Vista and a black screen forever

C

cazna

Guest
:applause:. I like what I've seen so far.

I'm seeing the occasional erratic behaviour and I'm interested in whether this is unique to my machine or whether anyone else is experiencing the same. If you are experiencing the behaviour described below, post a reply. That way I'll know whether to try and do so better diagnosis of the problem to see if it can be demonstrably repeated in order to see if it can be fixed.

The behaviour
-------------
O/S: Windows Vista x32
OFF: v1.25
GPU: nvidia geforce 8800 GTX
Usually when a flight ends, the screen goes black for a short time, then my usual Vista desktop is displayed and then the OFF Manager kicks in. On occsion however, the screen goes black and that's as far as it gets.

Preliminary diagnosis
--------------------
I can see from the task manager that cfs3.exe is still running. It's not sucking any CPU but is occassionally showing Read I/O. It looks like the cfs3.exe process is unable to exit cleanly and thus ends in cloud cookoo land. Consequently, OFF Manager doesn't resume processing.

Remedy
-------
The remedy is to kill the cfs3.exe process tree and OFF Manager will then kick in. However, the flight that you have just completed is not picked up. After a few hours in the air, this can be annoying!


Like I said, if you are experiencing similar behaviour, post a reply here.

cazna.
 
Hello Cazna...

Can you tell me what squad you are flying in - date time etc and what craft?

Ta

WM
 
I have had that happen to me as well. It happened quite a bit in phase two, not so much in phase Three.

I also use Vista, though 64 bit.

If it happens again I will take more note of the current details.
 
I'm using Vista 32bit and I've also had this happen three times.
There was a tempory file in the task manager that I closed and I got back into OFF. (I cant remember the name of it other than it started with an "A")

This happened once when I paused the Quick combat dogfight I was in and re-calibrated my joystick. The game started again without problem but then I ran into the black screen and task manger scenario after exiting the dogfight.

I too will take note of what plane I was flying etc and post any details if this happens again.
 
Davy TASB said:
I'm using Vista 32bit and I've also had this happen three times.
There was a tempory file in the task manager that I closed and I got back into OFF. (I cant remember the name of it other than it started with an "A")

This happened once when I paused the Quick combat dogfight I was in and re-calibrated my joystick. The game started again without problem but then I ran into the black screen and task manger scenario after exiting the dogfight.

I too will take note of what plane I was flying etc and post any details if this happens again.
Click to expand...


O.K Alt-Tab and Ctrl-Esc out of OFF CFS3 run-time (applies to vanilla CFS3 too) is best avoided as CFS3 is likely to hang (not always) - its an old app and does not always like interrupts.

This can also apply if background tasks interrupt CFS3 during run-time too so make sure all unnecessary apps are not running before playing OFF/CFS3

HTH

WM
 
Black screen no more

Thanks Winder for your reply re:processes as, combined with Davy TASB's comment re:joystick calibration, that rang a bell with me as something that I had done in the game that gave me the black screen.

In combination with Winder's reply re:avoiding Alt-Tab or Ctrl-Esc, I experimented :)typing:). I am confirming that (as per Davy TASB) that I could demonstrably repeat the behaviour when invoking the joystick calibration from within cfs3.exe.

Ergo, the obvious solution is for me to make sure to calibrate the joystick beforehand rather than in-game.

Thanks for your feedback. My problem appears to be resolved.
 
Now that you mention that, I think that my problems happened after a joy stick calibration. That is actually kind of obvious I am surprised I did not think of it at the time...Must have been a long mission.

Or maybe the Guinness sixer I was working on.:icon29::icon29::icon29::icon29::icon29::icon29:That beer needs a recolor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top