Jump to content

Useful tips if MSFS stops working


Recommended Posts

I have had MSFS installed in a specially built computer and all went well with it until a couple of months ago.

Yesterday I launched it and installed the mandatory update, leaving other updates to another time. Today, I attempted to launch and immediately , black screen as usual, then ctd. Checked event viewer and problem is missing dll, this has gone for months with attempts to install runtimes and individual dll`s without success.

You can imagine my frustration on the sim starting yesterday and today, zilch.

Any ideas please.

  • Like 1
  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello,

the first thing to do would be to try this:

 

1. Delete any rolling cache.

2. Delete the Content.xml file.

(AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Content.xml)

3. Delete the simulator .dat files

(AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\SceneryIndexes\*.dat)

4. Do not add anything to the Community folder

 

 

  • Like 2
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have done what Nick suggested and am waiting till tomorrow to see what happens.As for Pete`s suggestion I will try that if Nicks does not.

Because of circumstances, I have not been in the Forum for a couple years and I am glad I did now. I know where the simmers help is.

If neither advice works,  well thats life. If does, you will be the first to know.

Anyway, Thanks for your help.

Joe.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Done both of what Nick and Pete suggested but still getting dll problem.

Sorry I am late with my reply,I had a few days with a slight infection.

Nice to hear from you.

I`m tearing what is left of my hair with this problem. I find it odd that the sim started to download updates and yet next day nothing.

Nick, I used the Gen Discussion because I had reckoned it was a Wndows problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you haven't yet tried any of these it's worthwhile to give it a shot:

 

Uninstall MSFS completely using the Apps window from your search bar.

 

Confirm that the Flight Simulator folder(s) have been completely removed from your system.

 

Log out of Microsoft Store.

Log out of XBox App.

 

Then you'll need to reset the Microsoft Store using the command line:  wsreset.exe

 

Log in to Microsoft Store.  If you have the XBox app log in there as well.

 

From the Microsoft Store find your purchased products and install MSFS.

 

If the dll problem still occurs it's almost certain you have a corrupt install of Windows 10.  You might need to wipe your OS and start again.  Once reinstalled you'll also need to confirm that the W10 version is updated to what is required for MSFS.

 

There has to be a solution for this, it's a matter of sleuthing until it's found.

  • Like 1
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello,

Microsoft Flight Simulator is apparently working for millions of customers, or so we can read.

Unfortunately, there are so many variations in PC hardware, PC configuration and other PC

installed software, that it is inevitable that some MSFS customers will have problems.

 

For example, a friend of mine has something called "Sonic Studio" installed which apparently

comes with Asus motherboards. With it installed, MSFS refused to start, the Event Viewer citing

an audio dll as the cause. Once Sonic Studio was uninstalled, all returned to normal.

 

In this case, it seems that the cause is also a dll but Joe has not told us which one.

It might still be helpful if the dll could be named.

 

Users with problems all tend to be attracted towards forums and so the overall picture can be

skewed if only reading forms where these are reported. Once the user has reached the forum,

the correct advice has been given and yet the problem does not go away, there is only the recipient's

word  that the advice was followed correctly

This is not to suggest anything more than that some are better at applying exact advice correctly than

others and of course there are varying levels of computer skills.

 

The perfect illustration of this is the wide variance of reported MSFS customer experience, which varies

between the seamless installation and subsequent performance and the complete inability to install in the first place.

 

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Nick Cooper said:

Hello,

Microsoft Flight Simulator is apparently working for millions of customers, or so we can read.

Unfortunately, there are so many variations in PC hardware, PC configuration and other PC

installed software, that it is inevitable that some MSFS customers will have problems.

 

For example, a friend of mine has something called "Sonic Studio" installed which apparently

comes with Asus motherboards. With it installed, MSFS refused to start, the Event Viewer citing

an audio dll as the cause. Once Sonic Studio was uninstalled, all returned to normal.

 

In this case, it seems that the cause is also a dll but Joe has not told us which one.

It might still be helpful if the dll could be named.

 

Users with problems all tend to be attracted towards forums and so the overall picture can be

skewed if only reading forms where these are reported. Once the user has reached the forum,

the correct advice has been given and yet the problem does not go away, there is only the recipient's

word  that the advice was followed correctly

This is not to suggest anything more than that some are better at applying exact advice correctly than

others and of course there are varying levels of computer skills.

 

The perfect illustration of this is the wide variance of reported MSFS customer experience, which varies

between the seamless installation and subsequent performance and the complete inability to install in the first place.

 

 

Well Nick, I can assure you that I carried out to the letter the advice given.

The dll that is troubling me is---ucrtbase.dll version 10.0.19041.789

Do you think this will help?

I still cannot understand how the sim worked and installed the mandatory update on one day and next day the dll struck.

Joe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello,

I put that into the FS forums search and it came up with this link.

One of them might point you in the right direction perhaps.

There seem to be 26 instances of ucrtbase.dll on my C drive,

What is the exact path recorded in your Event Viewer?

I don't suppose you could have removed the English (United States) language pack?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, joemills said:

Well Nick, I can assure you that I carried out to the letter the advice given.

The dll that is troubling me is---ucrtbase.dll version 10.0.19041.789

Do you think this will help?

I still cannot understand how the sim worked and installed the mandatory update on one day and next day the dll struck.

Joe

 

@Nick Cooper

 

I am sorry to hear that you are still experiencing difficulties

 

In answer to your question "I still cannot understand how the sim worked and installed the mandatory update on one day and next day the dll struck."   you might find

the following personal experience of interest.

 

For the last 3 days, my MS2020 has been defunct.  CTD every time I went to start it.  Before that absolutely solid performance.  

 

Found the culprit and it was not MS2020 :).  I have a sound enhancer program called Nahimic  (Nahimic - Audio that matters ) which came with

my computer when it was built.

 

I really like it and it works very well and does a great job.  Last night I got MS2020 working again.

 

Last night I checked windows store update  and Nahimic was updated 3 days ago when I started up my computer. 

Shortly thereafter  MS2020 started CTD on startup.

 

in looking at the Nahimic settings, there are options to temporarily disable it, if,  as they say "third party applications" interfere with it. 

So clicked that setting and MS2020 started up flawlessly.

 

Put Nahimic back on and CTD immediately.

 

I am beginning to wonder if a lot of the "churn" about MS2020 being badly programmed has  nothing to do with MS2020 but may 

be related  to  something else that you have running on your machine that got updated and is now causing an issue with MS2020 through a 

incompatibility such as a drivers, .dll's, libraries such as C++ etc. .  The reason for this is that many applications also install their own support "bits"

when they are installed originally or updated.

 

It makes very logical sense as well. MS2020 uses  its own sound effects engine technology (links below) which surprisingly worked

with Nahimic for the longest time.  So my plan today is to uninstall Nahimic, as much as I like it :(

 

I'm not suggesting that this is the root cause of your problem, but only that PC's have a lot of different applications that can unfortunately

interact with one another with unintended consequences.

 

Why Nahimic & MS2020 worked just fine up until the last Nahimic update is just one of life's mysteries.

 

Cheers

Pete

 

Creating the Soaring Sound of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020: | A Sound Effect

 

 

Edited by renault
  • Like 1
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another thing worth trying is a very simple one, change the name of your community folder to community1 then run MSFS it will then create an empty community folder as default and not use the old one, if it works then it could mean a faulty mod or addon some of the freeware ones are never updated. you can then just add the addons one at a time to the new community folder and try and find the faulty one, Or just delete the new one and change the old one back to community.

 

When ASOBO release updates this is something you should always do and is recommended by them as it allows the Sim to update without loading all the community stuff as well. 

Edited by Kwarazi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Joe

 

@Nick Cooper

@joemills

 

Hi again Joe

 

In case the root cause of your issues may be due to windows itself, you might find the following helpful

 

I have done this multiple times on my machine over the years and it reliably will fix a multitude of windows problems.

 

The process reinstalls your current Windows 10 installation without losing any apps or data

 

Here is a comprehensive  guide to the steps involved:  I have found the author of the video to be knowledgeable and reliable.

 

 

 

This is a link to Microsoft to download Windows 10 Installation media

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10

 

Just for information, I have always used the option to put the installation media onto a usb drive, but as explained in

the video either method will work.

 

It does take the better part of an hour, as you are completely reinstalling windows but when you are finished you will have a  new, clean win10 installation and  all your existing applications, settings and data will be exactly as they were before you reinstalled.

 

If the difficulties you are having are possibly  due to a corrupt win10 installation , then this will at least eliminate that from the problem analysis.

 

Hope this is of help

Cheers

Pete

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, renault said:

Hi Joe

 

@Nick Cooper

@joemills

 

Hi again Joe

 

In case the root cause of your issues may be due to windows itself, you might find the following helpful

 

I have done this multiple times on my machine over the years and it reliably will fix a multitude of windows problems.

 

The process reinstalls your current Windows 10 installation without losing any apps or data

 

Here is a comprehensive  guide to the steps involved:  I have found the author of the video to be knowledgeable and reliable.

 

 

 

This is a link to Microsoft to download Windows 10 Installation media

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10

 

Just for information, I have always used the option to put the installation media onto a usb drive, but as explained in

the video either method will work.

 

It does take the better part of an hour, as you are completely reinstalling windows but when you are finished you will have a  new, clean win10 installation and  all your existing applications, settings and data will be exactly as they were before you reinstalled.

 

If the difficulties you are having are possibly  due to a corrupt win10 installation , then this will at least eliminate that from the problem analysis.

 

Hope this is of help

Cheers

Pete

Many thanks for that Pete.I intend to tackle your advice tomorrow (Monday).I have some health problems that do not allow me to spend too much time at the computer.

After my reaction to give up on it, I thought "What the hell", too many guys have offered their help it would be churlish of me to give up.

Joe

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Joe

@joemills

@Nick Cooper

 

Just as a check I went through the above procedure on my machine today to make sure that all in the note  was in order. It was and took about 45 minutes or so and updates to the latest Win10 version 21H1. 

 

Windows has this odd little habit of thinking that everyone runs on a lap top.  For this reason, when you are done, there is one additional thing to do 

 

I put a note together on it a while ago

This is described in the above note.....

 

Go to the  Device manager and then scroll down to Universal Serial Bus Controllers.  For each one that is listed, 

right click on it, select properties and then go to the Power Management tab.  Make sure to unclick "Allow computer to shut off this device to save power"

 

This is the only setting I found that wasn't kept when I did a win10 reinstall today.

 

Cheers

Pete

 

 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Joe @joemills

cc @Nick Cooper

 

I have also copied Nick on this as he may have some further thoughts.

 

I have to admit this is a bit of a puzzler.

 

I'm a bit out of ideas on this one , as you mentioned that you had reinstalled
C++ previously. However if you haven't here is how to do it.

 

What you want to do is to uninstall ucrtbase.dll from C++ and then reinstall it.


Apparently ucrtbase.dll is a control.dll within Windows C++ , but it doesn't show up
when you do a search for it.

 

From what I have read MS2020 does access C++ and the problem may be a corrupt file in
the C++ repository.

 

To do this do the following.

 

Uninstall Visual C++  

 

In the Windows  search window,  type Control Panel & then select Uninstall a program

Go down to the  Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 - 2019 Redistributable (x64)  and uninstall it.

 

Then (re)install the latest version
of Visual C++ (Visual Studio 2015, 2017 and 2019) then reboot your computer.

 

You can find the latest version of Visual C++ from

The latest supported Visual C++ downloads (microsoft.com)

 

and since you are no doubt on Win10 64 bit, you will want the X64 package.

 

If this doesn't help.

 

The only other thing I can think of is that you have a windows corruption when you 
start up your system, which may still be there because all settings and user files were kept.

 

This corruption could be due to  a Windows 10 feature called Fast Startup being enabled as a default setting.

 

Fast startup is a setting that helps your PC start up faster after shutdown. 

Windows does this by saving an image of the Windows kernel and loaded drivers 
to a special file upon shutdown so when you start your PC again, Windows simply loads the file into memory to

resume your PC instead of restarting it. 

 

On a fast PC this feature doesn't really add anything.  Worse yet, if you have a corrupted driver or Windows kernel,

then every time you turn off you machine and start it up again, it simply loads the corrupted file.

 

So the problem(s) keeps reoccurring.

 

Here is how to disable fast startup.  I really recommend it since it can become 
the root cause of a lot of issues.

 

1) In the Windows search bar type Control panel and go to System and Security


a-First-Step.png

 

2) Then Select Power Options


First-step.png

 

3) Then Select Choose what the power buttons do


Second-Step.png

 

4) Go to Shutdown settings and make sure that Turn on fast startup(recommended)    is Unchecked

 

Third-Step.png

 

5) Save changes and then Reboot your computer.

 

Now when Windows starts up , it will not use the fast startup file, but instead will
go through a conventional windows startup sequence. So in the remote chance that you kept reloading a corrupted startup sequence , this would

eliminate that possibility.

 

Also as Nick mentioned I don't suppose you could have removed the English (United States) language pack? .

I have seen this listed several times as a cause of this error as well, so it is something to double check as well.

 

Possibly when Nick sees this (as he is far wiser than I on computer issues) he may see something further  that could be done.

 

Cheers

Pete

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by renault
  • Like 1
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I carried out all that you advised and, guess what, MSFS started as normal.

I cannot thank you enough for taking the time and effort to get me this far.

I knew that forum members was the place to go for help.

Thanks once again.

Joe

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, joemills said:

I carried out all that you advised and, guess what, MSFS started as normal.

I cannot thank you enough for taking the time and effort to get me this far.

I knew that forum members was the place to go for help.

Thanks once again.

Joe

 

Hi Joe

 

I am really pleased to hear that you are back in business. 

 

You are most welcome, but this was a group effort by a number of members and so on behalf of all

who contributed, thank you for sticking with us as we worked through the issue with you.

 

Happy flying:)

All the best

Pete

 

@Nick Cooper

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi

I have had similar problems and found that repairing Visual C++ redistributable seems to work - no idea why!! I usually repair the latest 3 versions.

 

I thought I would try the fast startup trick mentioned BUT I cannot find the option to turn on and off. Any suggestions?!

 

Richard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/1/2021 at 1:48 AM, Richard1000 said:

Hi

I have had similar problems and found that repairing Visual C++ redistributable seems to work - no idea why!! I usually repair the latest 3 versions.

 

I thought I would try the fast startup trick mentioned BUT I cannot find the option to turn on and off. Any suggestions?!

 

Richard

Hi Richard

 

This may be the reason why you do not see the option (although it might possibly be already disabled)

 

1) In the search window  type cmd in the search field. Then select Run as administrator to open Command Prompt in admin mode.

   This will open a Dos Window in administrator mode

 

2) Copy the following and paste it at the blinking cursor in the Dos window (crtl V).  Press the enter key to execute the command.

 

            powercfg /hibernate on

 

3)  This should fix the issue and you should now see the fast startup option in the settings as per the previous note

 

4) When you have disabled fast startup , type win +I and go to Power & Sleep

     Check that "When plugged in, PC goes to sleep after " should be set to NEVER

 

Regarding the repair function, it will often work as well.

 

I chose to give a "back to basics" approach using the Control Panel to uninstall it and then reinstall it, since in the past for other apps

that use different incarnations of Visual C++ libraries , I found that the repair function tended to be a bit hit and miss in terms of what it would repair.

 

Uninstall/Reinstall using the Control Panel does a complete clean uninstall of an app or library.  

 

But as you found , using the option to repair/reinstall is a good option to try as well and is a good suggestion.

Thank you for commenting:)

 

Cheers

R

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Hi Pete

 

I tried your suggestions of 10/8 above. Did not work for me but solved in the end. A huge hidden benefit though was my home network on Win 10 has not worked despite all sorts of Googling and effort. Your sequence of little jobs fixed my network. Thank you mate. This network has been upsetting me for so long and now works like a charm. Who would have thought? I dips me lid!

 

Bernie

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/8/2021 at 3:19 AM, BernieFlyer said:

Hi Pete

 

I tried your suggestions of 10/8 above. Did not work for me but solved in the end. A huge hidden benefit though was my home network on Win 10 has not worked despite all sorts of Googling and effort. Your sequence of little jobs fixed my network. Thank you mate. This network has been upsetting me for so long and now works like a charm. Who would have thought? I dips me lid!

 

Bernie

Hi Bernie

I'm really pleased to read it was of help

All the best

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...