solved FMC-Freezing Bug

[BlueNose]

This is a pretty big one. During a brief flight KEYW-MWCR, shortly after reaching T/D, I looked at the FMC to insert an arrival (GORAN3, VOR approach rwy 08). The FMC would not react in any way to any button I pushed (page selection, prev/next, keyboard). It was on the LEGS page at the time and showing direct TADPO, which I had selected straight after takeoff. I tried changing the map range and it switched to showing me almost on top of UCL, way past the south coast of Cuba and 15 minutes past TADPO. At the same time the FMC switched to the DEP/ARR page, which I had tried to select previously. Basically what I figured out was that the PFD, MFD, and FMC were all completely frozen, and only updated once I touched something on the MFD control panel. This could be the range, mode, brightness... anything that makes the little MFD pop up in the bottom left hand corner of the screen would update the PDF, MFD, and FMC. All the background processes were working though: the aircraft followed the route, descended at the correct point, decelerated at 10,000 feet, etc.

I was able to input an arrival by pressing one key at a time and updating the FMC by changing the map range every time. At some point I noticed that if I kept holding the range selector (or brightness selector or any other MFD control) with the cursor to keep the popup map up, that would actually move and show everything properly. Basically I used a combination of standby instruments (as the PFD was also frozen), VOR DME and a visual approach to land at MWCR.

I'm on mac, so it can't be anything to do with that Windows Defender problem. After closing x-plane I checked the log.txt, and beginning at around 48 minutes into the session (the flight took 58 minutes, so the whole session was probably around an hour and a half as I spent some time on the ground at KEYW before taking off) there are a few hundred lines of 'no such error' readouts produced by the JAR Design ground handling plugin. These continue until the end of the session. There is nothing else in the log.txt after the first 'no such error' message appears except for hundreds of lines of the same thing. 

This was fine due to the short nature of the flight, but I can predict that on longer flights such a freeze of the PFD, MFD, and FMC would make continuing the flight very difficult. If this was somehow caused by ground handling, that's a pretty big deal, as its highly likely that people using the 733 also have that plugin installed.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Morten

[mmerelles]

This is windows defender running against the simulation scripts and putting the cpu to 100% usage.

 

Go to windows defender, set a folder exemption for the entire /x-plane 11/ folder. PROBLEM SOLVED.

 

note. please note this is a folder exemption for the entire xplane root folder, not a file exemption for the xplane executable.

 

[Tom Stian]

He is using MAC so must be something else or a other antivirus program that are doing this 

[mfor]

It's not about defender: any anti virus program would have to check the executable code the FMC is generating rapidly - so pretty much any virus program should trigger this. For some reason the forums here are moderated in a way to make it look like it's a problem specific to defender, when it really is about how the FMC calculates the routes on the fly, as all virus programs have to check those newly created files for viruses (how else would they know it's safe).

So you need to make an exception for this in pretty much any AV program to prevent those freezes from happening, until IXEG can fix things on their end.

 

[BlueNose]

The thing is though, I do not actually have any antivirus program installed that could be causing this. It also did not occur while editing a route. Also, the symptoms of the problem are nothing like what is described by other users experiencing that antivirus-caused framerate drop. I was at 30-50 fps the whole time, and everything else worked perfectly, only three (ok technically six) screens that froze. If this was an issue occurring because of antivirus software would there not be a framerate drop every time I edited the route? Again, this only happened on this one flight, and hasn't happened before or since (yet). 

[mmerelles]

@BlueNose

Maybe we are having a miss-understanding about you issue then.

 

The windows defender issue (i say windows defender at first, because this is what 100% of the  windows pcs have installed by default, despite some users using something else).

The sympthom: when you make any sort of modification to the FMC inflight, the simulation gets almost completely freezed.

Why only inflight? because while you are programming the fmc in the ground, the aircraft is not moving so the fmc doesn't need to recalculate values until you commit (EXEC)

When you are inflight and make any change, the fmc starts recalculating the values, windows defender kicks in over the scripts and CPU goes 100%

 

I did understand as per your post above, your issue was related to introducing changes to the fmc inflight. If that is not the case, could you please share a youtube video of your problem for trying to understand what is going on? is this repeatable? same area? any pattern?

note: plugin conflict is another potential thread, i would recommed you remove any third party plugins to confirm problem is over, then reinstall them one by one

 

hope this helps

 

[BlueNose]

@mmerelles 

I apologize, I tried to explain my problem as clearly as possible. When I make changes in the FMC, I do not experience any problems. What happened here has only happened once. Framerate was perfect (30-50fps the whole time). This happened while I was in cruise, and I did not touch the FMC. All elements of the aircraft were working perfectly and smoothly with no drops in framerate. However, all six screens in the cockpit (the PFD, MFD, and FMC screens on both sides) got stuck, not showing any changes. This included the altitude and speed indicators and the artificial horizon which all did not move. The 'moving map' was also stuck. When pressing keys on the FMC, nothing changed on the FMC screen. It seemed that the information was all there, just not being shown on the screens, as they would all update (including the FMC) if I changed the MFD settings in any way (ie changed the range, the mode, brightness). There is no youtube video and I cannot reproduce this, but it was quite obviously not caused by any antivirus or by editing the route. 

Since this happened I have flown another flight of similar length (Grand Cayman to Belize City), and nothing out of the ordinary happened. Once again, I did not have any framerate drops when editing the route, so this is not caused by antivirus.

[mmerelles]

@BlueNose

I do understand now... this is weird  i do not remember this issue reported before. Hopefully someone else experienced this and have any clue.

[Litjan]

Hi Blue Nose - thanks for the report! We have not heard of anything like this before, so lets hope that it was just a transient quirk and will never come back!

Please keep us posted,

Jan

 

[BlueNose]

@Litjan

Thank you for your reply. I'll post updates here if it happens again. And since you're reading this thread I'd also like to briefly go off topic and say that the IXEG 737 is an incredibly pleasant aircraft to fly and pretty much perfect (discounting some rare FMC shenanigans)!!!

[wbs52]

I am having a similar issue on the Mac. None of the keys respond on the FMC, however, I can program the FMC using AirFMC, it's just that nothing entered on the AirFMC app on my iPad change the FMC in the cockpit. Interestingly, buttons pressed on the FMC in the cockpit show up on AirFMC. Tried reloading the 737, but no change.

The a/c will follow the flight plan entered through AirFMC.

2017 5k iMac running OS 10.12.6, X Plane 11.11

Did not have any issues prior to about a month or so ago.

[Litjan]

Very odd - as you know, we haven´t had any update for a while (yeah, I know...), so I would expect the problem to be on your end (new drivers, new OS version, new screen resolution, some mouse-pointer option change, etc.)

Cheers, Jan

 

[wbs52]

I agree, something on my end, but I don't recall making any changes to OS (still on Sierra) or drivers, unless there was some kind of auto-update that Apple did in that time frame (they did something like that a couple of years ago that messed up my internet. Had a tech come out to check the issue, as he was here, Apple did an auto update that  solved the issue). So not really sure what the problem is. Would attaching a log.txt be of any value?

Thanks

Hmm, I did update the OS for the security issues a couple of weeks ago...

[Litjan]

No, the log would not show anything, I think.

As far as I know, the buttons on the CDU are using exactly the same "click" technology as other buttons in the cockpit (like the AP buttons, for example). Does zooming in to the CDU help? Are you using a 4K resolution?

Cheers, Jan

 

[wbs52]

All other buttons & switches work. Zooming has no affect. Not at 4K.

[Litjan]

On 2/3/2018 at 8:48 PM, wbs52 said:

All other buttons & switches work. Zooming has no affect. Not at 4K.

Hrm... out of ideas, really (also on windows, and havent heard this one before).

What if you detach the AirFMC? Maybe it is blocking the keys somehow?

Jan

 

[wbs52]

If I don't have AirFMC running, the keys don't respond to entries. But if I then connect AirFMC, the entries appear on the AirFMC display. I don't enter very much prior to connecting AirFMC.

I haven't yet updated to HighSierra, I may give that a go to see if it changes anything. Seems pretty stable so far.

And the 733 is working fine on my PC, a late 2016 Alienware Aurora R5.

Hmm, maybe I'll install the 733 on my MacBook Pro. Just have the demo on that machine, but will be interesting to see if the FMC works properly.

 

[BlueNose]

Ok, this happened again. Symptoms are exactly the same. This time I was on the ground at KDAL, refueling at realistic speed, IRS still aligning. I'm making a video now, and will post a link here when its ready.

EDIT: never mind, problem went away when I started the screen recording. Perhaps I can try doing screen recordings to fix this if it happens again?

[IMPORTANT] EDIT 2: At first I tried to do an AVI recording from inside x-plane, and got a warning message that this 'cannot be done while running a desktop FCM app' (probably something to do with the way IXEG does route editing externally). I then tried to do a quicktime screen recording and found that the problem had gone away. However, I just checked the log.txt - again there are a few hundred lines of 'no such error message' from the JAR Ground Handling plugin, however these stop after X-Plane throws out the 'cannot do an AVI recording' message. This shows two things: 1) the ground handling error was somehow causing all displays in the cockpit to freeze, as this was the same log.txt message as last time, and 2) attempting to do a an AVI recording through File>Toggle AVI Movie solves the issue. 

Edited February 6, 2018 by BlueNose

[Ben Russell]

Seems pretty clear that,

A: This is caused by the Ground Handling bug spewing data into Log.txt

B: You're the only person to have ever reported it that I'm aware of.

 

It could be a combo of ground handling + custom scenery or choice of locale, or any number of things.

 

What it definitely is not at the moment is a big deal spread across a large number of users.

There have been problems in the past with the Ground Handling Demo on Windows but as far as I know these were corrected by using an up-to-date or full version of the GH plugin from JAR.

Sorry to say but there's not much to be done here except wait and see if it does explode. If it's a serious bug it will self replicate and become a big deal.

If it's a random bug or clash resulting from your sim config, scenery and flight locations then you'll be the only one who can replicate or produce it.

 

I suggest installing a fresh copy of X-Plane using the demo installer (not copy and paste using Finder) and only installing GH and the IXEG inside it and see if your choice of flight locations are still consistently able to produce the problem.

This will bring us some useful stats by elminating any chance of external influence by either plugin clash or weird scenery glitches.

This additional copy of the sim will not affect your licensing in any negative way. The machine ID is generated by OS details. You can have as many copies of the sim installed as you need.

 

[wbs52]

Ok, just installed the 733 on my Mid 2017 13" TB MacBook Pro, with the XP11 demo installed. 

This system has High Sierra 10.13.3 as the OS.

Loaded the 733, was able to program the FMC without issue.

So maybe updating to High Sierra may resolve the issue...

 

[wbs52]

Updated to High Sierra, but no change. Pressing the buttons on the FMC have no affect on the display, stays on Perf Init, but with AirFMC linked, appropriate changes with each key press shows on AirFMC. Have no clue at this point...

[Morten]

Wild shot in the dark, but how do you change your view to get to the FMC?  Preset keys?, pan? Maybe try another way...

[wbs52]

Morton, you hit on something here. When I first enter the cockpit, if I pan over to the FMC, I am able to press the buttons to enter data or change screens. But once I select Presets, there is no change on the display by hitting the buttons. Changes still show up on AirFMC. This is any Preset, not just FMC. If I change aircraft, and go back to the 733, as long as I don't use the Presets, I'm able to manipulate the FMC by pressing the buttons. Chase view, 3D view, as long as I don't select Presets, I'm ok. Any thoughts?

[wbs52]

Updated to 1.21. Issue persists...

[Litjan]

24 minutes ago, wbs52 said:

Updated to 1.21. Issue persists...

Not surprisingly. We didn´t change anything pertaining to that issue.

Workaround for now: Don´t use the IXEG view presets, save your own presets in X-Plane (use ctrl + numpad to save, numpad alone to recall)

Jan