AAA causes FSX to crash on ntdll.dll

[Tobus 161]

Well,

after some trial and error it is highely likely that AAA is tripping something with NTDLL.DLL, an integral part of WinXP, causing an instant CTD. See attachment for screenie.

I had this after installing Prototype and AAA on consecutive days. After some good flying, FSX started crashing. Mostly when loading any (saved) mission, either AAA or not, but also while loading free flight anywhere in the world. Since the most crashes occur during loading of scenery, i suspect some BGL in AAA to be the main problem, according to various mentionings of FSX crashing due to NTDLL.DLL which I googled. Since the day after initially installing AAA, I have not been able to advance passed the loading screen since last saturday.

I went back to a systemrestore before installing Prototype and AAA and played FSX for almost an hour without a hitch.

I installed AAA, loaded a freeflight in The Netherlands ... crash during loading of scenery again.

I started FSX up again and loaded the initial AAA mission ... crash during opening cinematic. All crashes occur with the mousepointer becoming an hour glass, massive HDD action including dvd-writer and usb drives (when attached), followed by the crashscreen.

I don't know what can be usefull for info, but here is a start:

E8200 cpu on gigabyte P35-DS3 mobo, 2gigs of RAM, nVidia 8800GT 512mb and Creative X-Fi music. All drivers are up to date.

During the crashes, I did not have additional programs running with FSX like Active Sky X or REX.

In game scenery options (autogen and density) are both normal, as I read something in this forum about possibility of OOM when sliders are maxed. Windows XP SP3 is my OS, paging file is set manually at 4096-8192 (makes FSX menu nice and fast ) .

After uninstalling AAA, all is well again .

Any pointers from you Aerosoft guys about this? It would be much appreciated.

[horst18519 231]

Are you sure those crashes don't occur without AAA? 2GB Ram isn't much for FSX, I'm surprised you don't get OOM crashes regularly even with default scenery.

Does the crash still occur if you set scenery and autogen to sparse or very sparse?

I don't want to suggest using those settings as the joy of any addon is limited with minimal scenery settings, but it sure will help finding the reason for your crashes.

I installed AAA, loaded a freeflight in The Netherlands

I very much doubt that this crash had anything to do with AAA, but of course you never know exactly how computers think, so it will be very good to know if you can reproduce this crash without AAA.

[Tobus 161]

Are you sure those crashes don't occur without AAA? 2GB Ram isn't much for FSX, I'm surprised you don't get OOM crashes regularly even with default scenery.

Does the crash still occur if you set scenery and autogen to sparse or very sparse?

I don't want to suggest using those settings as the joy of any addon is limited with minimal scenery settings, but it sure will help finding the reason for your crashes.

I very much doubt that this crash had anything to do with AAA, but of course you never know exactly how computers think, so it will be very good to know if you can reproduce this crash without AAA.

Hi Thorsten,

I have never had issues with FSX and my current rig, apart from some occasional OOM's, which I fixed with the /3GB fix.

With scenery and autogen sliders at normal, I can run fine at 25-55 fps depending on where and what I fly. I limit my fps at 20 and performance is generally great, only dropping to about 15 fps when in dense sceneries.

I "hope" AAA is the culprit, since then I can finger a cause. Otherwise, I have no clue why FSX suddenly crashes on me. So far, without AAA, it hasn't. The strange thing is: I have flown AAA a couple of hours without a hitch. Now, I can't even get past the introvid. Anyway, I will set the sliders to very sparse and see what happens, with and without AAA installed. For the time being, I'll leave Prototype (my second suspect) out of the equation.

Taking a look at this link, it could also mean that "a module" (AAA?) is conflicting with ntdll.dll. This can apparently happen if the FSX installation hasn't exactly gone right through the correct sequence (FSX, SP1, SP2, addons or FSX, Acc Pack, addons).

My installation is 2 years old and is something like FSX, SP1, add ons, SP2, more add ons, removal of SP2 to install Acc Pack, yet more add ons.

Although this isn't a very neat way, it still irks me that FSX probably can't deal with this in a correct fashion.

If CTD's persist even without AAA, I think my next best bet is to completely uninstall then reinstall FSX and everything in it .

I will keep you posted.

[horst18519 231]

I can understand that you "hope" to find AAA as the culprit, I just hope it isn't.

The fact that you were able to use the AAA without problems before also astonishes me. Maybe you're right and it isn't the actual scenery/addon but the installation that causes this issue. I'll ask Andreas, who did the installer, if he ever heard of something like this before.

[Tobus 161]

I can understand that you "hope" to find AAA as the culprit, I just hope it isn't.

The fact that you were able to use the AAA without problems before also astonishes me. Maybe you're right and it isn't the actual scenery/addon but the installation that causes this issue. I'll ask Andreas, who did the installer, if he ever heard of something like this before.

Thanks for that. Any information is welcome, since a possible repair seems lengthy (FSX reinstall + all addons or even XP itself).

[Tobus 161]

News from the front:

AAA is indeed the culprit, albeit in combination with a somewhat dinky installation of FSX ((uni)installs of FSX and Accpack and a lot of addons). With AAA, crashing on ntdll.dll is instantaneous when loading a mission or freeflight, sometimes even in the main menu, regardless of where and what I want to fly. Without AAA installed and after reboot, I can now fly anywhere in the world. Since I'm the only one reporting about it here, I guess this combination of AAA + old and dinky install of FSX is the cause of the crashing.

After reading something about this at Avsim forums, I shut down Data Execution Prevention in WinXP for fsx.exe. That did't work, because then it still crashes, only on another random dll. Since my pc is running fine on everything else, my only remaining suspect is FSX itself.

I have now deinstalled the whole of FSX + all addons and am in the proces of reinstalling in a correct order

(FSX - Accpack - global scenery addons - local scenery addons - aircraft - missions - external stuff like REX), then test without AAA for some hours, then install AAA and cross fingers.

I will report after this somewhat lengthy proces, probably a week from now, maybe a lot later because of vacationtime coming up.

[Tobus 161]

After reinstalling FSX and all my addons, flying went smooth and sweet again. Since my reinstall the correct order, I notice that my main menu of FSX is somewhat faster also.

And ofcourse, after installing AAA, flying is sweet too. I guess my dinky old install and my latest addon triggered ntdll.dll to to shut down FSX the hard way. Now, the problem is gone.

Other point of interest which I posted in another thread: my ADF is now working properly, giving fairly decent direction to airports from about 30 miles out. Strange indeed, but all is well now, and that what's counts.

[horst18519 231]

That is good news. Both issues were quite weird, the ADF problem even more. You never know what FSX is thinking in those moments...

Glad to read you can now enjoy AAA as much as any other addon.