Solved Crash to Desktop on Alt-Enter
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Hello experts!
I have been using Falcon BMS 4.35 well on my system since early 2021 successfully - hundreds of hours. The only issues I encountered during that entire time was inability to use Alt-Tab. I was always able to successfully use Alt-Enter to switch between windowed mode and Fullscreen (2D and 3D) and vice versa up until today. A couple of days ago, I had a lockup in 3D (in fullscreen) and couldn’t get out of it. I (foolishly) tried Alt-Tab to try to get to the Task Manager Window. I was able to kill Falcon BMS from there. Now, however, when I start Falcon BMS, it starts windowed (which is fine) but any time I try to use Alt-Enter to shift to fullscreen, it crashes to desktop (2D or 3D). I can run borderless so 3D looks ok, but I can’t alt-Enter or it will crash. This happens irrespective of Theater, or whether or not I am using RTTC for MFD output.I have tried doing a complete uninstall and reinstall (using BMS Setup) on 4.35 (U1/U2/U3) and the problem still occurs.
Here is a link to a zip file with all the crashdumps/bmps and text files.
My system:- Intel Core i5-3570K CPU @ 4.00GHz (overclocked from 3.40 GHz)
16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
EVGA NVidia RTX 2070 Super Graphics card
Win 10 64 bit 21H1 OS 19043.1288
Monitor 1 Dell 27" 2560 x 1440 144 Hx gaming monitor
Monitors 2 and 3: Eyoyo VGA 1024 x 768 monitors
HOTAS Cougar Stick and Throttle - not using TSUBA (no TARGET - I use Cougar and Foxy software)
Thrustmaster Elite rudder pedals
TrackIR 4
I have made no changes to this setup or the hardware.
When I press Alt-Enter, the entire monitor screen goes black, then I see what looks like a 1024 x 768 version of BMS in the upper left corner for a split-second, then BMS crashes. This is repeatable.
I’m stumped. This crash was after a clean install of 4.35U3 and have not had this issue occur before today. Usually a clean install will fix almost anything. It didn’t this time.
Graphics settings at the time of the crash are in the .bmp
Being able to go fullscreen in2D is important to me since I do a lot of TE design work on BMS. Sure would appreciate any suggestions on this.
Regards,
TC2 - Intel Core i5-3570K CPU @ 4.00GHz (overclocked from 3.40 GHz)
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Hi Airtex2019
- Borderless.
- Single ROG Swift monitor 2560@1440 at 144 hz GSYNC and VSYNC enabled.
- No overlay apps.
- Vanilla BMS 4.35 U3 (Fresh Install)
- All eye candy enabled minus shadows on smoke and F16 only checked.
a. ROG STRIX Gaming-F Z370 MB.
b. 16Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR4 @ 3000 mhz with XMP1.
c. Intel 9700K @ 4900/4700 Mhz standard and AI overclock 5000/4900 Mhz.
d. Corsair H100X AIO.
e. EVGA RTX 2080 Black.
g. Corsair K63 wireless keyboard (Wired currently via USB).
h. Logitech G305 wireless mouse.
i. Corsair HS70 Wireless headphones
j. TIR5.
k. TM Warthog JStick.
l. CH Pro Throttle.
m. Saitek X55 Throttle for switches only.NB
The double clicking phenomena affected all input methods, ie Keyboard, throttles, stick and mouse. It wasn’t really a huge issue, it just needed a lighter touch. A prime example would be when disengageing NWS via the stick and subsequently finding that I had inadvertantly re-engaged it later in the take-off roll.Hope this helps
Regards
Dram. -
For a long time, the recommendation has been to run Falcon in windowed (borderless or otherwise). I don’t know if this has changed with DX11, but I do see a borderless setting inside the 2D client now.
Falcon is a pretty old piece of software and it doesn’t do Alt+Tab or Alt+Enter switching very gracefully.
You can work around this by running windowed all the time and using the Windows magnifier while you navigate the 2D interface.
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I had a similar crash on U3 when hitting Alt+Enter but not 100% repro … and in my case it didn’t record a log file, so at a glance it seems probably a different mode of failure.
I’ll open a separate thread if I can repro it and catch it in postmortem debugger…
I’m left to conclude that, with 4.35.x there’s a lot of bugginess in the Alt+Enter mechanism. (Even on 2D … my 4k display behaves very badly. I did open a thread about that.)
Here’s something easy you can try … not sure it will help. What is your app-compat flag for “Disable fullscreen optimizations”?
My memory is, this flag used to be set on BMS … but the last time I did a clean reinstall, it was not (maybe this changed with U3 update? I’m really unsure).
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@tomcattwo said in Crash to Desktop on Alt-Enter:
My system
Couple Nvidia control panel config questions that may or may not be relevant…
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G-sync enabled? Enabled for just “fullscreen” or both “fullscreen and windowed games”?
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Do you have a Max FPS set? And what is your v-sync setting on the Nvidia control panel.
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- BMS settings: VSynch off, Triple Buffering On
- NVidia Settings: Not included in Program Specific settings. General Settings = VSynch = 3D App controlled, Max FPS is NOT set to anything (off)
- I checked Falcon BMS 4.35 x64 Properties. Disable Full Screen Optimizations was NOT checked. So I checked it, and ran BMS. Voila!!! Alt-Enter works properly again!!
Thank you so much for your brilliant suggestion! This fixed my issue. I am so grateful to you for taking the time to post it!
Issue Resolved (for me)
Regards,
TC2 -
@tomcattwo said in Crash to Desktop on Alt-Enter:
This fixed my issue. I am so grateful to you for taking the time to post it!
Hooray! It’s actually interesting to learn that made a difference … I can offer no sound explanation why that setting changed, or why it would break/fix your system. Just happened to think of it.
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@airtex2019
Hi airtex2019,Thanks for that reminder and yes I concur in regards to “Disable fullscreen optimisations” no longer being set by BMS in U3. This thread prompted me to check. Though I have to say that I hadn’t noticed any detrimental effects in my case.
I have now rechecked the option and will report back if it “breaks” anything.
Regards
Dram. -
Hi,
Update to my last
Checking the Full screen optimisation has had one positive effect that I can see so far. I have, up until now found with U3 that I had to be very careful when clicking in the cockpit, that I didn’t inadvertantly “double click” the switches and buttons. Checking the option seems to have cured this fault and desensitised the action!Previously, not checking the option resulted in my graphic settings in Nvidia CP not being applied. This no longer seems to be the case for 4.35 U3.
Regards
Dram. -
@dram Nice … Do you fly in ‘borderless’ or ‘fullscreen’ mode?
And single- or multi-monitor?
Do you run any overlay apps (like RTT client … or my ThrottleOverlay app, etc)
I’m curious to learn more about your environment, that fullscreen-opts could interfere with input routing.
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@tomcattwo You can try using the tool “Falcon BMS Alternative Launcher”,this tool allows you to run full screen without windows quickly,and you can press Alt+Tab to switch to another program or desktop at any time.
If you don’t want to use this tool,Just create a shortcut to the BMS execution program,then right-click the shortcut,modify in the path.
For example:
“D:\Falcon BMS 4.35\Launcher.exe” —————》“D:\Falcon BMS 4.34\Launcher.exe” –window -
@luoyi11 said in Crash to Desktop on Alt-Enter:
@tomcattwo You can try using the tool “Falcon BMS Alternative Launcher”,this tool allows you to run full screen without windows quickly,and you can press Alt+Tab to switch to another program or desktop at any time.
If you don’t want to use this tool,Just create a shortcut to the BMS execution program,then right-click the shortcut,modify in the path.
For example:
“D:\Falcon BMS 4.35\Launcher.exe” —————》“D:\Falcon BMS 4.34\Launcher.exe” –windowAL wouldn’t help in any way as it just links to the Falcon BMS.exe so in terms of switching a running BMS process AL is not involved at all.
And starting BMS with -windowed or without could be achieved without AL with general Windows shortcut as well
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Hi Airtex2019
- Borderless.
- Single ROG Swift monitor 2560@1440 at 144 hz GSYNC and VSYNC enabled.
- No overlay apps.
- Vanilla BMS 4.35 U3 (Fresh Install)
- All eye candy enabled minus shadows on smoke and F16 only checked.
a. ROG STRIX Gaming-F Z370 MB.
b. 16Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR4 @ 3000 mhz with XMP1.
c. Intel 9700K @ 4900/4700 Mhz standard and AI overclock 5000/4900 Mhz.
d. Corsair H100X AIO.
e. EVGA RTX 2080 Black.
g. Corsair K63 wireless keyboard (Wired currently via USB).
h. Logitech G305 wireless mouse.
i. Corsair HS70 Wireless headphones
j. TIR5.
k. TM Warthog JStick.
l. CH Pro Throttle.
m. Saitek X55 Throttle for switches only.NB
The double clicking phenomena affected all input methods, ie Keyboard, throttles, stick and mouse. It wasn’t really a huge issue, it just needed a lighter touch. A prime example would be when disengageing NWS via the stick and subsequently finding that I had inadvertantly re-engaged it later in the take-off roll.Hope this helps
Regards
Dram. -
@dram thanks … nothing out of the ordinary, there. I have no idea what could be causing fullscreen-opts to interfere with input … especially from joystick/throttle devices.
And haven’t heard anyone else complain of that …
Anyway glad to be of help, even if I can’t understand why my suggestion helped.
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