SkyMaxx Pro V4 keeps crashing X-Plane 11

[craighardy]

Tried different aircraft.  Doesn't seem to matter.   Tried with many different METAR files as well.   When I disable SkyMaxx Pro, the crashes stop.

The crash occurs after:

SkyMaxx Pro: Coordinate system changed; repositioning cloud layers.

Anyone else experiencing this?

 

SkyMaxx Pro: Coordinate system changed; repositioning cloud layers.
--=={This application has crashed because of the plugin: [XPLM_PLUGIN_XPLANE]}==--
 

 

Log.txt

METAR.rwx

Edited May 18, 2019 by craighardy

[sundog]

Do the crashes also stop if you disable everything else but SkyMaxx Pro? The log may imply that something's corrupting memory, but it's not saying that SkyMaxx Pro caused the crash. It looks like some complex incompatibility between third party add-ons, or you may just be running out of memory.

[craighardy]

I'll try disabling some of my plugins, and see what happens.  I don't really want to disable them all, as there are a few that I value more and won't fly without.  

 

[craighardy]

Hi Frank,

So, I disabled most of my plugins and it didn't crash this time.  I took out RealWeatherConnector.  As I noted previously, 

The crash occurs after:

SkyMaxx Pro: Coordinate system changed; repositioning cloud layers.

The log showed no change in the coordinate system or repositioning of cloud layers.  Would that be because I removed RealWeatherConnector which may be causing SkyMaxxPro to reposition cloud layers?  I notice that before a crash there's like a giant pause or freeze.  

 

Now, the next time I run it, I will run it with RealWeatherConnector and see how that works.

Craig Hardy

 

 

 

Log.txt

[craighardy]

This time I added RealWeatherConnector and x-plane crashed.  

Log.txt

METAR.rwx

[craighardy]

Removed RealWeatherconnector and added gizmo64 plugin and x-plane crashed while SkyMaxxPro was working with cloud layers.

 

SkyMaxx Pro: Changing cloud conditions.
SkyMaxx Pro: Will re-use cached cumulus congestus layer.
SkyMaxx Pro: Created cumulus congestus layer alt 2372.662598 size 126000.000000 density 0.500000
SkyMaxx Pro: Will re-use cached cumulus congestus layer.
SkyMaxx Pro: Created cumulus congestus layer alt 2981.662598 size 126000.000000 density 0.666667
SkyMaxx Pro: Created stratocumulus layer alt 4017.662598 size 126000.000000 density 0.833333 thickness 610.000000
SkyMaxx Pro: Created cirrus layer alt 9945.662109 thickness 0.000000
SkyMaxx Pro: Cloud conditions changed. Current target visibility is 178508.453125
--=={This application has crashed because of the plugin: [XPLM_PLUGIN_XPLANE]}==--
 

 

Log.txt

Edited May 17, 2019 by craighardy

[sundog]

Neither Real Weather Connector nor Skymaxx Pro will operate without Gizmo 64 - I should have mentioned that.

Regardless, my best guess is that you're running out of video memory, which might explain a crash while trying to load up new clouds in the scene. Or it may be a video driver issue.

Try reducing the "cloud area covered" setting in SkyMaxx Pro or your graphics settings; if that clears it up, then you just have too many add-ons and/or too high of settings for your system to handle (more likely the former, given your video card.) I'd also make sure your drivers are up to date.

[craighardy]

I've reduced "cloud area covered" to the minimum, am using very few plugins, and have reduced my graphic settings.  My video drivers are up to date.  I have no choice but to remove SkyMaxx Pro, as I cannot complete a flight with it.

I got the usual SkyMaxx Pro: Coordinate system changed; repositioning cloud layers."" right before x-plane crashed.

 

 

Log.txt

[sundog]

For what it's worth, as far as I know you're the only person out of thousands that is reporting this. It has to be something specific to your system - perhaps one of the few remaining plugins you have installed, or a corrupt installation. If you really want to fix this, I'd install a fresh XP11 in another directory, install nothing but SMP,  and try that. If it works, start adding other plugins until it doesn't.

[craighardy]

Well, the only plugins I have running are X-Camera, XPUIPC, Fly with Lua (tried with and w/o a script - no difference), Sim Coders - Head Shake, Skunk Crafters loader and X-Raas.  I have to run SASL plugin with the Eclipse.  But, when I fly the Premier 1a I deleted it.  No difference.  The airport plugins were all turned off.  So, that's it for plugins.  

There are thousands and thousands of people that run those plugins: they are quite common.  I run them because I use TrackIR, and they make TrackIR more functional (X-Camera and Head Shake).  

The simple truth is I value TrackIR more than I value SMP.

I spent over $4,000 on the computer with the most up-to-date video card at the time (one year ago), and most people run many, many more plugins.

There are people having problems with SMP, but not all report them on this forum, or even bother to report them at all.  There are plenty of complaints on the X-plane forum.  Some people love it, and some people hate it, claiming it kills their FPS.  

My FPS with SMP was actually decent, even slightly better when it was running compared to X-Plane's weather handling.  The main problem was  when it repositioned cloud layers it caused X-plane to crash.  This seemed to happen when I was getting ready to land, after flying for about an hour or so.  Very, very frustrating!

It seems that the solution should not be to turn off all the features I really like (which are the half dozen plugins I use) to get SMP to work.  If I had a corrupt installation, then very likely more than just SMP would be affected.

Edited May 19, 2019 by craighardy

[sundog]

No need to get defensive. I'm just telling you that as far as I know, SMP itself does not crash unless something is corrupting the memory it's using, or it runs out of memory. It consumes much more memory than typical add-ons, so it is more sensitive to these sorts of issues. I would encourage you to try the experiment I suggested, as it may be a corrupt installation. We often hear users say that deleting their settings files clears up issues like this, but testing with a fresh, separate installation is safer.

[DeltaTango]

@craighardy How much RAM do you have? When I had only 16GB in my computer I would sometimes get crashes with SMP from running out of RAM. Since upgrading to 32 I haven't had any issues. 

Note: It wasn't necessarily SMP causing the crash, it was usually at large add-on sceneries flying something like the FFa320, so SMP was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

Edited May 21, 2019 by DeltaTango

[craighardy]

Hi,

I also have 32GB, and a I have a 1080 video card with 12GB of video memory.  No add-on sceneries, except for 2 airports (which I wasn't flying to).  The plugins I'm using are commonly used.  

Edited May 21, 2019 by craighardy

[shaved_ape]

On 5/21/2019 at 9:01 AM, craighardy said:

Hi,

I also have 32GB, and a I have a 1080 video card with 12GB of video memory.  No add-on sceneries, except for 2 airports (which I wasn't flying to).  The plugins I'm using are commonly used.  

Not sure if you made any headway with this issue but I took a look at the last log.txt file you posted in this thread and looked through it.  It is quite possible that at the time of the crash, it may not be SMP that causes it directly, but rather indirectly.  Since you have many other plug-ins running, they are all competing for processing during your flight, including SMP.  The possibility that another plugin is processing at the time that SMP is wanting to refresh, that this could be causing your crash, which is evident with the last line of the log (the XPLM plugin, which I believe is the X-Plane Plugin Manager).

With regards to plugins, no matter whether or not they are commonly used, the fact remains that not everyone will have the same results using them.  Past historical discussions about users' systems vs. performance & stability  benchmarks, indicate that since every user's system is different, coupled with the fact that we all have varying system configs for the OS and any other programs that may be running in the background, can have a deciding factor on crashes.  One question that I didn't see asked was whether or not your system is overclocked, and if so, to what degree of overclock is in place as well as how stable the overclock is.  I've been around the bend many times over the subject of overclocking cpus and gpus and I can tell you that not enough proper testing of overclocks can exhibit strange results.  One easy way to check the stability of X-Plane, is to run a scenario and then hit CTRL+SHIFT+F on your keyboard, to get your cpu and gpu timings.  Obviously the lower the number the better, but more importantly, compare the two and see which one is higher.  Depending on which is higher, is dependent on your rendering settings.  There are plenty of helpful tutorials out there to help decide which settings to adjust, but as a base.  If I were in your shoes, I would visit the render settings, bring down some a notch and see if that might help.