crash to desktop

[mla306]

Hi I am looking for a bit of advice/direction.  My game has worked flawlessly until I started the Apache outpost campaign.  I can fly the apache in all the instant action and mission files and I have all the other campaigns for the apache and have had no problems.  I have many of the other aircraft and their campaigns (WW2, 4th Gen fighters and most of the rotary aircraft) and have never had any crashes.  Stone Sky was kind enough to do some analysis for me and recommended I change the values on my core processors.  His analysis is on the Stone Sky/ Outpost/ bugs forum (CTD).  I am not a neophyte, but I'm not a computer expert either and I get a little nervous changing things in the BIOS (worried about overclocking and overheating among other things).  Since it is only the one module/campaign I'm having a problem with, is it worth the risk to attempt to change the values?  Is there anything else you might suggest based on Stone Sky's analysis or the log file (attached)?

Thoughts?

dcs.20210514-031725.crash dcs.20210514-160957.crash dcs.20210514-191401.crash

[sleighzy]

Need an actual DCS log file for when the crash occurs to determine the cause, do not restart the game before getting the log file as it will be overwritten. You may have some dcs-log-<timestamp>.zip files that will contain the full log and crash information as well.

Not sure what the information you were provided with previously but crashes are generally due to things that don’t need you to change anything with your core processes. 

Edited Thursday at 12:16 PM by sleighzy

[mla306]

Okay, I just replayed it and the game crashed.  I didn't restart the game, so hopefully this is what you need.  I should mention that I have played a couple of the other missions in this campaign through the mission editor...because I can't advance from mission 1 and I have had no problems.  Also the FCR does not seem to be identifying any of the targets although the TADS shows them.  Also the TADS does not seem to be looking at the targets that the CPG is targeting.  Stone Sky thinks the issue is P and E cores?  It just seems odd to me that I have no other issues except for mission 1 in the outpost campaign?

Thoughts?

dcs.log-20250904-225029.zip

[sleighzy]

Thanks for the crash zip. Your original crash files when you raised this were from 2021 so were irrelevant.

I've had a look at the initial feedback from Stone Sky, this was based on Grok AI output. AI cannot be strictly trusted for analyzing stuff like this, and can spread lots of disinformation. 

I've run your logs through the DCS log analyzer which has the following to say:

The crash occurred inside AH64D.dll.

• Try a slow repair with the option selected to remove files.
• Delete Saved Games\DCS\fxo and metashaders2 and try again.
• Next, delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\TEMP\DCS and try again.
• Next, try renaming Saved Games\DCS to DCS.old and try again.

Stacktrace

2025-09-04 22:50:28.080 INFO    EDCORE (Main): # -------------- 20250904-225029 --------------
2025-09-04 22:50:28.080 INFO    EDCORE (Main): DCS/2.9.19.13478 (x86_64; MT; Windows NT 10.0.26100)
2025-09-04 22:50:28.080 INFO    EDCORE (Main): D:\DCS World\Mods\aircraft\AH-64D\bin\AH64D.dll
2025-09-04 22:50:28.080 INFO    EDCORE (Main): # C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION at 00007ffd656d9ec5 00:00000000

(AH64D):
ExternalFM::AH64::AH64FM::setImmortal + 0x10EC5
(AH64D):
ExternalFM::AH64::AH64FM::getSensorsSystem + 0x29115
(AH64D):
ExternalFM::AH64::AH64FM::setImmortal + 0x15D97
(CockpitBase):
cockpit::avDevice_BasicTimer::NextEvent + 0x23
(World):
wSimTrace::CommandsTraceDiscreteIsOn + 0x3D8
[...]

Renaming Saved Games\DCS to DCS.old means you'll be able to copy back your bindings again from the Config\Input directory. As well as your missions etc.

I'm not sure that this will achieve anything, but at least you can rule it out. The fact that you have zero issues in any other missions, campaigns, or even missions within this campaign itself makes me think it's something in this initial mission triggering something. This is your statement from the other forum post " I am crashing to the desktop on mission 1.  I fire my hellfires at the technicals and as soon as I switch to rockets for the humvees I crash to the desktop.". Is this the complete trigger for it each time? Everything is perfectly fine till you perform that action and then it crashes, or it happens for other random reasons in that mission as well?

 

The DxDiag report in the zip file is also showing some issues, the log analzyer has the following output to potentially resolve these:

Windows Error Reporting (WER)

Application Errors

DCS.exe: c0000005 (AH64D.dll)

Microsoft Update / Store issues

• Make sure you have enough free disk space.   (disk space doesn't appear to be an issue here)
• Run SFC and DISM to check your Windows.
• Run wsreset.exe to reset the Microsoft Store cache
• .- Run the Windows Troubleshooter and select Windows Update.

For the SFC and DISM references open a command prompt as administrator and run the below two commands separately, and then restart your PC.

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

sfc /scannow

The log file does say that you have core parking enabled, this is the P/E core stuff that Stone Sky's Grok AI was referring to. Use the ParkControl software to disable core parking. https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/

Some additional performance tuning items also identified:

• Set Water to Medium or Low.
• Turn off Depth of Field.
• Disable civil traffic.
• Enable Full Screen mode.
• Turn down Anisotropic Filtering.
• Turn off SSLR.

[mla306]

Thanks for all this.  I'll work through it and yes it only happens when I switch from hellfires to rockets every time...and only in mission 1.  I'm gonna start with the easy DCS settings first!!

 

Thanks again.

[mla306]

Just an update.  I reset the DCS settings as you advised and while my graphics look crisper (especially at 24K in the viper) the apache crashed again when I switched to rockets.  I'll try the other suggestions and keep you posted!  Thanks for the help.  I've attached the new crash file as well.

dcs.log-20250907-215416.zip

[sleighzy]

Same stack trace as your other logs. Yeah as I mentioned earlier, given this is 100% reproducible with the 1st mission and always when switching from hellfires to rockets I'm not convinced that these settings and other system changes will resolve this. Let's see how you go anyway though.

I'd recommend going back to Stone Sky to let them know the exact circumstances, i.e. only occurs in the first mission, always occurs when switching from hellfires to rockets, and see if they can reproduce that. Do those same steps work in other missions, i.e. switching from hellfires to rockets only causes this problem in the 1st mission, switching to those in other missions is fine? Does it matter when you do switch to rockets, i.e. if you switch immediately after flying for a bit it crashes, or only after a certain point in the mission? Curious as to whether or not there are other trigger actions in that mission which expose this problem. The stack trace is a little similar to an apache crash from a few patches ago where a certain set of steps would trigger it, unrelated steps though to what you're describing.

Depending on the above testing, and reproduction of this crash in the 1st mission by Stone Sky using those steps, we can ping the ED dev team to see if they can replicate anything as well.