Having a Bad Month

[LeFick]

"THATS IT! I NEED A VACATION! SIX (6) Count them, SIX times I have tried to fly an open board flight from EHAM to KJFK this month. All 6 are on my prirep/rosters page. Go Look! BUT Because the reporting software lacks ONE vital feature, I can not get credit for any one of these attempts! Yes, I said attempts, because not one of them finished, five times under FSACARS and now, after 10 1/2 hours just 60 miles out of KJFK, FS Flight Keeper wet the bed. I always fly real time. NO Time Compresion. I have seen many posts under both FSACARS and FS Flight Keeper, that others have also been having problems, so I know I'm not alone. I do realize, that many other people use these programs with some regularity, but maybe they get more fiber than I do. What was the one feature either program needed to be the saviour of the universe? I'm glad you asked!DISASTER Recovery! Provide a stable way to recover from a crash and resume a flight!. The key is in the event logging. DON'T LOG EVENTS!. Write them to the disk and close the file! DUMP the buffer! Oh, another event has occured? Good!-Save that to the end of the file and CLOSE IT AGAIN QUICK! FS, or FDC or FS ACARS ort FS FLIGHT KEEPER or even the very WINDOWS constipated operating system may crash at any moment! The reboot is inevitable. One time, a few months ago, I had an FS crash, my first Globe flight even, and FSACARS was able to let me continue the flight after I restarted FS, repositioned, and continued flying. That one time did not need a reboot to get things going again. Repeatedly, not just this flight, but numerous flights since I joined, I have had to restart or re fly from scratch because the software involved CAN NOT BE TRUSTED TO RUN FOR 10 - 12 HOURS WITHOUT INCIDENT!!!!! Oh, and here is my 2 cents on add on software involved: STOP trying to be all things to everyone! FDC is a cockpit ambiance program. Stop setting my autopilot behind my back! Don't waste CPU time guessing what runway ATC will tell me to use. Just play the anouncements on time. I know this can be turned off, but you would be a lot leaner and meaner if you just stuck to what you do best. FLIGHT KEEPER is a flight event logging program (see logging above). What are you doing pretending to be a GPWS, a TCAS, and even the same ambiance as FDC? Just log the events as they happen. I have a TCAS. RFP VIP has another TCAS, now I have 3 GPWS's and they are freware all over the internet! Heck, I got a GPWS in a happy meal at McDonalds the other day. Two thumbs up though, on the type of events that are trapped into the log, JUST SAVE THEM! FSACARS Oh wait, you were free, I can't beat you up too much. Louis, if your out there, I'm NOT going to try this flight again. It was an open board flight, to get my virtual self from EHAM back to the states after my flight to EHAM last month, to get ready for my bid flight this month. 10 1/2 hours down the tubes.....last night alone. Ok, I'm done. Its safe to come back in now. "

[nwadc10]

"Wow, that does sound like a bad month. Out of curiosity, are you using RFP or PMDG when FSFK quit? I've had a problem with FSFK and PMDG when I was connected to liveACARS. Now I don't connect to it when I'm using the 744 and it works great. Sometimes I leave the sim paused overnight with FSFK still running and don't have issues with it. Also, check out my post here: <a href=""http://globecargo.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=1403"" target=""_blank"">http://globecargo.ipbhost.com/index.php ... ic=1403</a>, this program may help you relieve some stress when FSACARS and FSFK is trying make your life miserable. Justin"

[LeFick]

"

Wow, that does sound like a bad month. Out of curiosity, are you using RFP or PMDG when FSFK quit? I've had a problem with FSFK and PMDG when I was connected to liveACARS. Now I don't connect to it when I'm using the 744 and it works great. Sometimes I leave the sim paused overnight with FSFK still running and don't have issues with it. Also, check out my post here: <a href=""http://globecargo.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=1403"" target=""_blank"">http://globecargo.ipbhost.com/index.php ... ic=1403</a>, this program may help you relieve some stress when FSACARS and FSFK is trying make your life miserable. Justin

Yes, I had seen that link before, but as this was my first trip under FSFK, I wanted to go virgin, (not to be confused with Virgin Atlantic). I will be trying that next. I've also seen where some people run both FSACARS and FSFK in case one should crash. So thanks for the link. To your second point, so far its always RFP. I recently bought the PMDG Queen of the Skies, Passenger plane, but as I have not yet mastered the FMC I have not yet bought the Cargo upgrade. But in the RFP arena I am a VIP operator as much as possible. However I almost always fly the Second Generation panel for a globe flight as I don't yet trust the litton INS over the CIVA. The litton is still in progress so I fly non-Globe with that panel config. I think this mornings CTD was due to FDC, actually. I was getting some bad voice file echoing from the FS ATC while my FPS were still about 19. But what annoyed me is that FSFK mentions in its manual that it expects crashes and is ready. But it seems it is set up to trap events, and store them IN MEMORY, not to a saved file on disk. Not untill you close the flight, do you save to disk. If you want to re-enter a flight - you have to keep the flight open, or ""in memory"". If you have to reboot due to the crash, then kiss ""memory"" good bye. I had about 360 logged events just before FS went down. I was very impressed with the added functionality that the new ACARS gauge provides. That is really cool!. I was being vectored by ATC to the runway, and ""blink"" no more FS. But, when I crashed, Windows did not return to the native screen size, FSFK went blank, just the windowed boarder, and launching other aps was hit or miss. Like I could open explorer to navigate to files and folders, but I could not launch Notepad to view the file contents, or IE to go on the web. So I rebooted. When I reloaded, refueled, restarted, repositioned to about the crash point, I relaunched FSFK, and dod not see anywhere, were I could resume the previous flight! It was just gone. No logbook entry, nothing. I will say that FSFK is to FSACARS what first class is to coach. Both programs have thier markets, and you do pay for the extra bells and wistles, but so far I am impressed with the FSFK. "

[esurfman]

Maybe the comments should also be posted on FSFK forum; so Thomas Molitor would know about it.