Peripherals stop responding during gameplay?

[Creep]

This has happened to me twice very recently - I will be flying along and all of the sudden none of my control inputs work. No joystick, throttle, rudder, keyboard, or mouse. The only way I can do anything is by ALT+TAB or ALT+F4. I checked the event viewer and don't see anything suspect. I haven't made any configuration changes to my system recently. I checked to make sure all of my USB connections were solid. I can be playing for over an hour before this occurs, sometimes it doesn't occur at all during a gaming session. Pulling my hair out trying to figure out what could cause this. Has anyone ever seen anything like this? Any ideas as to what I can do to troubleshoot the issue further?

[sniperton]

7 hours ago, QB.Creep said:

I can be playing for over an hour before this occurs, sometimes it doesn't occur at all during a gaming session.

MSFFB2 and custom hardware here. I rarely play for more than an hour, but when I do, sometimes it happenes that I lose force-feedback on the pitch axis. (It's also reported by other FFB users BTW.) When it occurs, unchecking and rechecking the FFB option may help. Afterwards, however, my controls tend to get locked up, and I crash. My experience is that

- it's rare, but nothing new. Already happened to me more than one year ago here and then, mostly online;

- previous alt-tabbing out of the game seems to increase the likelihood of the issue;

- as with the old sound bug online (now fixed), the only workaround I found is to exit and restart the game after one hour of gameplay.

 

[dburne]

Sounds like something is causing the game to lose focus at times during gameplay.

 

After you launch the game try pressing ALT+Enter to go true full screen and see how it does.

 

[Creep]

2 hours ago, dburne said:

Sounds like something is causing the game to lose focus at times during gameplay.

 

After you launch the game try pressing ALT+Enter to go true full screen and see how it does.

 

 

I will try to remember to try that if it happens again. I don't think I am losing focus on the active window, though. FYI, I am in VR - not sure if that is in any way related.

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

The other night I was flying and I lost the use of my rudder.  After about a minute or so I got use back.  This was very similar to an issue I have had related to a USB disconnecting and then reconnecting.  When I checked my USBLogView however there were no devices that had disconnected/reconnected.  So this event seems similar to what you describe.

 

Note about previous issue:  I have had the issue over time of a USB device disconnecting/reconnecting while flying.  I use Joystick Gremlin and when this happens it  in turn causes my current profile to deactivate, affecting all key commands to be effected.  When this occurs I have to Alt-Tab to reactivate it.  In order to find out the culprit I installed USBLogView.  Once it did occur again the log showed it was my MFG rudder pedals.  The one change I have made recently was to increase the in-game noise filter from .2 to .4.  The reason I did this was Jason indicated that device noise was found to be the culprit behind the loss of vertical stabilizers on some aircraft.    Like I said the recent loss of rudder did not occur during the temporary disconnect of the USB rudder pedals and was different as the profile in Joystick Gremlin remained active.

 

Link to USBLogView:  http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_log_view.html

 

 

[Creep]

@VBF-12_Stick-95 Do you recall whether or not you heard the Windows sound associated with a USB device being disconnected when the issue occurred? I also have MFG Crosswinds. I will make the change you suggested and install USBLogView. Thank you very much for your detailed response!

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

I used to hear the disconnect/reconnect OS sounds but now my sound mixer keeps resetting System Sounds to 0%, so unless I remember to increase it I don't hear them, thus USBLogView.

 

I have one of the first 80 v2's produced which had a problem with many disconnection issues.  This was due to a board not handling low voltage issues (if I remember correctly).  Milan sent me a new board and after installing it and doing the firmware install the disconnect/reconnects happens rarely.

 

I really don't think the MFGs had anything to do with this most recent in-game rudder issue.  Keep in mind, my change to the in-game noise filter to .4 could be what caused the new problem.  ?

[sniperton]

It happened to me again just now. Symptoms are the same, force feedback on pitch axis lost, menu, uncheck/recheck FFB, then stick completely lost. Rest of the controllers (custom throttle box and rudder) still working fine. Went to level autopilot, disconnecting and reconnecting the stick, nothing helped, I had to bail out.

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

@sniperton  I used to have an MSFFB2 and had the issue of loss of FFB when I alt-tab'd.  The solution at the time while still flying was to go into settings, then key mapping screen, then escape out.  Some times it worked the first time, other times it took more than once.  This is an old work around and may no longer work.  Either way it's a pain in the butt.

[sniperton]

1 hour ago, VBF-12_Stick-95 said:

The solution at the time while still flying was to go into settings, then key mapping screen, then escape out.  Some times it worked the first time, other times it took more than once.

Key mapping screen? Never thought of that, but next time I'll give it a try. Thanks for the suggestion

[Creep]

Update: had this happen again today, thankfully while I was in a training server and not in a fight on CB. I found the following in Event Viewer under System right when it occurred: 

 

Application popup: Windows - Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low : Your system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file. During this process, memory requests for some applications may be denied. For more information, see Help.

 

I was unable to see any popup blocking the screen. Alt-tab in and out of IL2 didn't help me regain control of any input device (mouse, keyboard, joystick, pedals). I looked at the task manager and saw that IL2 was using up 11.9GB of memory! I restarted my PC and rejoined a multiplayer server and the memory consumption is 2.8GB. Possibly a memory leak? Thinking about reinstalling the game. 

[jokerBR]

Had this long time ago. Not sure if this was the real cause, but it seemed to go away once I changed the way Windows can manage energy to my USB ports. Short answer, I went to Device Manager and selected the USB ports and hubs used by my joysticks, and on each one accessed Properties, selected the tab Power Management and unchecked "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". 

 

 

Never happened again after this change, maybe you get lucky as well. 

Cheers.

Edited January 21, 2020 by jokerBR

[WarPig_VR]

Hi Creep,

 

On ‎1‎/‎21‎/‎2020 at 1:33 AM, QB.Creep said:

Update: had this happen again today, thankfully while I was in a training server and not in a fight on CB. I found the following in Event Viewer under System right when it occurred: 

 

Application popup: Windows - Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low : Your system is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual memory paging file. During this process, memory requests for some applications may be denied. For more information, see Help.

 

I was unable to see any popup blocking the screen. Alt-tab in and out of IL2 didn't help me regain control of any input device (mouse, keyboard, joystick, pedals). I looked at the task manager and saw that IL2 was using up 11.9GB of memory! I restarted my PC and rejoined a multiplayer server and the memory consumption is 2.8GB. Possibly a memory leak? Thinking about reinstalling the game. 

 

The freezing up happened to me a few times in the past as well, last week I had a fight in CB with 4 kills and after the last, while I was in euphoria, my controls froze up while pulling away in full power. After 5 looping, each time closer towards the ground my plane dove into it.. killed. The memory thing seems a plausible culprit although I have 32gb of RAM and use the 2080Ti with 11gb of VRAM, seems to me a lot of leakage is needed before that one runs out of VRAM. I also play in VR and do this in a homebuild simpit making it quite difficult to get to the desktop and change stuff, tried alt tabbing, resizing the game window etc but nothing helped.

I am very curious if reinstalling the game has helped with this issue since it is quite an nuisance in playing CB or even worse TAW.

 

Cheers

Edited January 22, 2020 by No.322_FlammKuchen-VR

[Creep]

@No.322_FlammKuchen-VR I didn't do a reinstall yet... played last night for about two hours after getting the latest update and didn't have issues. Doesn't mean it isn't still an issue though since this has happened very infrequently to me. If it happens to you again, open up your event viewer and look under "System" - very curious if you see the same message I saw. It would also be worth looking at your memory usage in task manager to see if IL2 is hogging up a ton of memory.

 

I will report back here if I encounter this again.

[Charlo-VRde]

On 1/20/2020 at 7:12 PM, jokerBR said:

Had this long time ago. Not sure if this was the real cause, but it seemed to go away once I changed the way Windows can manage energy to my USB ports. Short answer, I went to Device Manager and selected the USB ports and hubs used by my joysticks, and on each one accessed Properties, selected the tab Power Management and unchecked "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". 

 

 

Never happened again after this change, maybe you get lucky as well. 

Cheers.

 

Thanks for this tip, jokerBR!  I'm going to try and see if this will address my occasional sudden disconnection of my Oculus Quest Link to my USB C port on my computer.  It's quite maddening when I am suddenly cut off from all control of my plane and view because my HMD lost its connection.

 

Here are two other fixes I discovered elsewhere on the 'net for CH peripherals that may be helpful to others troubleshooting what's described in this thread: 

 

When using Teamspeak, because of a known conflict from its "Gamepad and Joystick Hotkey Support" plugin (found in Tools > Options > Addons), CH Control Panel controls may become disabled / greyed out, particularly when switching to a different map. Quitting Teamspeak brings those greyed out buttons back in CH Control Panel so you can download the map again and enable it.

 

Also, if the buttons grey out without Teamspeak, if you hit the Windows key and type “store” and open the Microsoft Store that way, they come back.

Edited June 22, 2020 by Charlo-VR
grammar

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

Finally found the issue related to my MFG pedals dropping off, then reconnecting.  I switched out the USB-c cable and haven't had it recur for months.

[BornToBattle]

Okay, I’m bumping this one because now for the first time, all of a sudden after being in VR in Great Battles I too lose ALL peripherals...I mean rudder peddles, stick, keyboard -boom. Weird thing is stick, throttle quadrant and mouse run off of a USB hub while the keyboard and peddles go directly into the back of the PC. At first I though a possible driver issue with the USB hub but since the keyboard and peddles bypass that I’ve ruled that out as an issue.

 

All these years it’s been fine but for the last two times I’ve played after a half hour or so everything craps the bed and there’s no getting it back. Had to go into task manager and force a shut down. Strange as it’s just been doing that as of lately. Wondering if Windows and their stupid updates has once again gone and changed some settings on me somewheres. IL-2 is the only title it does this on. Can play RDR2 until the cows come home and keyboard never goes offline. Same with COH. IL-2 is the only one this is happening to.

 

Argh!

On 1/14/2020 at 5:24 AM, dburne said:

Sounds like something is causing the game to lose focus at times during gameplay.

 

After you launch the game try pressing ALT+Enter to go true full screen and see how it does.

 

Herein lies the problem since the keyboard is non-responsive when this happens, at least for me it is. I’ll test this tomorrow to see if those key combos in fact do work though if in fact it wigs out again.

I have had nothing but problems using the CH Control Panel and vowed never to use it again. Keyboard is a Logitech, mouse a Corsair, peddles, quadrant and stick and yoke are all CH Products and everything goes “offline” on me all at once. Seems to be rather random. I don’t hear the familiar chimes of the USB peripherals going off line either. Game just keeps going according to last input until it eventually puts me into the ground. Ga,e runs fine - just lose everything and nothing is recognized.

[Creep]

@BornToBattle sorry to hear you're having this issue - i know how frustrating it is! 

 

check the application log in the event viewer for clues? make sure the power management setting referenced in this thread is set correctly for all usb devices?

 

hope you get it figured out!

[Bernard_IV]

I haven't had this issue for a while.  I think it might be a power draw problem when you are running all kinds of stuff like the VR headset, joystick, hotas, ect on the same USB hub.  I spread out all of my USB connections to different things.  I think a powered USB hub would fix it.

[BornToBattle]

Thanks all for the help.

 

As jokerBR posted above and QB Creep hinted at also, this was indeed the culprit - Windows settings on my USB ports. I had gone through one time a handful of updates ago and made sure all were unchecked for the so-called ‘power save’ mode which allows Windows in certain instances to actually shut down the powered device in question. Somewheres along the line this got checked again and I guarantee it wasn’t me, during one of its numerous updates.

 

Played for about four hours early this evening and not one glitch, so that pretty much confirms it. Thanks everyone for your input as always! 
 

Best forum evah!

10 hours ago, Bernard_IV said:

I haven't had this issue for a while.  I think it might be a power draw problem when you are running all kinds of stuff like the VR headset, joystick, hotas, ect on the same USB hub.  I spread out all of my USB connections to different things.  I think a powered USB hub would fix it.

The funny thing was two of the four peripherals went directly to the PC 3.0 USB’s out of the five that went all at the same time. My stick, peddles amd quadrant are all on a powered USB too.

 

Anyways, just check your USB ports one by one and make sure the power save management box is unchecked. I had like a total of 12 or so ports and lo and behold the five were checked to be shut down by Windows to “save power” - exactly the same number of peripherals that would suddenly go south!

[ST_Catchov]

On 1/14/2020 at 10:16 PM, sniperton said:

MSFFB2 and custom hardware here. I rarely play for more than an hour, but when I do, sometimes it happenes that I lose force-feedback on the pitch axis. (It's also reported by other FFB users BTW.) When it occurs, unchecking and rechecking the FFB option may help. Afterwards, however, my controls tend to get locked up, and I crash. My experience is that

- it's rare, but nothing new. Already happened to me more than one year ago here and then, mostly online;

- previous alt-tabbing out of the game seems to increase the likelihood of the issue;

- as with the old sound bug online (now fixed), the only workaround I found is to exit and restart the game after one hour of gameplay.

 

 

Interesting. This has recently started to happen to me. Lose all FFB. No problems before. I just quit the game, pretend to fiddle with the MSFFB2 settings in windows and then it works. It's pretty annoying. But the thing is it also happens in RoF so I thought my stick was losing its mojo.

[Sakivano]

On 8/5/2020 at 5:25 PM, Bernard_IV said:

I think a powered USB hub would fix it.

Sure! I had a problem with my thrustmaster pedals. They disconnected very often in the middle of a flight and I was getting crazy (I fly with a lot of peripherals connected to USB). I followed this piece of advice, connected the peddals to the powered USB hub and it has not disconnected again!!!!!

[jollyjack]

JokerBR's tip needs a small remark; occasionally windows update resets these USB hub settings to Powermanagement on.

 

Also it might be wise to go into Power Options Advanced settings and set these values:

 

[MilitantPotato]

Are you still having this issue?
I've been having it ongoing since nearly day one.

100% of the time before my controls stop, my physical memory usage goes from ~10G to 22-32 gigs, then dumps 10-15 gigs to pagefile, and within a few seconds goes back to 32 gigs used. If left alone to fill my pagefile (ends up near 60gigs) I get a windows out of memory error and usually a hard-crash that requires a power button to shutdown.

Also my joystick and throttle still work, as I can keyup discord and SRS to let folks know I've lost my controls even after IL-2 stops responding to them.

 

The only thing that seems to have helped (going from several times a session, to maybe once every 2-8 sessions) is setting my ingame resolution to my monitors default of 1920x1080 and setting the ingame AA to MSAA and 0X (from FSAA.)

What used to happen after an hour or so now takes 2-4.

 

Alt-tabbing seems to greatly increase my odds of it happening.

 

Here's a list of all the things I've tried.

 

Disabling of USB power saving options listed here,
re-installed Il-2 and windows 10, updated bios/drivers (both from windows-update and the hardware venders website) 

tried several builds of windows from 1904 to the current one

enabled/disabled windows "game mode"
changed from a gtx 1070 to an rtx 3080
Different VR headsets: a Vive, G2, and an Index headset

Tried all of my available USB ports (2.0, 3.0 case, several 3.0 and 3.1 I/O usb)

Tried a Logitech 3D Pro, Thrustmaster t.16000m and TWCS, and a VKB Gladiator.

Reset bios to defaults, no XMP, tried new RAM, disabled all C-states and power saving options in bios

disabled MSI-afterburner, any hardware logging software, kept discord and SRS closed, turned off anti-virus.

 

My current build is: 8600k, Z370 AORUS Gaming 7, 32 gigs of memory, and an RTX 3080.

 

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Ryanair_MilitantPotato

[jokerBR]

Hi Ryanair, very weird behavior if you tried all above, including reinstalling windows, etc. You may have a faulty board? Does this thing of disconnected peripherals occur on other games as well? If using 32 Gb Ram fills all your memory slots, try to run with less memory (16 should be enough to BoX) and check if this isn't related to some faulty memory slots. I know, very dim possibilities here, but after all your tests, I would start to look at your board.

[MilitantPotato]

Doesn't happen with other games, no. I originally had 2x8, tried both slot pairs and recently got another 2x8 of the same model for a total of 4x8. I tried just the new ram and experienced the same issue. 

 

I also noticed if the map rotates or I change between single player and multi-player the odds of ram usage randomly getting uncontrolled increases. Until the glitch happens my memory usage is fairly consistent between 11-14 gigs for many hours.

 

I'm currently running Passmark memtest to rule out memory issues another way.

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Ryanair_MilitantPotato
Wordage

[Chris65]

This just started happening to me in the FW190, since I purchased I have been flying the La5 with no problems but wanted to try the FW190A3 and I am getting disconnects after going into the key mapping screen while in game (pause or not it happens) for the last two days, and about six times today in 1.5 hours.  A couple of times the ESC trick worked but other not; to say it is the computer fault when so many are having the problem is unreasonable, the common item in all cases is not the joystick, but the software.

 

I am using the MSFFB2, it works fine in '46/COD and the La5 BOS, not the FW.  I am trying to learn to fly the darn thing but can't even taxi it to the runway without a disconnect.

 

BTW - for the very first time my TRACKIR5 stopped working in game too, one time it came back and the other I had to restart everything, that was today too.  It would be interesting to find out if everyone is having the problem on the same aircraft.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Chris65
added info

[jokerBR]

17 hours ago, Chris65 said:

This just started happening to me in the FW190, since I purchased I have been flying the La5 with no problems but wanted to try the FW190A3 and I am getting disconnects after going into the key mapping screen while in game (pause or not it happens) for the last two days, and about six times today in 1.5 hours.  A couple of times the ESC trick worked but other not; to say it is the computer fault when so many are having the problem is unreasonable, the common item in all cases is not the joystick, but the software.

 

I am using the MSFFB2, it works fine in '46/COD and the La5 BOS, not the FW.  I am trying to learn to fly the darn thing but can't even taxi it to the runway without a disconnect.

 

BTW - for the very first time my TRACKIR5 stopped working in game too, one time it came back and the other I had to restart everything, that was today too.  It would be interesting to find out if everyone is having the problem on the same aircraft.

Have you tried this?

[Chris65]

That setting has been turned off long ago, when I install WIN10 I also change all power settings etc, I have been using this install for years, flying different games for years with no problem, starting using the FW190a3 and problems (2 days, and 2 days of problems) but not for the almost month of only using the La5.

 

Since this occurs as soon as I switch from the game to key mapping (to check a key) I would recommend that it is a glitch between the aircraft and the key logging menu.  Also I have never had TRACKIR5 lock up/stop responding before, but yesterday it did in the 190.  Going to try the 190 again today, if it happens I will switch back to the LAGG and see how that goes but I know it is not on my end.

[cardboard_killer]

46 minutes ago, Chris65 said:

Going to try the 190 again today, if it happens I will switch back to the LAGG and see how that goes but I know it is not on my end.

 

If not, then you should contact tech support as we certainly cannot change the coding in the game.

 

see

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/forum/89-technical-issues-and-bug-reports/

[No.332.Animal_NO]

I just skimmed through the thread, so sorry if this has been suggested before, but I think this is motherboard and/or power related. Although the ASUS Z130 gaming should be fine, as one poster said he had, I’d strongly recommend getting a powered usb hub and run all your gaming peripherals through that before doing anything else.

 

Especially if you are using force feedback, that drains a lot of power from the USB hub.

Edited February 24, 2022 by No.332.Animal_NO

[Chris65]

Of course today everything worked just fine (except for my flying).  Tried jumping in and out of key mapping over and over, pause and unpause...no problem.  The game just wanted to make me look like a wank I think.  I even tried taking off my TRACKIR walking away and putting it back on and it worked no problem.  Now I just have to fix my 190 dropping the left wing on take off (I think a JS problem on my end as I have the same problem with LAGG but I fix that with aileron trim).

 

***Duh, take off speed for 190 is 200KM/Hr not the 180KM/Hr for the LAGG, plus I had the stick back too long locking the wheel***

Edited February 24, 2022 by Chris65

[Chris65]

Ha Ha!, I have figured out why my game kept freezing...PAUSE.  When I go into key mapping I pause the game, but unlike game start you do not receive a big banner saying the game is paused, just a single line on the far left saying "paused".  Having colour vision problems until today I never noticed it and the game being paused explains why my JS and IR stopped responding.

 

My apologies to the programmers/developers of IL2.

[jokerBR]

Glad it was so simple. Those moments... 
Have fun. ?

[dburne]

PC's - God love em.

[Gambit21]

My VKB stick kept disconnecting while flying DCS...was driving me nuts. It didn’t happen every time, other times it was constant.

 

Finally figured out it was my cordless mouse. If the mouse is sitting too close to the stick, there’s interference or something and the stick disconnects. I keep the mouse a bit further from the stick now and no issues.