Call for information: vanishing flights

[Vanamonde]

Three of my flights-in-progress have now disappeared. I thought I might have accidentally end-flighted the first one a few days ago, but just now I realized that two more were missing, and I definitely didn't end-flight them. The problem is that I can't submit it as a bug report, because I have no idea when it might have happened. When I zoomed out from my current flight a minute ago, two icons simply weren't there, and there's no telling when they disappeared, but my ship orbiting Gilly and my ship orbiting Tylo are gone now. And not on wild solar trajectories, like the known bug where Kerbin moon orbiters could be lost while in high warp, because those remain visible on their new trajectories. My three flights are just gone. So since I don't have enough info to post a bug report, I'm asking if anybody else has seen this happen, and if you might have more precise information about the circumstances.

[vexx32]

It sounds as though KSP simply hasn't been able to save the flights. If you closed KSP or went to the Space Center whilst these craft were experiencing what KSP defines as "acceleration" (either thrust, or sometimes ASAS/MechJeb input), then the flights will not have been saved, although it is usually impossible to quit back to the Space Center whilst KSP detects acceleration.

If it happened more recently, it may be that the time warp glitch caused them to enter into solar orbit, but if their entries in the list on the left are also gone, then something else has happened...

[Vanamonde]

I don't remember the details of the first one, but the other two were ships I put in orbit, left for months while made other flights, then revisited. There was no message about acceleration when I returned to the space center from the mission the second time, and of course I didn't think to look and see if they were still there on the tracking station after I left them running. They are not listed on the tracking center now, and thinking back to this morning, something seemed wrong about the number of flights listed on my resumable game menu, but it didn't set off enough alarm bells to make me think to check the count.

[apoch1999]

this has happened to me more than once...i ive seen a few threads on it, with no answers from squad...which really sucks cause i REALLY like this game...but if all my flights are going to just keep dissapearing i see no real reason to keep on playing except for small 2 or 3 flights up to maybe 6 for colonies(one planet for each save)...ive lost 2 space stations(at least 10 lifts each) to this...its really frustrating

[Vanamonde]

This is a really old thread, but since you mention it, this has happened to me a couple more times. Somebody suggested, and it seems to be true, that it happens when you leave something in a very low orbit. Even though the ship or station should be high enough to clear any terrain, the game seems to get confused and say, nope, you crashed. But the really frustrating thing is, there is no notice when this happens, so there's no way to gather clues when you don't even know when it happened.

[SkyRender]

I know a likely culprit behind it. The game quicksaves when it creates a new launch, but only after the scene has loaded far enough. If you go to End Flight before the camera has panned around to show the launchpad or runway properly, you will end the last flight you launched prior to that. You can tell when you have been hit by this because, next time you go to launch a craft, the game will tell you that there is already a craft sitting on the launchpad/runway (whichever you canceled the flight on).

To avoid this bug, do not end a flight until at least the camera has panned around to show your vessel! Once the terrain starts loading around the launchpad/runway, it's safe to choose End Flight, but not a moment before that crucial camera pan. I've tested this very extensively, as I too used to get hit by the "vanishing vessel" bug. Ever since I started exercising this precaution, I have not had a single flight vanish on me. (Well, except that one I crashed into the sun, but that was intentional.)

Edited May 18, 2013 by SkyRender

[NeoMorph]

I used to think that I had just ended flights but as I ALWAYS check that I press Space Center nowadays it threw me. The problem with intermittent bugs is that they are REALLY hard to chase down.

[apoch1999]

I know a likely culprit behind it. The game quicksaves when it creates a new launch, but only after the scene has loaded far enough. If you go to End Flight before the camera has panned around to show the launchpad or runway properly, you will end the last flight you launched prior to that. You can tell when you have been hit by this because, next time you go to launch a craft, the game will tell you that there is already a craft sitting on the launchpad/runway (whichever you canceled the flight on).

To avoid this bug, do not end a flight until at least the camera has panned around to show your vessel! Once the terrain starts loading around the launchpad/runway, it's safe to choose End Flight, but not a moment before that crucial camera pan. I've tested this very extensively, as I too used to get hit by the "vanishing vessel" bug. Ever since I started exercising this precaution, I have not had a single flight vanish on me. (Well, except that one I crashed into the sun, but that was intentional.)

i could accept that except that i went from 21 flights to 9 flights one time it happened. and some were in orbit around the sun

[kahlzun]

Gilly has eaten a few of my craft before. It hungers.

[RogueMason]

This has happened to 2 of my interplanetary ships. One of the incidents I managed to work into a story after it disappeared around low Ike orbit. Another ship disappeared from around Laythe...

Bit of an annoying bug, if you ask me (if you can call it a bug...)

[Tw1]

I used to have a bunch of parachute holders on escape orbits out of the sun. They were the furthest thing away I had, and I checked up on them every so often.

One time, I did that and found all my satellites had gone. Everything except a few stations survived.

Naturally I immediately quickloaded, and ended the fight of those parachute things from the tracking station.

[ShachonianX]

This has happened to 2 of my interplanetary ships. One of the incidents I managed to work into a story after it disappeared around low Ike orbit. Another ship disappeared from around Laythe...

Bit of an annoying bug, if you ask me (if you can call it a bug...)

I had a capsule with it's parachutes partially deployed. I switched to the spacecraft's debris, and couldn't switch back. I then noticed that on map view you couldn't see the capsule icon. It also wouldn't be listed as an ongoing mission at the tracking station. I'm taking this to my advantage by caling the area of the disapearance a "Bermuda Triangle" of sorts.

[Deadweasel]

I had sent out a rover vessel (one of the massive Dragonfly series) onto the runway to act as a guide beacon for a returning SSTO test flight. As soon as I got to about within 5km of the rover, the ship -under hover power and traveling around 40m/s- seemed to suddenly implode on itself, which the mission report seemed to verify:

When I closed the report and tried switching over to the Dragonfly, it too suddenly obliterated itself in a fiery ball of doom. It had been just sitting there quietly with the brakes on! It was fully loaded and in full view when the incoming ship blew up, and then BOOM! It dies as soon as I switch to it?? There went two Kerbals whose families couldn't even claim to have died as intrepid heroes. They were just a couple of random mooks that Jeb asked to park a Dragonfly on the tarmac for a while. :'(

[Spartwo]

Three of my flights-in-progress have now disappeared. I thought I might have accidentally end-flighted the first one a few days ago, but just now I realized that two more were missing, and I definitely didn't end-flight them. The problem is that I can't submit it as a bug report, because I have no idea when it might have happened. When I zoomed out from my current flight a minute ago, two icons simply weren't there, and there's no telling when they disappeared, but my ship orbiting Gilly and my ship orbiting Tylo are gone now. And not on wild solar trajectories, like the known bug where Kerbin moon orbiters could be lost while in high warp, because those remain visible on their new trajectories. My three flights are just gone. So since I don't have enough info to post a bug report, I'm asking if anybody else has seen this happen, and if you might have more precise information about the circumstances.

I did submit it lost a few transfer ships stranding kerbals.

[Glory]

Ive been playing KSP off and on for a couple months now and losing ships in flight is what has consistently killed it for me. I think i experience it more than most people which is odd considering i switched from playing it on my Mac to my PC and allways have it.