reported FA-18 Start up crash

[diskball]

Opening a mission created in DCS 2.8.x that used MIST & DML causes crashes on F18s. Both HOT and COLD. When from COLD the crash happens when cranking the second engine. When HOT when entering the cockpit.

On the same machine, other missions work fine. The same mission, if not opened on the mission editor and re-saved works fine when running 2.9 both on single player and multiplayer (local and dedicated server).

Find attached multiple reports and 2 mission files (1 Saved on 2.8 and 1 Saved on 2.9)

Steps to reproduce.

1. Run the "Mission_2_8" mission, occupy any F18 Slot and start up - Mission works fine

2. Run the "Mission_2_9" mission, occupy any F18 Slot and start up - Game crashes to desktop 

3. Run the "Mission_2_9_empty"  mission, occupy any F18 Slot and start up - Game crashes to desktop 

"Mission_2_9_empty" is the same as the previous 2 but with all the units, triggers scripts and anything else removed.

FYI the slots are cold and empty. Refuel before starting up.

Creating a new mission from the Mission editor does not have this issue, at least to our tests so far.

Please DM me if you need further information logs or steps to reproduce.

 

dcs.log-20231019-204430.zip dcs.log-20231019-203816.zip dcs.log-20231019-203314.zip dcs.log-20231019-210208.zip Mission2_9.miz Mission_2_8.miz Mission_2_9_empty.miz

[BIGNEWY]

thanks for the logs and discord DM we will take a look

[=GR= Coyote]

Follwoing startup procudure ends up with crashing DCS. Please find attached logs.

dcs.log-20231019-220853.zip

[BIGNEWY]

thanks 

please remove all unofficial mods from saved games dcs and run a slow repair of dcs

and retest for crash

post fresh logs here if you continue to crash

 

[=GR= Coyote]

As requested

dcs.log-20231019-222348.zip

[=GR= Coyote]

2023-10-19 22:49:11.234 ERROR   LuaHooks (Main): ?:0: attempt to index a nil value
 

dcs.log-20231019-224849.zip

[ChaosRifle]

also getting this

[BIGNEWY]

threads merged 

we are investigating

 

[Skyron]

Just to clarify the above, 

This mission works fine if you just load the 2.8 version of the mission.

The mission gets broke, if you open it in 2.9's mission editor and save it (to update the mission to 2.9 as well.

Thnx

 

[BIGNEWY]

It looks like it could be related to a custom script.

please sanitise scripts in the missions and retry.

thank you

[Skyron]

Maybe yes, 

Can you please help us with this with the exact error ,so as to get it fixed?

This is a campaign mission of a whole community with weeks planning.

 

Thanks is advance.

[Skyron]

16 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

It looks like it could be related to a custom script.

please sanitise scripts in the missions and retry.

thank you

We already tried to remove all scripts in the mission one by one as to isolate the problem, and the result is the same.

[Flappie]

It seems it only happens on "takeoff from ground" slots. Can you confirm?

Edited October 20, 2023 by Flappie

[vCUJOv]

In my case. I can get into custom mission no problem but DCS crashes during startup right after the right engine ends its startup cycle. No problems in any other default scenarios.

[diskball]

The same happens when putting a slot in already HOT started on Air.

[Karman]

Solo, everything seems ok. But.. Multiplayer impossible.. Test on 4YA Aerobatics. Crash to Desktop. Test in cold and dark and Hot start in air. it crashes. Also in exterior view and in spectator, visually the image shakes, like very rapid micro lag.. 

Note: Before installing 2.9, I carried out a clean up and a repair + a complete cleaning of the metashader2 files located in Saved game and also cleaned the tracks files. On the server there were players flying, no f18. 1x 29 + 1 av8 + 1 Mirage f1. For them everything seemed to work.

dcs.log

Edited October 20, 2023 by Karman

[Skyron]

1 hour ago, Flappie said:

It seems it only happens on "takeoff from ground" slots. Can you confirm?

 

It happens in F18 everytime - either hot in the air.

[diskball]

1 hour ago, Flappie said:

It seems it only happens on "takeoff from ground" slots. Can you confirm?

 

Upon further testing @Flappie if you open the "Mission_2_8", delete all the units in the file (plane, statics, etc) and then save as to a new file like "Mission 2.9 tests", open the new file add an F18 slot, then there is no crash. The crash seems to relate with some unit after saving the mission with 2.9. In case that helps you narrow down the problem. 

If I get more fine grain details on what type of unit causes the weird "after save" behaviour I'll send an update.

 

Cheers

[BIGNEWY]

the team have reproduced the issue without scripts and we are working on a fix. 

thank you

[Coyle]

This seems to be an easily reproducible crash.

Only tested in the F/A-18C, might affect the F-16 too.

Setting the new TNDL STN numbers to 1xxxxx or (Ie, the first digit of five to one or higher) will cause the game to crash instantly with air or ground hot starts when you take control of that jet.
 

dcs.log-20231020-202404.zip

[NineLine]

This is reported, thanks for the report!

[Panthir]

I edited all STN so now they 0 as first digit and game crashes disappeared. 

[DR VYBZ]

My game crashes when starting up the f18. As soon as you hear the "flight control" que the game crashes. Before then I can look around with F2 etc with no issues except for every plane has the jitters which is a known issue as I understand. I wanted to see if the planes jitter as I'm flying and found out that I cant get the plane started at all. Never had issues prior to the 2.9 update. I have a 3080 w/ 5800x.

dcs.log-20231021-172456.zip

Edited October 21, 2023 by DR VYBZ
added log file

[Flappie]

This is a known bug:

 

[Tainoyonathan]

Not sure if i'm having the same issue, but it keeps crashing in multiplayer, but only in the fa18.

dcs.log-20231021-214841.zip dcs.log-20231021-202718.zip