Why is Microsoft Flight Simulator not creating crash logs?

Microsoft Flight Simulator often does not create an in-game crash report; on Windows, CTDs are normally recorded by Windows Error Reporting, Reliability Monitor or Event Viewer. If those records are absent, WER may be disabled, the sim may have frozen rather than crashed, or the PC may have reset before Windows could write a log.

Is the MSFS crash reporter actually broken?

Usually, no: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and 2024 do not guarantee a user-facing report after every abnormal exit. What appears varies by build, platform and the type of failure.

A Safe Mode or Normal Mode prompt at the next launch only means the previous session ended unexpectedly. It is not a diagnostic report. Likewise, Windows can record a crash without showing any message on the desktop.

Steam and Microsoft Store installations both rely on Windows diagnostic facilities. On Xbox Series X|S, and for MSFS 2024 on PlayStation 5 or PS5 Pro, Event Viewer and Windows dump instructions do not apply; the console platform handles diagnostics without exposing the same local records.

How do I restore MSFS crash logging in Windows?

First establish whether logging is genuinely disabled, then restore the Windows services and settings responsible for recording application failures.

1. Identify what happened. A CTD returns to the desktop without your intervention. A frozen simulator that you close through Task Manager is a forced termination and may produce no crash event. A reboot, blue screen or loss of power is a system-level failure rather than an ordinary MSFS application crash.
2. Check for an existing Windows record. Search Windows for reliability history and inspect the time of the failure. Also check Event Viewer under Windows Logs > Application. If an Application Error or Windows Error Reporting entry exists, crash logging is working even though no reporter appeared. Our guide to finding MSFS crash evidence in Event Viewer, Reliability Monitor and WER explains where each record is kept.
3. Check the logging services. Open services.msc and confirm that Windows Event Log is running and not disabled. Windows Error Reporting Service must not be disabled; a Manual or trigger-start state is normal because Windows starts it when required.
4. Undo privacy or debloating changes. System-tuning utilities, privacy scripts and organisational policies sometimes disable WER or remove queued reports. Reverse the relevant setting rather than making broad registry changes. On a managed PC, the policy may be intentional and require the administrator to change it.
5. Check report submission separately. If a reporter opens but cannot submit, inspect VPN, proxy, DNS filtering and firewall rules. Upload failure does not necessarily stop Reliability Monitor or Event Viewer from creating a local record, so do not treat the two problems as identical.
6. Repair damaged Windows components. From an administrator Terminal, run DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth, followed by sfc /scannow. Restart Windows after both checks complete, particularly if Event Viewer itself is missing records or its service will not start.
7. Reproduce the failure once. Note the exact time, allow MSFS to close without immediately restarting it, then inspect Reliability Monitor and Event Viewer again. This avoids confusing the crash with unrelated warnings from an earlier session.

What do the Windows crash records mean?

The type of record tells you whether MSFS crashed, Windows recovered a hardware or driver fault, or the entire computer stopped unexpectedly.

A reference to ntdll.dll or KERNELBASE.dll does not prove that the named Windows file is defective. These modules frequently appear where an exception reaches Windows. Do not download replacement DLL files or assume the faulting module identifies the add-on, driver or hardware component that triggered the exception.

Why is there still no crash dump?

A Windows event and a full crash dump are different things, and MSFS can have the first without the second.

• Windows LocalDumps is not enabled for every application by default, so an empty %LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps folder does not prove that WER is broken.
• A custom dump location can fail if the folder was removed, the drive is full or the account lacks permission to write there.
• Storage-cleaning tools may delete WER archives and dump files while leaving the short Reliability Monitor entry intact.
• A hard freeze, forced process termination, blue screen or sudden reboot may bypass normal application-dump creation.

If you previously configured a custom LocalDumps path, restore a valid writable folder rather than weakening permissions on Windows system directories. Full dumps can also consume substantial disk space, so enable them for diagnosis rather than assuming they should always be present.

Does fixing crash logging stop MSFS from crashing?

No; restoring the reporter only gives you evidence about the CTD and does not remove its underlying cause.

Once Windows records the failure, test Microsoft Flight Simulator from a clean baseline: remove third-party add-ons temporarily, avoid overclocking or undervolting, close overlays, check graphics drivers and reduce memory pressure. Follow our structured MSFS 2020 and 2024 crash-isolation sequence rather than reinstalling the simulator solely because its in-game reporter did not appear.