VATSIM.net

Shalom and greetings all my pals,

I do not want to offend all of you. I love Vatsim and Suawkbox 4.0 BUT.....

After 2 or 3 weeks of learning to master Vatsim and Squawkbox 4.0 so that I can participate on Cayman Airways virtual airline's events where I can talk to other Cay pilots during the event flights, I regret that I think Squawkbox 4.0 is not stable enough for me or my laptop.

I had about 14 flights under Vatsim and Squawkbox 4.0 and about 9 Vatsim and Squawkbox 4.0 flights went smoothly. The others did not go smoothly.

During first week of Vatsim and Squawkbox 4.0 flights, the FSX suffered screen freeze during two flights but I suspected (that is my theory) it was attributed to me typing on FSX by mistake when I was supposed to type on Squawkbox's window.

The next seven flights under Vatsim and Squawkbox 4.0 went smoothly with exemption of a plane almost hitting my plane at MKJS due to other pilot's error.

And then during past three or four flights, FSX always suffered freeze. I was 20 minute away from TIST during MWCR to TIST flight when FSX suffered freeze forcing me to shutdown meaning I lost the flight. Then I attempted return flight to MWCR three times only to find out that 10 minutes after take off, the FSX froze resulting into the loss of flight. I noticed and suspected that Squawkbox froze first and gave "domino" result to FSX and VASF3.

I decided to test theory that Squawkbox 4.0 was causing freeze problem. I uninstalled Squawkbox 4.0 and tested FSX which ran faster and better than it was with Squawkbox 4.0.

Then I reinstalled Squawkbox 4.0 in hope it would correct any problem. It did not and gave me freeze few minutes after take off.

Does anybody have suggestion to solve this problem? Maybe dump Squawkbox 4.0 and use FSINN or is the latter more unstable than the former??

What do all of you think??

If it was up to me, I would rather try to tackle to solve the problems that Squawkbox 4.0 may cause FSX because I prefer to stay on Vatsim.

While any of you are trying to figure out how to solve, let me give you the only clue that I have when FSX freezes. The error message said "appl hang up" or something.

Thank you for your attention.

Regards,

Aharon

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Did FSX freeze at all when you uninstalled SB4? When/before FSX/SB4 freezes is there any traffic around? If so... a rough amount? My initial inclining (thought) is the VIP sets that SB4 uses are corrupt, which may cause SB4 to freeze, thus in turn FSX to freeze. Best bet is to uninstall SB4, install and try FSINN. Then test FSX, if FSX doesn't freeze we can safely assume that SB4 is causing the problem.


Turn crash detection off. Yes unrealistic, but if another pilot does accidently crash/jump into you, your flight wont get reset.

Craig P

Craig,

Thanks I will try your suggestion. Before I install FSINN, does it have texting ability?? I do not have audio ability.

Regards,

Aharon

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One known issue with Squawkbox it is not compatible uPnP and may typical freez or crash after a while also maybe depend on amout of traffic.

If router and Squawkbox, disable uPnP in router. (While let uPnP be enabled for FSInn).

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/ Lennart Vedin /

Yes, it supports Text.

I really do not know anything about uPnP. What is it?? And where can I find?? Will disabling it affect internet access or anything?? Will disabling affect security??

I think SB4 is the culprit of FSX freeze, not uPnP.

Maybe I will wait for the company to come up with more stable SB4 like SB4.1???

Regards,

Aharon

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Your first statement does not match with the second.



Considering that neither SB nor FSINN are under active development, you may have a while to wait.

Perhaps you should run SB4 as an external program, not a module. I have run SB4 for months in this fashion with no issues.

Cheers!

Luke

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... I spawn hundreds of children a day. They are daemons because they are easier to kill. The first four remain stubbornly alive despite my (and their) best efforts.
... Normal in my household makes you a member of a visible minority.

Shalom Luke,

That is brilliant idea!!!!! It will solve the problem for sure. Can you please be kind enough to provide easy guide explanations how I can do your terrific suggestion please?

Also are you talking about two programs in same computer with one screen?

Thanks

Aharon

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I'm not confident that either of these statements are true, but I'm happy that you are optimistic.



Start squawkbox from the start menu. I believe it creates an entry there.



Yes.

Cheers!

Luke

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... I spawn hundreds of children a day. They are daemons because they are easier to kill. The first four remain stubbornly alive despite my (and their) best efforts.
... Normal in my household makes you a member of a visible minority.

Ok, Luke I will try this trick!!

Thanks

Aharon

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Luke,

Your idea did not work. I would need tio run SB4 as molude, not as seperate program Sorry

Meanwhile I am trying to get to bottom of why SB4 causes FSX to freeze.

I took few more flights using SB4 and Vatsim. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it froze my FSX.

WHY IS THAT??

I am testing theory that more pilots on Vatsim the better chance that SB4 will freeze my FSX and less pilots on Vatsim lesser chance the SB4 will freeze my FSX. Is my theory correct??

If not, what is minumum system requirements for SB4?? My laptop has 3 GB ram with 256mb dedicated video ram with T8100 Centrino Duo core at 2.10 GHZ. Maybe I should turn off Aero feature in my Vista OS? If so, how do I turn off Aero feature?

Thanks,

Aharon

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Aero isn’t a factor. You don’t have to turn Aero off for FSX. If you have Aero on by default, FSX turns it off when you start FSX. It turns it back on when you exit FSX.

-- L. James

--
L. D. James
ljames@apollo3.com
www.apollo3.com/~ljames

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sticky:

Not a regular post, but a special thread/message stuck to the top with special meaning… containing important forum information.

For FSInn/VATSIM issues, please test the FSInn Installation sticky and linked FAQ. It really works!

Why do you "need" to?

Cheers!

Luke

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... I spawn hundreds of children a day. They are daemons because they are easier to kill. The first four remain stubbornly alive despite my (and their) best efforts.
... Normal in my household makes you a member of a visible minority.

Hi,

Ok, first a disclaimer. I don't use Vista. I use XP and these following steps are how you should do this in XP. I'm sure somenoe with Vista can tell you if this is correct or what you should do in Vista.

You need to disable the Universal Plug and Play service (uPnP) and the Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) within windows. I have had these sevices disabled for as long as I can remember and it has cause no stability issues in XP.

Anyway:
1) Click on Run in the start bar
2) Type services.msc and hit return. This will open your MS services terminal window.
3) Scroll down the list and find the 2 servcies I mentioned above.
4) Right click each one and select STOP
5) Right click on each one and select properties
6) Go to the drop down bar that says start up type and select disable for each service.

uPnP and SSDP should be now stopped and disabled on your system. Try a flight on FS now and see what happens.

Also, as Luke said, running SB as a stand alone (not a module) can save you a lot of headaches. Very basically, when SB is run as a module it basically runs it's processing as a feature of FS which can be a processor and memory hog anyway. If you run it separately, it allows windows to manage the processor and memory load rather than to try and force it through as a process of FS with everything else. If your problem with running SB separately is because you can't type into SB (FS on full screen), remember, SB integrates into your multiplayer chat window which allows you to type in there and will transmit on SB for you.

I have run SB like this since its inception and I have yet to run into a problem.

Hope this helps.

Cheers!
Paul.

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Shalom Luke and Paul Byrne,

Thanks for well detailed explanation.

Will disable UpNP and SSDP endanger security of laptop?

What do UpNP and SSDP exactly do for laptop or computer?

I tried to run SB4 as seperate program instead of module. It did not recognize existence of FSX and asked me if I have 2004 or 2002!!!!!

Regards,

Aharon

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