Ships in interplanetary transit vanish when you switch back to them

[Demetrious]

A while back I launched a mission to Duna. I completed ejection from the Kerbin system, entered solar orbit, made a second burn to adjust my trajectory, and was pleased to see the patched conics report an intercept with Duna. Satisfied, I returned to the Space Center and flew many more missions here and there, occasionally checking on my rover mission in the Tracking Station - still on-course for intercept, days ticking down, with the ship's situation listed as "escaping the sun," even though it was simply on a simple Homann transfer orbit to Duna.

So, at long last, it was only weeks away from its Duna encounter, so I clicked on the tracking station and switched to the ship, and lo and behold, what do I get?

I get this.

Trying to "quit" back to the Space Center did not actually show me the Space Center - it just showed me the starry skybox. Even quitting to menu and re-entering game just showed me the starry skybox instead of the KSP launch complex, even though the time acceleration bar was present at the bottom. I had to quit and restart the game to fix this, and naturally, when I checked back, my flight (which had been in progress for over 200 days) had vanished. The ship was dead and gone, as if it had never existed.

This is the second time this has happened to me - the first time, (in an older version) it was a manned mission, and it auto-killed all the Kerbals aboard, too. I figured this would've been fixed by now. I figured wrong. I'd like to know what did this, because it is seriously liquiding me off.

The only mod I have installed is Kerbal Engineer, version 1.0.18.0.

[Kerbalstar]

The "Hell Kraken". Relvent Wiki Page Wiki. I don't know how to fix it but maybe @Claw will. Or another dev?

[Demetrious]

I'm glad to see it's a known issue, at least. I have no idea why it seems to strike ships in kerbol orbit, though. I've had satellites that encountered the Mun and been thrown out of the Kerbol SOI; switching to them has never produced a problem. I wonder if it's related to the long duration of the flights, the fact they have a planetary intercept in the far future, or both.

Running KSP 1.05, latest version, by the way.

Extra info:

-- The ship wasn't big; not a massive interplanetary vehicle assembled in orbit with an obscene number of parts. It was a small rover delivery vehicle.

-- I'm running a Core I5-3570K with 16 gigs RAM and a Geforce 670; hardware shouldn't be an issue.

-- I've only ever had this problem in the two instances cited - switching back to an interplanetary vessel after it's been in space for hundreds of days, while it's en-route for an encounter with the target planet in a transfer orbit.

Edited April 15, 2016 by Demetrious
additonal info

[Kerbalstar]

8 hours ago, Demetrious said:

I'm glad to see it's a known issue, at least. I have no idea why it seems to strike ships in kerbol orbit, though. I've had satellites that encountered the Mun and been thrown out of the Kerbol SOI; switching to them has never produced a problem. I wonder if it's related to the long duration of the flights, the fact they have a planetary intercept in the far future, or both.

Running KSP 1.05, latest version, by the way.

Extra info:

-- The ship wasn't big; not a massive interplanetary vehicle assembled in orbit with an obscene number of parts. It was a small rover delivery vehicle.

-- I'm running a Core I5-3570K with 16 gigs RAM and a Geforce 670; hardware shouldn't be an issue.

-- I've only ever had this problem in the two instances cited - switching back to an interplanetary vessel after it's been in space for hundreds of days, while it's en-route for an encounter with the target planet in a transfer orbit.

Hmm, 64 bit or 32 bit? Maybe try switching to the ship from another ship? I don't know.