Flexsim Crashes when used on a second monitor

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Sam asked Oct 25 2023 at 1:41 AM Phil BoBo edited Oct 26 2023 at 2:37 PM

Flexsim Crashes when used on a second monitor

Hi Everyone.

I am running flexsim 22 and 23 on MSI GS66 Stealth laptop with an NVIDIA RTX 2080 Super with MAX Q and Intel UHD Graphics. I am running windows 11 22H2.

When I run flexsim on the primary monitor everything works well. When I open the model on the secondary display or open the 3d view on a secondary monitor, flexsim will crash.

Here is the info from event viewer.

Has anyone encountered this issue? is there anything else i can try to resolve the issue?

Software Version:

FlexSim 23.0.11

display monitor external

1698197936553.png (24.5 KiB)

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Jordan Johnson ♦♦ commented · Oct 25 2023 at 8:41 PM

This sounds troubling. I haven't heard of it before. Can you describe your steps in more detail? I'm not sure what you mean by "open the model on the secondary display". Do you mean that you open a model, which opens the FlexSim application window, and then you move the application window to the second monitor, and then you get a crash? Or is it something else.

Also, can you provide the resolution settings of your two monitors? And can you provide a screenshot of the Start Page when you open FlexSim?

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Sam Jordan Johnson ♦♦ commented · Oct 26 2023 at 12:18 AM

Hi Jordan.

I have a few updates and answers to your questions.

My second display is a 1920 X 1080 display that is connected via USB C and a dock. This issue has occurred with monitors that are connected via HDMI as well.

Scenario 1

I open the flexsim application on the main monitor.
I create a new model on my main monitor with flexsim 2023.
I open the 3d view in flexsim application.
I drag the flexsim application over to the secondary monitor.
I can interact with the 3d view on the secondary monitor.
I toggle to the tree view folder on the secondary monitor.
I toggle back to the 3d view on the secondary display.
model crashes.

Scenario 2

Open Flexsim on the primary monitor.
Splash screen loads.
Move the application to the secondary monitor
Open an new model on my secondary monitor
3d view tab cant load
Model crashes.

Since this is a work PC, I have some windows rights disabled. IT Technician logged on the PC with an administrator account. He launched flex sim with admin privileges. In both scenarios the model loaded with out any issues. I think the issue is caused by the lack of privileges with my windows user account. Is there any additional tests you would like me to complete?

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Answer 1 · 2023-10-26T09:24:22Z

Jason Lightfoot answered Oct 26 2023 at 9:24 AM Phil BoBo edited Oct 26 2023 at 2:37 PM

Try renaming your prefs.t file for it to regenerate - the Administrator account would probably have it's own prefs.t file. Do this with FlexSim closed since FlexSim stores it again when closing. The file location is:

%APPDATA%/FlexSim/FlexSim23.0/prefs.t

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Sam commented · Oct 26 2023 at 1:55 PM

renaming the prefs.t file resolved the issue. Thank you.

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Phil BoBo ♦♦ commented · Oct 26 2023 at 2:25 PM

The issue is caused by the usb dock that you are using to connect your extra monitors.

If it appears in the Display adapters section of the Windows Device Manager, then Windows thinks it can provide an OpenGL graphics context. A configuration similar to this:

If the FlexSim main window opens on that monitor, then it will ask Windows for an OpenGL context from that adapter, and Windows will ask that adapter for a graphics driver as if it were an external graphics card. Because the dock isn't a graphics card, it leads to a crash in the requesting application.

I've seen this happen on one other user's system. We purchased an identical laptop and usb dock as the user, but we were unable to replicate the issue. Something in the user's system's driver software was causing Windows to think that usb dock was an external graphics card instead of a pass-through hdmi dock.

The solution is to not put the FlexSim main window on a monitor driven by the dock, or otherwise sort out the dock's drivers in Windows so that it isn't pretending to be an external graphics card.

Deleting your prefs.t file will cause FlexSim to open on your main monitor again, but if you close FlexSim while its main window is on your dock's monitor, it will save that position in your prefs.t file, causing the issue again the next time you try to open FlexSim. So you should avoid putting the FlexSim main window on a monitor driven by your external dock unless you can resolve its driver issue.

You can also uncheck "Remember FlexSim application window placement" on the Environment tab of FlexSim's Global Preferences in order to make FlexSim always open on your primary monitor.

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1698329683904.png (10.0 KiB)

Answer 2 · 2023-10-25T03:43:47Z

Jeanette F answered Oct 25 2023 at 3:43 AM Sam commented Oct 25 2023 at 2:22 PM

Hello @Sam,

Please check that your Nvidia graphics card is up to date. You can see more information in the following article.

If you are still having issues please respond back with your current driver for your graphics card.

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