Possible bugs with F-14A skins

[captain_dalan]

Hey guys, this may or may not be a bug. Ever since 2.7 came out, i've had some seemingly random DCS freezes when running certain missions made by me and some instant actions involving the F-14A. At first i thought it was the clouds and didn't pay too much attention to it, though it always seamed to have happened on something like World Building 1/61. But then i started running different maps with different planes and the bug went away. It wasn't there in the Viper and the Bug, after about a dozen tries. So i narrowed it down to the F-14. But no one here reported any such bugs so i asked myself, could it be any mods i have? I had the A-4 and about a dozen Reflected skins and one skin based on his skins at the time. I removed the A-4, but the crashes persistent in their own irregular way, though more present on the Persian Gulf and Syria. Then i removed all the skins  i had for the F-14A and the crashes stopped.

So i would like to ask if anyone that uses these skins has this issues? Can skins cause crashes in missions that don't use them? If so, should i report this bug to Reflected?

Cheers everyone and happy flying!!!!

Edited April 25, 2021 by captain_dalan

[Skysurfer]

Flew the A on multiple maps and on MP with no issues, doesn't look like it for me.

[captain_dalan]

2 minutes ago, Skysurfer said:

Flew the A on multiple maps and on MP with no issues, doesn't look like it for me.

With the skins?

I just tried it again, removed the skins, flew four instant actions in a row, exited DCS, dropped the skins again in the  F-14A-135-GR folder, DCS freeze at World Building 1/61 on the 2nd instant action i tried.

MP doesn't seam to be effected.

[Skysurfer]

Negative no customs skins as far as I can tell. 

Edited April 25, 2021 by Skysurfer

[Nealius]

Custom liveries here, including Reflected's and no issues so far.

[LanceCriminal86]

Gigabytes of my own skins for A and B, no crashes. Only issue I had like yours was tied to VPC ground assets mod and the lighting towers, caused a total lock at 1/61 or whatever.

[captain_dalan]

Thanks for the input guys. No other mods on my side.
I'm deleting metashaders, fxo, repairing DCS and then i'm going to test each skin one-by-one. Those skins are too good to be ignored!

[captain_dalan]

Well, that fixed it. Full metashader and fxo wipe out, both in saved games and bazar folders, then full repair and cleanup. Pasted the skins back in and no crashes so far. If anyone faces this issues in the future, i hope they find this topic.

[draconus]

On 4/25/2021 at 3:41 AM, captain_dalan said:

Hey guys, this may or may not be a bug. Ever since 2.7 came out, i've had some seemingly random DCS freezes when running certain missions made by me and some instant actions involving the F-14A. At first i thought it was the clouds and didn't pay too much attention to it, though it always seamed to have happened on something like World Building 1/61.

I have such freezes/crashes in VR since 2.7. No liveries in my saved games\dcs or in the dcs\coremods though. I always delete metashader and fxo after the update but never touch Bazar folder.

Edited April 26, 2021 by draconus

[captain_dalan]

17 hours ago, draconus said:

I have such freezes/crashes in VR since 2.7. No liveries in my saved games\dcs or in the dcs\coremods though. I always delete metashader and fxo after the update but never touch Bazar folder.

 

I may have congratulated myself a bit too soon. The crashes ARE fewer indeed, but today i did have a couple. Always happened during a change in maps, like flying a mission on Syria and then going for a mission on the Persian Gulf. And while previously it happened often on instant actions as well, so far i didn't have any there. By the way all the missions i flew today were prefabricated, the cleanup wiped out all my custom training missions.

[Nealius]

Just to clarify, are you completely closing DCS after each flight, before flying again?

[captain_dalan]

12 hours ago, Nealius said:

Just to clarify, are you completely closing DCS after each flight, before flying again?

Nope, to reproduce (if at all reproducible):
1. Start Syria free flight in the F-14A then quit the mission, don't quit DCS;
2. Start Syria CASE I recovery on the Super Carrier in the F-14A, repeat as above;
3. Start Persian Gulf Beyond Visual Range in the F-14A, DCS hags at World Building 1/61 and becomes unresponsive in the task manager.

Right now i'm dropping each skin one by one, to try and narrow down the problematic ones. Not all seam to be related with the crashes, but so far, all of the VF-1's except for the 1989 are a no-go, which is a shame, as those are my favorite F-14A liveries.

[captain_dalan]

I narrowed it down to these 4 skins. If either of these 4 is present, then the hangs can occur

[Nealius]

6 hours ago, captain_dalan said:

Start Syria free flight in the F-14A then quit the mission, don't quit DCS;

 

That's the main problem. There's known issues with 2.7 crashing if you try to start missions without quitting DCS first. 

[captain_dalan]

On 4/29/2021 at 2:28 AM, Nealius said:

 

That's the main problem. There's known issues with 2.7 crashing if you try to start missions without quitting DCS first. 

Interesting....... even instant actions?
However, after isolating the above 4 liveries, i've had zero crashes, and i've started missions on different maps and servers without a single crash.

[draconus]

6 hours ago, captain_dalan said:

Interesting....... even instant actions?
However, after isolating the above 4 liveries, i've had zero crashes, and i've started missions on different maps and servers without a single crash.

Yes, even IA. Not everybody has the crashes. I did have and I don't have these "bad" liveries.

 

[captain_dalan]

That is puzzling indeed. I guess we'll have to wait for the "fix".