stiletto2 Posted July 12, 2010 Share Posted July 12, 2010 Great job on Concrete and Israel's Farm. It is a please being part of the ORBX user community. Here is an interesting problem. Besides flying in the PNW space, I also fly in England using Horizon and Earth Simulations software. After installing a couple of Earth Simulations products for the England area, I noticed that I could not start the sim in Seattle (under NA Blue) without a fatal error occuring early in the Terrain load (6%). I could start in Darrington and Twin Oaks and Concrete but not in Seattle. And, if I flew to Seattle I would get a fatal error just after passing downtown heading south. So, after some research, I discovered this problem went away if I deactivated the Earth Simulations Libraries (I usually leave all of my libraries active since load times from SSDs are negligible). The interesting thing is that if I am in FSX Default, with the Earth Sim libs active, Seattle works fine. The problem only occurs wihen I am in FTX NA Blue mode and the Earth Sim libraries are active. I know exactly which .bgl file in Earth Sim causes the conflict but since it works fine when in FSX Default, I don't know why the Earth Sim people would be concerned. I bring it up here because this seems to be the first indication that I have that some active scenery in another part of the word can apparently cause NA Blue to error. I also wanted to mention that because, a user may simply see it as a failure of NA Blue rather than interference from another 3rd party scenery entry in another part of the world. For now, I simply deactivate that particular .bgl file when I activate the ORBX North America option but was interested in what you guys thought. Stiletto2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teecee Posted July 12, 2010 Share Posted July 12, 2010 I have Horizon NE England loaded, covering from Snowdonia to the Scottish border, and have no problems around Seattle with the exception of bad frame rates (my old system is simply not up to it), but you say that you know which file causes the problem so this reply is probably redundant. Teecee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holger Sandmann Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Hi Stiletto, can you tell us a bit more about the specific bgl file? You mention "libraries" but object library files only contain "passive" objects that don't get accessed unless an object placement file is active in that area. Thus, it has to be some other type of file that is active and creates that interference and perhaps its name alone will give us a hint. Usually, the early files to be loaded are airport related data. Cheers, Holger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolP Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Well, reading "Seattle" and "fatal error" rings some bells and you might want to take a look into this thread, just in case http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=23872.0 I also own the EarthSim Isles and the installer does quite some work on the autogen definitions in FSX. AU and PNW stuff does this too, but this is only done in the respective modes when activated via FTX Central. Maybe something got mixed up here and therefor might be a source of problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto2 Posted July 13, 2010 Author Share Posted July 13, 2010 Hi Stiletto, ..... Thus, it has to be some other type of file that is active and creates that interference and perhaps its name alone will give us a hint. Usually, the early files to be loaded are airport related data. Cheers, Holger Does seem odd doesn't it. I can reproduce this problem on my system 100% of the time. The Earth Simulation file is ES-Coast.bgl. It is part of Earth Simulations Scenery Library named: ES-3D-Libraries (that is its title in the Scenery Libary though on disk it is stored in a folder named ES-3D). If I rename ES-Coast.bgl (via .cmd file) to ES_Coast.bgl.off then KSEA loads perfectly under NA Blue and runs fine. HOwever, if I don't make that change or change it back to the .bgl extension while under FTX North American the FSX loader always goes to a fatal error when it is sitting at 6%. Seattle works fine in default FSX without me haveing to turn the .bgl "off". In the past, have created some of my own scenery on other systems using Instant Scenery etc. so I am somewhat familiar with this set of concepts and am amazed that this file is somehow interfering. Here is the info from the Event Viewer describing the fatal error. It is basically the same every time. Description: Faulting application name: fsx.exe, version: 10.0.61472.0, time stamp: 0x475e17d3 Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7600.16559, time stamp: 0x4ba9b29c Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x0002e0b0 Faulting process id: 0x1548 Faulting application start time: 0x01cb22d1a82d5f32 Faulting application path: D:\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\fsx.exe Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll Report Id: 0e61c858-8ec5-11df-b0fc-00038a000015 Again, I just rename the offending file (via .cmd file) whenever I switch to NA Blue and switch it back when I got to FSX Default so it is not an issue for me but could be a problem for someone else down the road. I have looked inside the es-coastal.bgl with XMShell but did not see anything that looked particulaly odd....though decompiled .bgls are not my top area of expertise. Is it possible that a .mdl id somehow matches one of yours...just weird guessing from someone who is not at all expert in this stuff. If you would like to look at the file yourself, I could contact Darren at Earth Simulations to see if he would permit me to send it to you. Let me know if that is something you would want to pursue. Hope this helps provide the detail you were looking for. Stiletto2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto2 Posted July 13, 2010 Author Share Posted July 13, 2010 Well, reading "Seattle" and "fatal error" rings some bells and you might want to take a look into this thread, just in case http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=23872.0 I also own the EarthSim Isles and the installer does quite some work on the autogen definitions in FSX. AU and PNW stuff does this too, but this is only done in the respective modes when activated via FTX Central. Maybe something got mixed up here and therefor might be a source of problems. Hi CoolP Don't think this is the same problem as referenced in the link however......do you have Isles of Scilly and Alderney? If so, do you keep the ES-3D-Libraries Scenery Library entry active (checkmarked) in your Scenery Library when you switch via FTX Central to North America. If so, do you have any problem when you Load KSEA as your start point in FSX while in FTX North America mode? If you match all the parameters and don't have the problem then maybe this is only happening on my system though I can't imagine why. Stiletto2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolP Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Hi stiletto2, yes, Alderney and Scilly and all goodies like the lighthouse and so installed here. Great scenery btw. Currently I have all entries enabled when going to PNW and KSEA loads fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto2 Posted July 13, 2010 Author Share Posted July 13, 2010 Hi stiletto2, yes, Alderney and Scilly and all goodies like the lighthouse and so installed here. Great scenery btw. Currently I have all entries enabled when going to PNW and KSEA loads fine. Hi CoolP, Hmm...do you have all of the PNW addons installed from ORBX....just in case one of the addons may cause the conflict? Can't tell from your sig...assuming you do makes my case pretty unique......... Stiletto2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolP Posted July 14, 2010 Share Posted July 14, 2010 Everything except Twin Oaks, yes. I also have Vashon Island and the new OZx stuff installed. Holger gave another tip on a thread around here to use "process monitor" to see what files get loaded before crashs happen. This program looks weird in the first seconds but after applying filters, you can see every bgl and dll that FSX uses. Currently using it so I'm still testing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holger Sandmann Posted July 14, 2010 Share Posted July 14, 2010 Hi Stiletto, thanks for the additional information. Unfortunately, it doesn't ring a bell or help with debugging though your theory that the content of the xml might overlap and thus conflict sounds plausible. Do the crashes occur regardless of aircraft, wind direction, and time? I'm asking because there might be aircraft or time-specific components as well, especially if the presence of the same file doesn't cause problems for CoolP. Also, maybe the developers at ES could have another look at their file just in case there's an unintended geographical error. I've seen those with XML based flattens and excludes though they never led to crashes just unintended visual effects halfway across the globe. Cheers, Holger P.S.: I also did a Google search for ntdll errors with FSX but found nothing specific and, generally, these CTDs seem to have a bewildering variety of causes: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/a/ntdlldll.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto2 Posted July 14, 2010 Author Share Posted July 14, 2010 Hi Stiletto, thanks for the additional information. Unfortunately, it doesn't ring a bell or help with debugging though your theory that the content of the xml might overlap and thus conflict sounds plausible. Do the crashes occur regardless of aircraft, wind direction, and time? I'm asking because there might be aircraft or time-specific components as well, especially if the presence of the same file doesn't cause problems for CoolP. Also, maybe the developers at ES could have another look at their file just in case there's an unintended geographical error. I've seen those with XML based flattens and excludes though they never led to crashes just unintended visual effects halfway across the globe. Cheers, Holger P.S.: I also did a Google search for ntdll errors with FSX but found nothing specific and, generally, these CTDs seem to have a bewildering variety of causes: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/a/ntdlldll.htm Hi Holger, Well your idea of trying different settings (didn't matter what aircraft, time or wind direction) sent me on a path of isolating a corresponding conflicting .bgl in my PNW installation. Believe it or not....I found it. The good or bad news is that it is a file within the 2S1 freeware.....which is unsupported. I will understand if you want to close this out as resolved since it is not a supported piece of software. But if you are curious, the conflicting .bgl on the 2S1 side is ORBX_PNW_2S1_Area_PLC.BGL. The ES .bgl just contains custom .mdl files. The interesting part is that one of the 32 character .mdl file identifiers in the ES .bgl is exactly the same as one of the library object identifiers in the 2S1 bgl. Do you think that could cause a conflict? In over my head on FSX .xml stuff..... Just wondering but fully understand if you just want to close this one out as I do have an easy work around and 2S1 is not a supported piece of software. Thanks. Stiletto2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holger Sandmann Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 Hello Stiletto2, great bit of sleuthing, thanks for persisting! That would be the first confirmed case of unintentionally identical GUIDs even though it's supposedly next to impossible when using the GUID generator application (then again even MS EXCEL's random numbers generator was not so random for several versions). It's also interesting that this would lead to crashes especially since those two files shouldn't be active at the same time given that they are a third of the globe apart. Even though 2S1 is freeware it's an ORBX product and thus we of course provide support for it. I'll ping John Hockings and we can think about options for a future patch. Cheers, Holger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolP Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 How does your solution look like now, stiletto2? Disabling all the EarthSim entries when flying to PNW or just going for that one file from 2S1? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto2 Posted July 16, 2010 Author Share Posted July 16, 2010 Hello Stiletto2, great bit of sleuthing, thanks for persisting! That would be the first confirmed case of unintentionally identical GUIDs even though it's supposedly next to impossible when using the GUID generator application (then again even MS EXCEL's random numbers generator was not so random for several versions). It's also interesting that this would lead to crashes especially since those two files shouldn't be active at the same time given that they are a third of the globe apart. Even though 2S1 is freeware it's an ORBX product and thus we of course provide support for it. I'll ping John Hockings and we can think about options for a future patch. Cheers, Holger Hi Holger, Yes, it seems almost unbelievable that the same GUID identifier is showing up in the two .bgls since GUID stands for Global Unique ID!! Just to be sure I haven't made an interpretation error, I don't think Darren from ES would mind if I post just the xml lines that seem to conflict with 2S1 .bgl file....so here are the xml excerpts from both files using the exact same GUID best I can tell: ES-Coastal.bgl <!-- guid="75fa5544479cb7bc9b245b87746fb532" --> <ModelData sourceFile="75fa5544479cb7bc9b245b87746fb532.mdl" /> ORBX_PNW_2S1_Area_PLC.BGL.bgl <!-- SceneryObject, offset 0x00000B4C (2892) --> <SceneryObject lat="47.453095" lon="-122.478033" alt="0.08" altitudeIsAgl="TRUE" pitch="0.00" bank="289.00" heading="237.00" imageComplexity="NORMAL"> <LibraryObject name="75fa5544479cb7bc9b245b87746fb532" scale="1.00" /> If your tech experts do agree this is a one in a million GUID conflict then it seems to make logical sense that the conflict is, in fact, causing the fatal error otherwise what are the chances I would identify two conflicting .bgls that just happened to use the exact same GUID at one point . However, I will leave it up to your experts to decide if a patch down the road should include a change. I have tried to provide all of the detailed info necessary for your techs to make a decision on that. Meanwhile, I will use my .cmd file workaround which simply adds .off to the ES-Coastal. bgl file whenever I do a FTX Central switch to North America from FSX Default and removes the .off when I switch back. Thanks so much for you quick responses and thanks to ORBX for the world's best FSX scenery experiences. Now back to flying in the beautiful world of Orbx's Pacific Northwest! Stiletto2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto2 Posted July 16, 2010 Author Share Posted July 16, 2010 How does your solution look like now, stiletto2? Disabling all the EarthSim entries when flying to PNW or just going for that one file from 2S1? Hi CoolP, See post above....second to last paragraph for description of my work around. Stiletto2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoolP Posted July 16, 2010 Share Posted July 16, 2010 Seen ... will try too. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtwillia Posted July 16, 2010 Share Posted July 16, 2010 This is a very interesting finding. I would like to note that I am also running Alderney from Earth Simulations and it is active when I fly in PNW. Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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