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ASN and CumulusX - error on exit within FSX


mug

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I just moved from Opus to ASN for my main weather engine, and ended up spending hours trying to figure out why my FSX was crashing only on exit. Have been a licensed CumulusX user for quite some time, and was a bit disappointed to find the conflict was between ASN and CumulusX, (at least with my setup) - was hoping it was with ASN and some other addon that I don't really use or value as much!

Anyway - the conflict only causes issues when exiting FSX. There is no impact to the running of either ASN or CumulusX within the sim itself.

If both modules are trusted and loaded in the fsx.cfg and dll.xml - then an application error will be received on exit with the faulting application being FSX and the faulting module being kernelbase.dll.

With one or the other disabled in the fsx.cfg and dll.xml, there is no crash.

It appears that others have experienced the same issue. The following link points to the thread in the ASN forum (although an account may be needed to access):

http://www.hifitechinc.com/forums/showthread.php?2117-ASN-with-CumulusX-crash-FSX-when-it-s-closed&p=18692#post18692

In the thread - there seemed to be some initial questions from the ASN folks on nailing down the cause, but nothing further since Dec/2013 (which is the same month the thread was first posted there). The original poster of the thread set CumulusX to manual load in the dll.xml file - however then you are prompted each time you use FSX if you would like to load it).

I experience the error with FSX, ASN and CumulusX versions 1.8 (with patch) and 1.9.

My solution for now is to keep CumulusX commented out in the fsx.cfg and dll.xml and only enable when I want to use it.

Wondering if others have experienced this conflict with ASN? (Only saw 1 other thread talking about ASN & CumulusX here - but not sure if that was with FSX - there was no mention of this type of error - so maybe it is isolated to only a few of us).

If there was any interest in looking further into this, would be happy to post additional detail on the error.

ASN is great, but won't give up CumulusX for it! :)

Cheers - Jim

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Hello Jim, I am getting a similar error on exit of FSX, yet I don't use ASN. I never got this error before I reinstalled a new hard drive. Peter will most likely be here to help soon, meanwhile, I'll maybe run some tests to see if I can zero in on the problem.

Scott

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Well, I did a lot of testing yesterday and this morning, to no affect. At the last end, I decided to see if uninstalling CumulusX! and also deleting the registry entry for it would do the trick, and I am still getting the error on exit. So I'm thinking my problem isn't CumulusX! at all. I'll do some more testing and searching the net, though.

Scott

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Thanks for the updates Scott!

The ASN folks asked me to submit this as a bug with their SP1 patch to ASN - yet since you don't use ASN, that would be an unrelated issue. I tried with both 8.x and 9 versions of CumulusX but received the error on exit with both. If I don't use ASN, then it is fine.

What I did to isolate the issue was a) make a backup copy of fsx.cfg B) delete the fsx.cfg completely d) load the sim and load/trust cumulusX when prompted e) load sim and exit - all was fine ... then e) load addons is small groups of 1 or two each and load the sim d) if I did not get an error on exit I repeated the process until I found the offending addon - for me - that was ASN only. f) after figuring out the culprit - put my original fsx.cfg back in place.

I only had to load the sim to the free flight/intro screen - did not have to load an actual flight - and then exited from there. Since the addons or setting that is conflicting will be different between us - your approach is most likely different...

Will let you know if there is news from the ASN side - for now, I have just commented out all cumulusX entries in fsx.cfg and disabled in dll.xml.

J

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Hi folks,

indeed, I regret that I must confirm the problem. I acquired a test version of the most recent ASN release and tried to figure out what is going on, until the test version expired after 3 days already, iso 7 as announced, btw. The crash happens regardless of ASN main program being activated during the session or not, but only if both DLLs are loaded.

It obviously depends also on the load order. It does not happen, if the ASN-DLL is loaded before CumulusX.dll regardless of the position of the two in the dll-load order. Unfortunately, ASN refuses to work if its DLL is not loaded at the very last position in the chain, and reinstalls it there if not. So manual editing does not help.

Based on some announcements from Hifitech and this behavior it appears, that ASN is hacking into FSX libraries and possibly the SimConnect-API, and doesn't clean up (sufficiently or correctly) at exit of FSX. Apparently, there are some other 3rd-party products affected by this condition, too.

Aside from hacking into FSX code would not be authorized by the SDK-license (though certainly attractive) CumulusX.DLL uses only standard code concepts, derived from the official SDK.

I considered to purchase a license, but after expiration of the test license I decided not to pursue ASN for the time being, mainly because it didn't meet some of my personal preferences. In addition, implementing a work-around for non-compliant 3rd party programs may lead to an endless chain of fixes, whenever there is a new version.

I do have AS2012 which I use occasionally, and there are no apparent problems, whatsoever. Up to its expiration I preferred actually FSX' Real Weather channel despite of its flaws, because of ease of use and speed and its providing the least common denominator in online flying.

BTW, it is not necessary to change DLL.XML again and again. After the clause <Launch.Addon> of CumulusX.DLL you may add this line:

<ManualLoad>True</ManualLoad>

This let you choose the loading of the CumulusX.dll each time when you start FSX. You can do the same for ASN, but if you forget to activate it and start up ASN main program it may change the DLL.XML in its own way. Still, CumulusX! has its full functionality with some loss of smoothness, even if its DLL is not loaded.

best regards,
Peter

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PS: I did not recognize any further negative side effects due to the crash on exit. I'm not sure but possible, it might be, that changes to the FSX.cfg file are not saved, meaning that configuration changes e.g. in the display settings are lost upon next start.

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I narrowed down my problem tonight. It was my AMD Gaming Evolved program running in the background. When it's off, I get no errors on exit.

Scott

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Thanks so much for the investigation on the ASN & CumulusX front Peter. The ASN folks requested that I submit a bug report on their forum. They are working on a SP (2nd beta version of it just released), so maybe they will take a look at this issue. Mentioned this thread in the bug report, as well as your investigation and confirmation of the error (and the fact that your trial license was cut short - maybe they will offer you a permanent developers key! :))

Agreed that there seems to be no ill effect of the crash on exit except for items such as changes to the fsx.cfg not being saved if they were modified during the session. I still hope that the Hi Fi folks can patch ASN so the few of us that use both do not have to endure the uncertainty of any other impact that might occur though...

Scott - great that you found the cause of the error on exit on your system!!!

Regards - Jim

PS: Bug report issued at: http://www.hifitechinc.com/forums/showthread.php?3595-FSX-Crash-on-Exit-if-ASN-%28including-SP1%29-and-CumulusX-are-both-installed

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Thanks Jim!

Peter, I kinda found that out by accident. I was searching hard for just about anything that would shed some light on my problem. I just barely saw an abbreviated post at some site saying that their problem could have been due to a chat program running in the background, so originally I just passed it on and went on searching because I didn't feel it was meant for me. After a long while I remembered that the AMD Gaming Evolved software had some sort of chat function in it, and to my surprise, that was the program causing the error. Yet, I'm not so sure the chat part of the program is where the problem starts because I don't use it. The only problem I have now (and it's really not a problem), since I have to turn it off, it will not keep track of my time used on FSX so I won't get those 'valuable' points for using the program while 'playing' FSX. Oh well, at least I found the problem though.

Scott

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Best with finding the last bit of the solution Scott!

Peter - I received a reply on the Hi Fi (ASN Forum) after posting the bug report. Not sure if you would want to pursue this further, but the dev team at ASN seems willing to work with you if you did......

From the ASN Forum....>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"damian
damian is offline
Developer damian's Avatar


Of course we'd be willing to work with said developer to try and resolve any conflicts. Do you have a contact email address you can PM me?

Damian Clark
President and Lead Developer"

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<END

I can pass along contact info if you are wish. Certainly understand if you take a pass on their invite though!

Thanks - Jim

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Fixed in beta #3 for me, hope for you too! (FSX, not sure about Opus)

Really amazed that the ASN team spent the time to fix this! Shows me they must realize how significant a contribution CumulusX makes.

I've enabled the latest turbulence effects as well. The effects work perfectly with thermal lift (haven't tried ridge) and really bring even more life to the simulation.

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