joemills Posted August 9, 2021 Share Posted August 9, 2021 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. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted August 9, 2021 Share Posted August 9, 2021 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 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joemills Posted August 9, 2021 Author Share Posted August 9, 2021 Thanks for that Nick, Their were posts on other forums but none of them worked. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post renault Posted August 9, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted August 9, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, joemills said: Thanks for that Nick, Their were posts on other forums but none of them worked. Joe Hi Joe I am sorry to hear of your difficulties . Potentially the following may be of help. I have copied Nick on this as well @Nick Cooper as before you do the following he may have a comment. The following is perfectly safe and is what I do every week to ensure that my Win10 O/S is working properly. You mentioned that you are missing a .dll file. It is possible that the problem lies , not with MS2020 itself but within the Windows operating system. Unfortunately, win10 over time tends to corrupt its system files. The following procedure ensures that the system is running properly with correct files. I would wait until Nick sees this note and gives his concurrence that he is comfortable with my suggestion before you start To start: In the search bar type CMD and hit return This will bring up a menu selection . Select the option "Run as Adminstrator" A DOS window will then open. Go through each of the following steps one at a time. Copy each line, one at a time , paste it into the Dos window (crtl + V) and press return and it will then run. Wait until each runs and finishes before you move on to the next one. When you are completely finished, Restart your computer and then try to see in MS2020 will start and run properly Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /checkhealth Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /scanhealth Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /Restorehealth sfc /scannow Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup RESTART your computer as the last step Please note that the line sfc /scannow will probably be where you will see a lot of corrupt files repaired. If this happens, please rerun this command again until you get the message that no corrupt files have been found. It may take 2 or more tries to fix everything. As I said, it is part of my weekly maintenance on my machine . Sometimes week will go by without any issues and then there will be corrupt system files found and fixed. Also please note that the Component Store refers to the Win10 backup file repository where it keeps a clean copy of each OS file and is used to repair OS system file corruption . It is not the Windows Store which is very different I hope this may help you Cheers Pete Edited August 9, 2021 by renault 7 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted August 9, 2021 Share Posted August 9, 2021 Hello Pete, excellent advice as ever. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joemills Posted August 9, 2021 Author Share Posted August 9, 2021 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. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SGunard Posted August 14, 2021 Share Posted August 14, 2021 Hi Joe, Sorry to hear your woes, but was wondering if any of the above solved your problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joemills Posted August 15, 2021 Author Share Posted August 15, 2021 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 More sharing options...
joemills Posted August 15, 2021 Author Share Posted August 15, 2021 Sorry Steve that I missed you out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joemills Posted August 18, 2021 Author Share Posted August 18, 2021 Given up altogether, nothing seems to work, £109 quid down the drain. Thanks for all your advice Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dow Posted August 18, 2021 Share Posted August 18, 2021 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. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wain71 Posted August 18, 2021 Share Posted August 18, 2021 did it say what the dll was that you were missing? hope you get it sorted, sometimes though the only option is a complete restart and install like John said, annoying and tedious I know.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 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. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joemills Posted August 20, 2021 Author Share Posted August 20, 2021 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 More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 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 More sharing options...
renault Posted August 20, 2021 Share Posted August 20, 2021 (edited) 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 August 20, 2021 by renault 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwarazi Posted August 22, 2021 Share Posted August 22, 2021 (edited) 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 August 22, 2021 by Kwarazi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renault Posted August 22, 2021 Share Posted August 22, 2021 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 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joemills Posted August 22, 2021 Author Share Posted August 22, 2021 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 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renault Posted August 23, 2021 Share Posted August 23, 2021 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 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joemills Posted August 26, 2021 Author Share Posted August 26, 2021 I have reinstalled Windows as suggested but still have dll error in MSFS. I don`t know where to go from there. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renault Posted August 27, 2021 Share Posted August 27, 2021 (edited) 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 2) Then Select Power Options 3) Then Select Choose what the power buttons do 4) Go to Shutdown settings and make sure that Turn on fast startup(recommended) is Unchecked 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 August 27, 2021 by renault 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joemills Posted August 29, 2021 Author Share Posted August 29, 2021 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 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renault Posted August 29, 2021 Share Posted August 29, 2021 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 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard1000 Posted September 1, 2021 Share Posted September 1, 2021 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 More sharing options...
Richard1000 Posted September 1, 2021 Share Posted September 1, 2021 ps I do the repair in settings apps modify repair Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renault Posted September 4, 2021 Share Posted September 4, 2021 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 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BernieFlyer Posted December 8, 2021 Share Posted December 8, 2021 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 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renault Posted December 18, 2021 Share Posted December 18, 2021 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 More sharing options...
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