Freeze on Startup - Loading Screen

[RedKestrel]

I have encountered a problem where sometimes the game freezes on the first loading screen. It locks up, and while I can alt-tab to other programs, I cannot return to the desktop or use the Task Manager to force the game to close, and I am forced to restart my computer.

 

It doesn't happen all the time, and only started happening this week when I went to play. It has never happened to me flying before on the same version of the software.

 

How it happens:

I set up my head tracking software (EDTracker and OpenTrack) and launch Discord.

I launch the game from the launcher.

The first loading screen comes up, with the Il -2 sturmovik Title, black background, and thin red bar at the bottom. Normally, the loading bar fills full and then another identical looking loading screen comes up, with background noise, and the bar fills again. Then it gets to the login screen. If I get here I have no trouble launching the game.

 

When the problem occurs, the bar on the first loading screen stops at some point between halfway and nearly complete. the other loading screen never comes, and the program just hangs at this point. The loading screen stays even if I try to tab to the desktop, though I can tab to other programs.

 

I think it may be that the game hangs when the focus of the computer goes from Il-2 to one of the other programs I have running, but I am not sure as it only happens occasionally.

Does anyone else have this issue? Particularly people who use Discord or have Nvidia cards, I have a feeling it is either Discord or the Nvidia experience software.

[FlyingH]

Try to start the game from the IL2.exe located in (wherever it´s located) ......\common\IL2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad\bin\game directory and see if that helps. You only need the launcher for updating your game. If it works make a shortcut to your desktop for conviniese. (Hope this helps)

Edited January 14, 2020 by FlyingH

[RedKestrel]

15 hours ago, FlyingH said:

Try to start the game from the IL2.exe located in (wherever it´s located) ......\common\IL2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad\bin\game directory and see if that helps. You only need the launcher for updating your game. If it works make a shortcut to your desktop for conviniese. (Hope this helps)

I will try that. I was flying last night with no problems but I didn't get on Discord, so its possible that is still an issue.

[Oboe]

This happened to me today, exactly as RedKestrel describes, except that it happened to me every time, not just some times.   I am also a Discord and GeForce Experience user.   Curiously, I let GeForce Exeperience update itself and install the latest nVidia driver for my GTX 1080 card this morning. 

 

Long story short, I did manage to solve the problem, but it required a re-install of the game.  Here are my troubleshooting steps.  After each step below, I launched the program, but was forced to do a CTL-ALT-DELETE Restart to get out of the locked-up condition:

 

- Restart computer

- Try clicking directly on il2.exe in installation game folder, run as adminstrator

- Uninstall GeForce Experience

- Rollback latest nVidia driver

- try running restart.exe from game installation folder (I couldn't find any info on what the function of this exe is, but it did start the game)

- Run CCLeaner and perform Registry cleaning

- Rename original installation folder, rerun game installation to re-download and install game    (This worked, but I lost all my settings)

 

In an attempt to recover my settings, I renamed the data folder to SAVE_data, and copied the data folder from the old installation to the new installation - but then the problem was back. So I deleted the data folder and renamed the saved data folder back to its original name, and the problem was gone.

 

Long story short, it seemed to be a corruption of something in the data folder.  This folder his huge, with more than 11,000 files in it.  I don't know how to narrow the problem down any further than that.  

 

Hope this info helps someone. 

Edited January 18, 2020 by oboe

[Eumie]

exactly discribed as above from RedKestrel happens to me too. But only on my 43" TV. I always have to start multiple times before il2 starts up normal.  if i switch to my 27" Monitor as main Monitor/Device  - il2 always lunches perfect.

[KastaRules]

Just started to happen to me as well. Did anybody find the reason for the problem?

Edited January 17, 2021 by KastaRules

[RedKestrel]

21 hours ago, KastaRules said:

Just started to happen to me as well. Did anybody find the reason for the problem?

The issue stopped happening for me for a while now. There are a couple possibilities I can think of:

First is that something is taking focus from Il-2 during startup, causing the process to hang. This happens with GeForce Experience or Discord, where some notification about the overlay pops up during loading, and then the process hangs, like it got interrupted.
 

Second is that there is a driver issue. I have found that GeForce Experience gets corrupted really easily, necessitating a complete driver reinstall. Everything seems to be working fine until you try to update your driver and it fails to update because of the problem. So you could try reinstalling your drivers and see if that helps.

 

If you're running in fullscreen mode, try running in windowed mode, or vice versa and see if that makes a difference.

 

You could also head over to the "Investigating random crashes" thread and activate the crash dump logging, then post it to that thread. if the game process is crashing the dump file may have information that shows why. You should also look at the Windows Event Viewer after that happens to see if there is some error showing up in Windows - if there is a driver problem, file corruption or other conflict it may say what that is.

[KastaRules]

Thank you RedKestrel I will investigate it further. For now I can simply restart Steam when this issue appears and that usually is enough to make the problem go away.

[jaxvonmay]

Spent hours and nothing works, on neither of my two rigs, one LT and one PC up/to/specs. Freezes at main menu screen. Tried everything, screen res, windowed and not,  updated&rolled back drivers, made a new reg file, etc.... NOTHING.

 

I feel scammed.

[jaxvonmay]

BoS_FC won-t work on either of my new and powerful rigs (pc/1080, LT 3070). Tried everything and spent hours in forums, from drivers rollback to registry edition and graphics settings change. I end up rebooting rig without even being able to alt/tab or ctrl/alt/del. Feel scammed. Enough. I want a refund.   

[SL19711105buhesulong]

Try turning off the full screen

[Thad]

On 5/29/2021 at 2:16 PM, jaxvonmay said:

BoS_FC won-t work on either of my new and powerful rigs (pc/1080, LT 3070). Tried everything and spent hours in forums, from drivers rollback to registry edition and graphics settings change. I end up rebooting rig without even being able to alt/tab or ctrl/alt/del. Feel scammed. Enough. I want a refund.   

 

Thousands of players have no such problems. This simulation has been around for many years. Your reported problems are on your end not within the game. 

 

Oh yea, you may be right. The developers just decided to scam a player named jaxvonamy. ?

[peteboule06]

like millers of others have problems of hitting, small freeze, you do not mention it! this game has optimization concerns, and you know it very well! whether with a small config or a big config, it's the same! it is not a problem of pc but a problem of games!

[sonicviz]

This has started happening to me now. PITFA. 

[TAIPAN_]

Had similar issue.

 

Switched to windowed mode and did a Steam verify of game files at the same time. 

One or both of those fixed it.