After a FS-crash, resume flight

[matzeone]

You all know that sometimes FS crashes, for some reasons, textures problems, memory leak, or whatever.
If a CTD occurs, and much more at the end of a 4-hour flight, it could be great if we could resume this flight, even a few minutes before
the CTD, so that we don't lose 3 hours of flights!

What about saving flight datas every 2 minutes, or every 5 minuts, or so? So, when we have CTD, after coming back to FS, we
choose "resume a non-finished flight" and FSP loads the situation saved only a few minutes before CTD?

I think this could be a good idea, but let me know!!

[SWAFO]

Great idea, but I don't think it could really be implemented. A crash is a crash... total failure, that's it!

[matzeone]

By "crash", i only meant a technical problem on the computer, and not at all a problem on the aircraft.
The crash i wanted to speak about is the moment you're flying, and you've got a message like "Flight Simulator has encountered an error,
you must restart FS9, etc.", or any other problem like that.

Of course, if you're flying, and you get an engine flame out, and then crash, you restart the flight, and that's all!

[pagir]

The "saving" option was implemented in the early FsP beta testing stage, but it wasn't reliable. It's not an easy thing to do... Dan will
maybe work on this in the future!

Pagir

[matzeone]

OK, thanks for your answer!
I hope it'll be ok, i think it would be a great help for some people!

[psolk]

I concur with this one, I would love to see this feature implemented as FS crashes (CPU or software) are becoming more and more frequent for a lot of
users with all of our complex add-ons. I have probably lost 40 hours to FS crashes after long hauls...
-Paul

[SWAFO]

Wow! You've really got it bad then. I remember lots of crashes in the FS7-8 days, but have had ONLY one with FS9... I use lots of addons
(scenery, aircraft, miscellaneous, etc.). Sorry you're having this issue. Keep in mind that a save feature is VERY difficult to implement,
because of the fact each aircraft has it's own systems and states that must be preserved in the save (take the PMDG 747 for example). In
order to save accurately, the position of each and every switch, dial, knob, etc. would have to be accurately recorded. Sounds quite tricky if
you ask me!

[Jetflyer]

All that extra software process to enable such a feature of saving before a crash would probably CAUSE more crashes in the first place, what with the
required complexity.

[SWAFO]

Good point Jetflyer!

[silo]

You could always do it in two separate steps. First you load the FS9 side and then the FsP side.
So after a crash you would restart the PC, load FS9, load the a/c, position it at the point you were before the crash (altitude, speed,
position) and pause FS9.
Then you load the last autosaved flight from FsP and you'd be set to go.
The only problem with this method is that you won't be able to reset the FMC, so you'll have to fly without it.

[DanSteph]

Pagir was right:

the beta of FsP included a "autosave feature" every nn minutes as well as "save before quitting"
feature.

It worked well for me but failed for most tester that tried to restore flights.
I tried hard to solve this problem but as the time was limited I disabled this feature.

Now about trying to do it again: a save that you can't relly at 100% is very dangerous
and annoying, you may relly on it, quit your 8 hours flight just to find that you lost your flight
when you come back. Quite annoying.

As pointed brad, many aircraft are really complex as PMDG doing a save for them
would be an extremely difficult things to do to ensure a 100% success rate.
Still a save in fs2004 is not 100% garantee even with the default aircraft.

So if in the future I rework on this it will be anyway an option in the more_option.cfg
to allow save with a big warning text next to it that it must be used only by aware user
that try to recover after a CTD (I mean even if the restore success rate is only 50%
it may save your day in half case after a CTD wich may be better than nothing ?)

Dan

[SWAFO]

Sounds good Dan! There are some of us that wouldn't want a save feature, so I think a more_option.cfg option is a good idea!

[psolk]

Dan, That would be great thanks.
brad, you have specifically said you only do shorter flights. A lot of people with the PMDG and the LVL-D experience out of memory error messages
while on approach into add-on sceneries. A lot of people don't. The issue is that for example, the PMDG can put memory usage as high as 1.3 gigs
after 10-12 hours of flying. I have two gigs of physical RAM and a 4 gig swap file. Shouldn't be an issue right. Not the case. A lot of users will
see "memory spikes" when flying into some add-on sceneries when the scenery is first loaded. This spike when FS is already running at 1.3 gigs memory
usage is too much for a lot of people and FS gives an out of memory error message and crashes.
You have to remember my posts when I say I have lost 40 hours. I do 8-14 hour fligths so I had 4 flights crash my PC. Then I installed Cloud9 EHAM
and guess what, it uses the same trafficinfo.dll as the PMDG TCAS and that caused a crash. hey Sh*t happens but the option of being able to try and
recover from issues like this would be great. Pagir, take a look at FS autosave by Ken Salter great program and I have never seen a single claim of
any issues with it.
Brad,
I don't think I have it bad at all I just like to buy almost every add-on out there and guess what it causes issues sometimes. I work in computers on
a daily basis so a crash to me when I am constantly adding/removing modules/sceneries and other add-ons is very reasonable. It is all relative to how
hard you push your system... To each his own.
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