We've spent an inordinate amount of time trying to reproduce the CTDs
that some of our users have reported. The following might help a few of
you with discoveries that we made during the course of our efforts.
This information may not help all of you, but it's worth sharing
none-the-less...
We do not feel that we are looking for a problem with the 747-400 any
longer. After using Remote Assistance and some other tools to examine
user machines, we are relatively certain that we are looking for issues
triggered by items external to the -400, but internal to the FS9 sphere.
(By sphere we mean FS9 and all installed addons.)
We may also be looking for some type of hardware pattern that has
yet to emerge - but we have found a few.....
We have found the following circumstances that will trigger a
CTD:
CTD: Render To Texture
If the following appears in your FS9.CFG:
rendertotexture=0
You may very likely experience a CTD with almost any
freeware/commercial aircraft/scenery addon that has ANY non 32bit
textures located anywhere in the product. This seems to be most common
with custom cloud packages and weather programs that update the cloud
formations to make them look more realistic but also may be triggered by
some scenery packages, aircraft liveries, etc.
There is a lengthy explanation for what this setting does, but
the explanation boils down to this: If you are going to install ANY
ADDON for FS9, you are better served by leaving this box CHECKED
in your FS9 Options/Settings/Hardware menu. (Note, you must
follow the instructions below to solve the problem, checking/unchecking
the box in the menu does not guarantee the fix will take.)
Resolution For
Render To Texture CTD
- Open your FS9.cfg file in a text editor such as Notepad.
You must have 'show hidden folders' enabled in Control Panel\Folder
Options. Then look in Documents and Settings\<your name
here>\Application Data\Microsoft\FS9\FS9.cfg under Windows XP or Users\<your name
here>\Application Data\Microsoft\Roaming\FS9\FS9.cfg in Windows Vista or Windows 7.
- Search for the word "render".
- If you find an instance of rendertotexture=0 delete
the entire line.
- Conduct the search again. If your FS9.cfg is old, it
may have more than one instance of this. Delete any additional lines you
find.
- Save FS9.cfg.
- Restart FS9.
CTD: Missing TCAS2V7.dll
We have been able to verify that there are a number of commercial and
freeware addons besides our own that are also using I. Lee
Hetherington's magnificent TCAS system. Unfortunately, it appears that
some of the freeware and commercial vendors have not established their
installer properties carefully and if you uninstall their airplane, they
also delete the TCAS2V7.dll.
This renders any other aircraft using the TCAS2V7.dll inoperative
and results in a CTD.
Resolution For
Missing TCASV27.dll CTD
- Go to your root FS9 root directory.
- Look for the file: TCAS2V7.dll
- If the file is missing skip to step 6.
- If the file is present, right click on it and select
Properties/Version. The version should be 1.1.6.0
- If you have the file present AND it is the correct version,
this is not affecting you. If it is not present OR the version is older
than 1.1.6.0, then:
- The simplest way to replace the dll is to open your original
747-400 installer (not the updater) and run the installer. Select
"Repair" from the menu that appears and it should find and replace that
missing dll. Once the installer has completed it's task- repeat the
steps in this sequence to ensure you have the correct dll present.
CTD: Missing FS9 Traffic
dlls
We have found that a few users machines were missing dlls that are
required by FS9 in order to run. We are assuming that these dlls
were accidentally removed by a freeware/commercial installer, although
we have not been able to identify the guilty installer.
Resolution For
Missing FS9 Traffic dlls
- Navigate to Flight Simulator 9/Modules
- Look for the following two files: Traffic.dll and TrafficInfo.dll
- If these files are missing you will experience a CTD.
- We do not have a resolution as we cannot distribute these
files to you, you will need to extract them off of your FS9 install CDs.
Reinstalling
and Other Addons to Troubleshoot CTDs
On final note, we've seen a few of you completely wipe out FS9,
reinstall all of your addons, install the 744-400, and then report back
that "it still doesn't work." We'd ask that if you do this you reverse
the order please and install the 747-400 FIRST, verify that the problem
is gone, then test it again after each addon installation. Eventually
you will find the one that caused the 747-400 to stop working. If you
report that back to us we can try to duplicate and possibly determine
why.