ROCKSIM 10 CRASHING A LOT

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hball55

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Ever since the last update, my copy of Rocksim 10 has been crashing . . . a lot! I’ve uttered many a bad word when I lose a rocket I am building in Rocksim 10 because the program crashes to desktop. I have started saving my file after each new part is added. Another problem I have encountered is that when creating custom fins, I am unable to input the Y axis . . . first, I have to right click in the y axis box, but when I hit the decimal button, the cursor jumps to the x axis box. I have had to resort to clicking directly where I want the plan point many times, until I get the point where I want.
 
Apogee is aware of the bug. However, the program has crashed several times during Tim's live podcasts.

I've gotten into the habit of saving the file after changes.
 
In the last couple of months I got the version 10, mainly because I already had the license for the old one but not the computer it was on, and right away I noticed the same issue. I kind of thought it was just my computer. I love me some Open Rocket though
 
In the last couple of months I got the version 10, mainly because I already had the license for the old one but not the computer it was on, and right away I noticed the same issue. I kind of thought it was just my computer. I love me some Open Rocket though

Looks like I have to get acquainted with Open Rocket. Hopefully Windows 11 and it get along.
 
I neglected to mention I have windows 11 as well and OR seems to work pretty jolly on it. From what I'm seeing, the differences between the two flavors of simulators are rather minor, not necessarily enough to justify purchasing rocksim if I didn't just need the upgrade.
 
I've got the latest Rocsim on Windows 10 and I don't have any crashes. I don't use Rocsim that much, but when I do it seems fine. The 3-D image of the Estes Orbital Transport has some problems. I do have trouble sometimes connecting the motor files and the material files. Apogee has explained how do this, but I still have the files scattered around and as a consequence I have difficulties.
 
A new Rocksim bug has appeared on my system - loading a motor in a known good design and the simulator fails to launch. W10, R'sim 10.3.1f4 Build 4
I have to load a different design then re-load the original and it MAY launch in the sim.
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Anyone else have a similar issue, and any fixes?
 

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Just upgraded from RS 9 to 10 a couple days ago. It shows 0 parts in database. Contacted Apogee and response was "it is a known bug, you need to do this". Finding files, etc. is NOT my thing. 'Puter illiterate is putting it mildly.

Selling a product with a known proplem(s) does not impress.

Google "ford Pinto".......
Not happy, Mark
 
Ever since Rocksim 10 came out, I've heard it's been nothing but problems. I wanted to buy Rocksim at one point and asked Apogee if they would still sell Rocksim 9 since Rocksim 10 has big issues and they said "no, Rocksim 10 is the one out and we will not be allowing people to buy Rocksim 9, you'll just have to wait till the bugs are worked out" (not paraphrasing either on that). I told them I'll just stick with OpenRocket since it'll do about 99% of what Rocksim can do for free. Rocksim is overpriced and while Tim does make good videos, Apogee as a whole has issues with the way they handle things.
 
Its always the fault of the user, never the fault of the program. Its always your Rocksim file, but the program has zero way to tell you even which part the error lies in. And it is frequently very arcane trying to figure out which teeeny tiny thing is "wrong".
 
A new Rocksim bug has appeared on my system - loading a motor in a known good design and the simulator fails to launch. W10, R'sim 10.3.1f4 Build 4
I have to load a different design then re-load the original and it MAY launch in the sim.
View attachment 500381
Anyone else have a similar issue, and any fixes?

One thing I see is you have selected zero delay. How about selecting plugged and finding out what the optimal delay is, then choose the best delay and running it.
 
Ever since Rocksim 10 came out, I've heard it's been nothing but problems. I wanted to buy Rocksim at one point and asked Apogee if they would still sell Rocksim 9 since Rocksim 10 has big issues and they said "no, Rocksim 10 is the one out and we will not be allowing people to buy Rocksim 9, you'll just have to wait till the bugs are worked out" (not paraphrasing either on that). I told them I'll just stick with OpenRocket since it'll do about 99% of what Rocksim can do for free. Rocksim is overpriced and while Tim does make good videos, Apogee as a whole has issues with the way they handle things.
Selling commercial software with known major bugs on release is a great way to no longer have a commercial software business, or run a gaming studio.
 
Is anyone running RockSim 9 on Windows 11? I have not asked Apogee yet about ver. 9 on Windows 11. I'm moving to a new laptop, and I'm slowly migrating software packages to it. But I will keep one of my RockSim 9 seats on a Windows 10 machine and set it on the shelf.
 
A lot of these issues were covered in this thread:

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/rocksim-open-thread.167095/
Bottom line, Rocksim 10 has a lot of bugs. If you have already bought it, here are some workarounds from the other thread:

Can't edit Y-Axis:
  • Double-click the Y-Axis value in the table - should let you edit it
  • Right-click the Y-Axis value, should let you edit it

Crashing
  • Rocksim crashes the most when you cancel an operation. The trick is to train yourself to never hit the "Cancel" button. Hitting cancel crashes the program about 90% of the time. Save before you start a new operation and then, if you need to cancel, hit "okay" and either delete the part and start over or edit the part. This, to me, is more sanity preserving than having to reboot the program when it crashes.
Odd launch issues:

  • Oddly, these seem to come up when you add a custom parachute. I have started just choosing any parachute in the list that comes up when you add the parachute and then just modifying the mass in the "mass over-ride" for the part. This seems to clear up a lot of launch issues. I don't use Rocksim for descent rate calculation, so I don't really care if the parachute is not exact.
  • Also, make sure your "flight events" are accurate. I have noticed that sometimes, "open at max ejection delay" can result in odd flight results.
  • Bottom line is, if it looks like your launch data is way off, play around with the motor delays, parachutes and flight event settings - the culprit is usually in one of those areas.

None of these issues are pleasant and I do run Open Rocket along side Rocksim to ensure I am getting consistent results. Apogee seemed to be turning out updates at a good clip for a while last year, now we have gone a solid 6 months with no bug fixes. Disappointing is putting it mildly.
 
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Selling commercial software with known major bugs on release is a great way to no longer have a commercial software business, or run a gaming studio.
Apogee already partially lost me as a customer by selling a motor retainer advertised for flat bottom rockets when it actually isn’t and them not selling Rocksim 9 even though Rocksim 10 has many issues was the final straw. They’re full of themselves and they mark up costs a crap ton.
 
I'm often recommend the use of RockSim for a couple of reasons, one of which is CP calculation chiefly on rockets with tapered tail cones. Version: 9.6.3f228 is very stable.

It is quite disappointing to hear that Tim will not sell a prior version to subscribers (atypical for the software industry), particularly TARC teams, having problems that could be resolved with that version. I hope there are some exceptions. He has already alienated some loyal users with a licensing system that does not work well, for instance erroneously determining RockSim is running on a VM when it is not, or trying to use external IPs to track installs. I am cautiously optimistic that the fixes will get made, but until then staying with 9.6 unless I need a 10x feature or function. Rock-on ;-)
 
A new Rocksim bug has appeared on my system - loading a motor in a known good design and the simulator fails to launch. W10, R'sim 10.3.1f4 Build 4
I have to load a different design then re-load the original and it MAY launch in the sim.
View attachment 500381
Anyone else have a similar issue, and any fixes?

I've been seeing this bug more and more. Known good rockets suddenly start not launching. Sometimes restarting the program and reloading the file works, sometimes not. This is RS 10.2 by the way.

I am also still seeing "Crossed lines" on custom fins where clearly the lines are NOT crossed. Bet he calls this user error too.
 
Who is "he"?
Seriously? Tim, the guy that owns/sells it. I have had nothing but problems with 10. Should have never upgraded. After multiple tries, it still won't install correctly. And when I download a design I get a message to install the program again. Done with Appogee.........
 
Seriously? Tim, the guy that owns/sells it. I have had nothing but problems with 10. Should have never upgraded. After multiple tries, it still won't install correctly. And when I download a design I get a message to install the program again. Done with Appogee.........

Tim isn't the programmer, but yes he has got a problem that he is making worse by not allowing a licensed owner to downgrade (install and older version). I know first hand it has cost him at least on sale.
 
I didn't say he was the progrmmer ( although I think I read somewhere he has started doing it in-house), I said he owns it.

... yeah later in this thread, but you didn't say who "he" was prior, that's why I asked. And yes there has been at least 2 programmers and maybe a third more recently. The later 1 or 2 do seem to be more like, if not actual employees.
 
Based on my brief experimentation with it the software definitely has a quality problem. I don't know if it's reflective of the quality of the code itself or if they simply are not allocating enough time and resources to test and debug.
 
When they first released v10 last year, they were quick to update the program and fix bugs, although each new revision added new bugs. Then, sometime about last summer, development stopped dead and they haven't released an update since, even though there are glaring bugs that result in crashes and lost work.

At this point, I am pinning my hopes on the new OpenRocket release. It may not be perfect, but at least it has active development and even the beta doesn't crash as much as RockSim does. Actually, I have not had the most recent OpenRocket beta crash at all, but RockSim v10.3 crashes at least once every 5 minutes.
 
I have several .rkt files that include pods. All ran without issue in v9. None of these files run in v10. I asked Tim about it and his answer was "it's the pods". Nothing can be done. I also get frequent crashes and I am to the point that anytime I make any changes or additions to a file, I save it so that when it does crash, I can at least go back to the file where I was or saved it last. We cannot go back to v9 now either. Version 9 is not available for download or switching back to (I asked) and Apogee is not supporting it anymore. Other than that, I always had great success with Rocksim 9 and would take v9 again in a heartbeat. Maybe we who were previously licensed Rocksim v9 owners should ask Tim to make it available to us again until the known bugs are fixed. Anyone have an idea about the best way to do that?
 
I have several .rkt files that include pods. All ran without issue in v9. None of these files run in v10. I asked Tim about it and his answer was "it's the pods". Nothing can be done. I also get frequent crashes and I am to the point that anytime I make any changes or additions to a file, I save it so that when it does crash, I can at least go back to the file where I was or saved it last. We cannot go back to v9 now either. Version 9 is not available for download or switching back to (I asked) and Apogee is not supporting it anymore. Other than that, I always had great success with Rocksim 9 and would take v9 again in a heartbeat. Maybe we who were previously licensed Rocksim v9 owners should ask Tim to make it available to us again until the known bugs are fixed. Anyone have an idea about the best way to do that?

TVM/Apogee seem to actively refuse to acknowledge any comments on this forum or even monitor this forum. The bigger issue is that they don't have a real feedback forum/mechanism outside of email and calling them (as far as I know). Last year, they were pretty responsive to emails about Rocksim. For about the past six months, they haven't answered any emails I have sent about Rocksim. They have answered other emails, so that leads me to believe they are actively ignoring any complaints/questions about Rocksim's bugs/issues.

Pods not working is especially ironic given that it was the one feature that drove many people to Rocksim since the older version of OpenRocket didn't support pods without some serious kludging. Now that the new version of OpenRocket supports pods and the developers are in the process of improving this function (see @neil_w 's primer on OpenRocket pods: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/openrocket-22-02-a-very-quick-introduction-to-pods.171298/), will this be the feature that drives people away from Rocksim (you know, in addition to the crashing, fins not working right, weird parachute issues, motors improperly simulated, weird bugs that cause inaccurate altitude simulation, etc, etc...)?

In some ways we shouldn't be too surprised, Tim got V9 into a stable version and then, for all intents and purposes, abandoned it for about 10 years. Unfortunately, it is beginning to feel like he is abandoning v10 long before he has a stable version to sell.
 
Upgraded to RS 10.&%^@# last week. So far it has played nice with OS Mojave on the new Macbook Pro. Runs light incontinent atmospheric electrical discharges.
However, your bug is present on this version as well. The Custom Fin interface is a bit different than RS9, it took a few minutes to figure out how to select a point without scrolling the entire fin.
No crashes, so far, not like RS9 on OS High Sierra. Holy Chipotle! Like you, every design had to be saved before exiting the custom fin option. Or about any other area. Don't get me wrong, I love RS and am VERY glad we got a free upgrade.
Hope they work out the bug and return stability.
 
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