s a relevant comment and might be usable by others too.
This has worked for me and the 2 other forum members who have tried it so far.
IMPORTANT TO NOTE
This is only a workaround for the CTD’s which have only started happening in the past 7-10 days and is due to an issue loading terrain tiles from the BING server. So far it appears to only be happening to folk with high speed >100mbps connections (although this is just my theory). It is not a fix-all for CTDs which either already existed or are due to a generally unstable system/nvidia drivers/etc.
I’m on 537.34 and didn’t helped at all unfortunately.
I’m more and more convinced that this CTD issue relates to BING/photogrammetry data handling. I don’t know why it happens with some 3rd party planes more often but both my map and my flight loading issues happen when a new/complex area is visited or when I turn towards such an area during the flight abruptly (for example in drone mode). Might have to do something with scenery caches too, I’ll need to check that later.
Since I have this issue I’m using a VPN to an US location (I’m in France). Using it, I can zoom, unzoom without issues. The side effect is that the map is loading slowly
I hope this will help
Yes, that’s exactly I also experience. My assumption is that it’s connected to the quick zoom-in to world map as both reaches out to BING data.
TBH I’ve experienced better FPS in some situations but it’s hard to enjoy with so regular CTDs…
What i dont understand is, how “too fast” can be an issue.
I understand that “too slow” might cause a timeout but what can possibly go wrong with a fast internet connection?
I simply refuse to throttle my bandwidth as a workaround. I pay for fast internet for a good reason.
Instead my workaround is to zoom in gradually as this seems to work for me as well.
My experience of this bug is as follows. A daily CTD occurs always when zooming the map after SU13. Before SU13 I would describe MSFS as quite a stable sim, a CTD perhaps once every few weeks, assuming I load it daily. I can replicate these CTDs easily in safe or normal mode just by zooming the map in and out at random places around the world. I have used two speeds; my wifi (250 Mbps) or over ethernet (950 Mbps). The only difference I can see is that the scenery is slightly worse quality at the lower speed and there are more scenery “pop ups” and some weird rectangular shadows. I have seen no difference in the frequency of CTDs. There is no connection with Nvidia driver updates for me, I have an AMD adapter.
I do NOT get a CTD when I zoom in and out of the world map, no matter how fast and often I do so, and what options I have turned on, (weather, IFR etctec)
BUT
Now I am looking at this more carefully, I do see that the globe ROTATES at some point when I am zooming in and out to maximum extents.
Did not expect this, but it may be a connected symptom
Does NOT rotate, if I first click on a spot anywhere on the globe – then it zooms in out to that click spot (which is GOOD !@@)
Anti-TCP flood measures at the server or simply the server can’t cope with multiple TCP requests in a small space of time and so ungracefully drops the connection. You’d expect Azure servers as well as MSFS to handle this but since this is all guess work I’m happy to be corrected. All I know is my 100mbps workaround is still holding on my system.
Edit: I know it’s crazy dropping my connection down from 500mbps to 100mbps to avoid CTDs but I only do this while playing MSFS. At all other times i put it back to normal full speed and so my PC is not permanently degraded. Hopefully this won’t be for long.
@Gullwing91 Yes, in the meantime I also tried the last stable NVIDIA driver version and no success so I can only connect these CTDs to SU13. I just rarely used it before the driver updates…
@Wined2310 Zooming in gradually helps for me too - sometimes. But usually reaching a certain, more detailed zoom level - and going above 100mbits of download speed for short bursts - the CTD happen even if I’ve did it carefully.
@AboezD As I’m also experiencing that these CTDs are usually happen with these data bursts I mentioned above (still for me, lowering maximum bandwidth didn’t helped unfortunately) so yes, your version might be in the good direction. A quick “deny” of data service from the servers are not handled well on the client also causing references to invalid memory addresses thus killing it. If the people more susceptive to this CTD are usually having high speed internet and higher-end PCs which are capable to request and process large data packages in a region where servers are not capable to serve such amount of data requests. If this is true some possible way of solution which seem to be the way forward.
Best, most possibly the most difficult and costly: upgrade the server architecture to manage these requests.
On the sim side: Change maximum bandwidth of these requests to make servers able to handle them - would cause stutters as actual sim quality would require more data to flow as possible - might be a “quick and dirty” solution.
On the sim side: try to create larger “pre-cache” of the environment. That would cause lot more data to be downloaded unnecessary and the local memory/storage(?) requirements would increase a lot too but the data flow could be better planned and maintained, lower average speeds instead of high bursts.
This solution would use a lot more resource on both server and client side and load on the internet - but there might be solutions to lower it. I’m sure they have pretty good network architects/designers who can develop a better network stack with good support from MS side for Azure capabilities. I’d be surprised if they’re using TCP instead of UDP for such traffic already but I haven’t checked it.
My mention of TCP was just in general terms. I’ve not checked what protocol is being used.
I’m sorry the workaround hasn’t worked for you. The 2 posters who tried it yesterday had instant success (although with random crashes like this it can take some time to be certain).
Disclaimer
I repeat here (as this thread grows quickly and may have been lost) that this theory of too fast an internet network connection is based purely on a hunch of mine but is supported by the 16 posters who said they have the problem (but only started in the past few days) also have fast connections. My workaround also supports the theory. However I’ve been a software engineer long enough to know that sometimes the true issue is being masked and/or triggered by other causes. So the true issue may indeed lie elsewhere.
I can confirm that slowing down my internet download speed has definitely reduced the number of CTDs I’ve experienced. For me, the problem has been more with the CTDs that occur while the flight is loading, usually having it hang around the 80% complete point, then crashing.
I “stress tested” the sim by loading as many random aircraft/airport combinations from all around the world as I could and I was able to load 15, or so, flights before the sim finally crashed. I wouldn’t normally fly this many different flights in one session, but I was just curious, and those are odds I can live with, for now. With my internet running at full speed, I’m still seeing crashes way more frequently, usually within 2 or 3 different flights, but just as often when it’s loading the very first flight.
I wholeheartedly agree that throttling down your internet speed is not an acceptable solution for even a second longer than it takes to fix the problem. But for those of us whose sim is crashing as frequently as it is, it may be the best workaround.
My assumption is it finishes loading plane and the scenery - it has usually with high CPU load, network load and starts to ramp up VRAM at that phase - when it doesn’t CTD…
Then we have the same root cause as I suspected earlier…Whether it’s related to BING data only or any other high bandwidth service would suffer I don’t know but I’m not sure if there’s any other sim service that requires such data load.
Thank you for your efforts!
