Unable to enter cockpit since F4 arrival in May

[stickz]

Starting any quick or training mission for the F4 only puts me into F10 map view. Refuses to load the F4_flightModel.dll. Trying to click on it and using the enter cockpit keypress (alt-J ?) just tell me its not possible to fly this aircraft. All other a/c including A-10c, viggen, mossie, spit, F5, mirage, F-16 all work fine. I tried making additional copies of the bin directory merely to attempt to "move" the .dll to a differnt location on disc to no avail. Removed all mods (only have A4E, tacview, viacom and 476 range targets anyway). Made no difference.

Raised a ticket back in May and had support give me a succesion of things to try. Reinstall visual C++ redistributable and then provide additional debug info. Neither seem to have helped, (installed both the x86 and x64 just in case).

Was then asked to provide a checksum of the flightModel.dll which I provided (asume it was correct although never got direct answer from support to that). Then requested I try DISM and the sfc/scannow utilities. DISM came up clean. The sfc scan did report a problem with visual C which gave me some hope. It corrected it, I then reset computer and reran sfc which now reported ok. The flightmodel.dll still would not load. So then removed F4 module completely, repair, clean (and I additionally removed mods directory), then reinstalled (also redid hashsum of flightmodel.dll  no change). Still not loading .dll.

Never heard anything more from support for a coupla months until I sent a trifle snarky query about it. At this point (August) I was still running version 2.9.5 ie no additional updates due to several reported bugs that I wanted no part of. They requested I update. With a nvme drive 50Gb free and a potential 300Gb update from forum comments this was not really an option. Been in and out hospital in meantime but 2 weeks back bought a bigger extra nvme drive, spent 10+ hours to download latest updates and then tranferred the game to new drive - including reinstalling the F4. Still no work. The log file refers to one of these. Went to suport to update after this and found the ticket had been auto closed 5 days after asking me to update game in Aug (which has left me fuming to be honest). 

To only thing I will add, although all official mods work as always, the A4E (mod) has shown the same error since about v2.0.1. It worked when it initially went to v2.0 but at some point it would no longer load the a-4E-C.dll with the same error. Play this game in patches so its was never obvious which stopped it. I had already tried visualc checks multiple times since from comments in the mods section to try this. Had also created 5 or 6 copies of the A4E aircraft section to move the dll(never fixed it). I just was not bothered enough to chase it up.

So I guess there is either something common in these 2 .dlls or my visual C library has some obscure error but why does it only effect these 2 modules (that I have found) and decided to try here if any new thoughts could arrive

dcs.log

[MAXsenna]

Try to exclude the DCS core installation folders in your Anti-Virus solution, (and Saved Games while you're at it), then perform a full repair. Many users have had similar issues with various modules the past six months plus, where the AV solution removed/quarantined files due to false positives. I find it somewhat baffling that support didn't suggest this as the first measure.
NB! This will speed up load times as well.
Cheers!

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[stickz]

Hi Max, I already have both main installation and saved games excluded. Had done saved games back when the A4E showed problems. Pretty sure the exclusion on main game is working because when I swapped the installation to the new Nvme drive it flagged F4 Heatblur jester.dll as bad and excluded it. So it reminded me to swap the exclusion to the new drive - and as I couldnt remember how to get it back I removed and re installed phantom. But thanks for replying, its possible I mentioned when making the initial F4 support ticket that I mentioned I had already excluded them. 

[MAXsenna]

@stickz I see, that makes sense. But the error you describe is so similar to Anti-Virus solution messing about. Which Anti-Virus solution do you have? And did you actually perform a full slow repair after you moved the files and the dll was flagged? It's not enough to change/add the exclusion, because it's too late when the file is flagged and removed. A repair will bring it back.


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[stickz]

Hi Max, I use AVG (free version)  never had any particular issues with using it so have stuck with it for long time. If you are meaning full slow repair after I moved the dcs installation then not directly. Assuming I am remembering 100% correctly here - I moved the install, added via module manager the F4 then tried running a training mission. That failed, although I think that crashed out the mission (whereas usually the mission starts but you have only F10 view) and AVG said it had quarantined the heatblurJester.dll file for containing something nasty. So then I uninstalled F4 again then reinstalled it then did a clean and repair. Then added exceptions - initially just for the F4 and then for the whole DCS directory. After that the error just retirned to the usual. AVG has never given any kind of indication that it has rejected the FlightModel.dll, it just doesnt run for some reason. AVG might be involved just cannot see why - or how to tell.

[MAXsenna]

Hi Max, I use AVG (free version)  never had any particular issues with using it so have stuck with it for long time. If you are meaning full slow repair after I moved the dcs installation then not directly. Assuming I am remembering 100% correctly here - I moved the install, added via module manager the F4 then tried running a training mission. That failed, although I think that crashed out the mission (whereas usually the mission starts but you have only F10 view) and AVG said it had quarantined the heatblurJester.dll file for containing something nasty. So then I uninstalled F4 again then reinstalled it then did a clean and repair. Then added exceptions - initially just for the F4 and then for the whole DCS directory. After that the error just retirned to the usual. AVG has never given any kind of indication that it has rejected the FlightModel.dll, it just doesnt run for some reason. AVG might be involved just cannot see why - or how to tell.

Yeah, in between your clean and repair, then adding the exclusion AVG probably quarantined it a gun. One must always add the exception before a repair. Just try it again.
Cheers!

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[Zabuzard]

Would it be possible for you, for testing purposes, to completely disable/deactivate all your AV systems?
That is, deactivate your AVG, deactivate your Windows Defender and anything else you might be running.
Then repair DCS (redownloads any quarantined files) and see if it works now. Then you at least know that it's the AV software and not something else.

Sorry if you tried this out already on your long journey.

Id like to remind that asking for a refund is also an option, just in case.

[stickz]

42 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Yeah, in between your clean and repair, then adding the exclusion AVG probably quarantined it a gun. One must always add the exception before a repair. Just try it again.

Hi Max, I am sorry I might be confusing you, but I appeciate you taking time to help me here. AVG quarantined the heatblurJester.dll but not the flightmodel.dll. I recovered the heatblurjester.dll(by renstalling) and it is still in the F4-E\bin directory. With it removed, attempting a mission never got far enough through to load the flightmodel.dll. Once the heatblurjester.dll was installed and exceptions put onto the directories it has not since removed the heatblurjester.dll. But it has returned to the original condition where it cannot load flightmodel.dll for whatever reason as reported in the log file. Which at least shows to me that the avg exemption is working on the relevant directories because the heatblurjester.dll has not since been removed. The flightmodel.dll has never been quarantined and been no indication from avg that it was taking any action, I think I probably got to the correct sequence by brute force and ignorance. 

[stickz]

1 hour ago, Zabuzard said:

Would it be possible for you, for testing purposes, to completely disable/deactivate all your AV systems?
That is, deactivate your AVG, deactivate your Windows Defender and anything else you might be running.
Then repair DCS (redownloads any quarantined files) and see if it works now. Then you at least know that it's the AV software and not something else.

Sorry if you tried this out already on your long journey.

Id like to remind that asking for a refund is also an option, just in case.

Hi zabuzard,I assume so, I have never tried before so have no idea if its possible, may take me a while to find out - or get my son to do it :). But no I have not tried this previously. Something additional, I had just tried to uininstall the F4 again to try to ensure that I had at least got through Maxsennas last suggestion above. Its telling me that it cant delete most if not all the files in the F4E\bin directory (including the locales directory in there). It may have done it the last time as well and I just clicked a few popups cos the text is so small to read - normally I have a magnfying glass to read these things, but working with a trusted utility I didnt take enough interest. When the uninstall had completed, I went in and delted the F4 directory manually. No idea if this is relevaant in any way, similar to the same idea the the A4-E mod .dll in savedgames fails for the same reason as the F4. But I will give the deactivation a go.

Thanks for the refund suggestion, will give it a bit longer, a few more weeks are not gonna make a huge difference - "avoiding" the problem is something of a short term fix. It will to all intents and purposes leave me unlikely to buy other module in case the same problem occurs without a similar safety net. It also has a certain pull cos I worked briefly on RAF phantoms back in the 70s and unless a lightning, hunter or tornado turns up fairly soon I probably wont see anything I have a connection with -  (I dont really count being a development engineer on ecr90 as a direct connection ).

Let you know how deactivatioon goes.

[stickz]

Before I add too much confuion the files left in the bin directory that would not let module manager remove were mainly .pak files (inc the one in locale directory) chrome_100, chrome_200 and chrome_elf.dll, libcef.dll.

Dreactivated avg,removed F4 as said earlier, full cleanup, repair, re install F4, cleanup. Run training mission. Still no load the F4 flightmodel.dll

[stickz]

ok as far as I could work out having AVG on deactivates overlapping activities of windows defender. But I tried with all disabled as far as I could tell and it still refused to load the flightmodel.dll in a mission. So I am still at square one.

[MAXsenna]

ok as far as I could work out having AVG on deactivates overlapping activities of windows defender. But I tried with all disabled as far as I could tell and it still refused to load the flightmodel.dll in a mission. So I am still at square one.

I'm still confused if you have done a repair after you excluded the paths. If the answer is no, there's your problem. A full repair must always be done after the exclusions are set.
Windows Defender is more than adequate. I would make exclusions in that as well. To be honest. I would completely remove AVG. Add the exclusions in Defender, and make a full slow repair. If the A-4 doesn't work. You probably need to re-install it, as a repair won't touch Saved Games, and for sure not repair anything un-official.

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[stickz]

Hi Max, yes I have done several repairs since excluding the paths. I have also been through and checked the exclusions. I even repeated the process yesterday after your previous suggestion to try it. After that I have tried turning off both avg, then defender, then again re-install the F4 and then repair and trying with them off (assuming I had successfully turned them off but was getting multiple warning from windows about being unprotected).

As for the A4E  yeah its been reinstalled multiple times over a couple of years as well as checking the visualC redistributable due to forum mentions of that being a cause. There was a list there of things to try at some point. Plus  clearing saved game mods - or making multiple versions of it to move the A4.dll just in case my drive was faulty. Even got my son to check I wasnt doing sume thing daft with redistributable install. Never got to the bottom of it, and as not much of a mods user I just forgot about it. Just appears odd that neither will load for the same reason (although prev to about v2.0.1 A4 worked fine) yet 18 other modules (if I include 3 or 4 trials) work fine. So some thing definately changed in it. I even went back and installed a very old version(of A4) just to see if I could find one that worked - needless to say this failed as well.

The only thing I have stubbornly refused to do is a full dcs reinstall -- not worth it for me for an estimated 30hr down load.

[stickz]

maxsenna and zabuzard - miraculously, after the last patch at christmas this is now working. Took 7hr download and didnt run game until this mid week so was stunned to find the phantom missions now work by me able to enter cockpit. Have no idea what might have changed at your end of the dll for it to now work (it does have a new delivery date but do not know if there were any changes you made to it). The only other possibility for it now working, I (dare I say it), re-installed BMS Falcon4 beginning Jan and left the visual studio install checked. Latest version was already installed (checked it so many times even before F4 trying to get A4 mod to start working again). Maybe that bms fixed some sort of broken link so F4(dcs) could find visual C library now (have doubts cos the A4 still dont work).

Regardless, finally got a working phantom, brings back 45yr old memories of working in the snow and ice at leuchars attempting to fix its recalcitrant radar.

Thanks for time you both spent trying to help me, glad got my reward for not accepting your offer of a refund

[MAXsenna]

Happy new year! @stickz The miraculous dark magic of computers!
(I'd wager it had to do with the VC distributions somehow). Refunds are no fun, especially with the Phantom.
As for the A-4E, have you tried to remove it and then fully re-install it?
Cheers!

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[stickz]

Hi max, very happy new year to you too. Yes, I even removed the A4 again after found the phantom worked, re down loaded it and tried again but no avail. Still whilst it would have been nice to find that both now worked, I'll settle for having phantom fixed.  Dark magic, I remember in 1976(ish) an airframe (rigger) sargeant came into the squadron electonics den with a briefcase, containing a motherboard, 5 LCDs and a hex keypad. And tried to explain to us for half hour how useful it could be, whilst also trying to defend why it couldnt add 2+2 without an hour programming it first - unlike the early calculators that were making an appearence. heh heh wonder what he is doing now? He was forever nicknamed " man with his brain in a suitcase", a take off from a popular tv programme then (man in a suitcase - but you gotta be old to remember it)

[MAXsenna]

Hi max, very happy new year to you too. Yes, I even removed the A4 again after found the phantom worked, re down loaded it and tried again but no avail. Still whilst it would have been nice to find that both now worked, I'll settle for having phantom fixed.  Dark magic, I remember in 1976(ish) an airframe (rigger) sargeant came into the squadron electonics den with a briefcase, containing a motherboard, 5 LCDs and a hex keypad. And tried to explain to us for half hour how useful it could be, whilst also trying to defend why it couldnt add 2+2 without an hour programming it first - unlike the early calculators that were making an appearence. heh heh wonder what he is doing now? He was forever nicknamed " man with his brain in a suitcase", a take off from a popular tv programme then (man in a suitcase - but you gotta be old to remember it)

Suitcase brain. I've never heard of "Man in a Suitcase", but I do vaguely remember something about a "Man With a Suitcase". You are correct anyhow. 73 model, I hit 52 tomorrow on the 13th.

Cheers

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[stickz]

Man in a suitcase - started 1968, uk spy series with richard bradford. Not surprised you never heard of it, but same people that did danger man(then again you probably never heard of that either ). Nearly got a 20yr headstart on you, by 1973 had finished 2yr electronic degree training for RAF.

[MAXsenna]

Man in a suitcase - started 1968, uk spy series with richard bradford. Not surprised you never heard of it, but same people that did danger man(then again you probably never heard of that either ). Nearly got a 20yr headstart on you, by 1973 had finished 2yr electronic degree training for RAF.

I found it. Will download later and have a look.
Thanks!

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