Bug SimTools started silently crashing after about 2 mins

So I've been using SimTools since February and I never really had any issues at all. Since I've set up everything was working well up until now.

I have a fresh windows install (with some new hardware inside) and after this everything was running perfectly on it for at least a week, but now unfortunately for about 3 days already an issue started appearing to me: it seems that everything starts well when I initialize the game engine and then start the game manager and then start a sim like Assetto Corsa Competizione. Then at the start of the session motion works well and all is good, but then after about 30 seconds or latest after 2 minutes and 30 seconds the motion disappears and when I check for GameEngine and GameManager in the taskbar I see that mostly GameManager has disappeared. Occasionally also GameEngine disappears too, but mostly just GameManager and GameEngine remains running. This seems to now always happen after some time.

I have tried so far:

• Tried reinstalling and repatching Assetto Corsa Competizione and setting it up from scratch - no difference
• Tried reinstalling SimTools and setting it up from scratch with the same settings - no difference
• Tried 2 versions of SimTools - 2.40 and 2.51 (currently on this one) - no difference
• Checking if this appears in a different sim - tried with AC - same thing happens after a couple of minutes
• Trying to reduce the level of motion or increase to see if this has effect on the duration until SimTools crashes - no relation observed here
• Tried switching from my powered USB 3.0 Hub (which has been used since I've gotten Motion/SimTools) to direct extension cables to PC - no difference.
• Tried updating windows with the newest possible updates (I have the latest Windows 10) - no difference.

I'm becoming desperate right now and feel like I need external support on this topic as I have spent so much time and getting hopeless. I also couldn't find any logging by SimTools so that I could see if it has some specific error. This is just getting me mad, I have no idea what to look for anymore and I can't find any logs by SimTools...

Kind of tried not using any hub and also bought and tried a new hub. Tried switching the pc ports for the hubs.

Well, there always were and still are multiple smaller perihperals like mices and keyboards connected to the hubs, used to always work. now I tried not connecting them to the hub, but still, but it did not help

I tried running it without a person or changing the intensity level of the motion in gamemanager, it still dropped out the same exact way.

I tried disconnecting interfaces one by one and then tried turning on the second and leaving out the first as well from the three interfaces, but always the same exact behaviour.

Now some more discoveries:

The GameManager seems to drop out always after about 3 minutes and 15 seconds, at least with Assetto Corsa Competizione. Regardless of whether you drive intensively or not, whether somebody's sitting or not. Here the GameManager basically diseappers and sometimes gameengine too.

Then I thought it might have something to do with the license or license checking since it seems to be like clockwork. I then removed the license folder from appdata and installed LFS for testing. I tested with LFS and it seemed to drop out after about 2 minutes, always the same way, however in this one either the gameengine disappears or when it´s on, the motion stops but the gameengine is still there, but as long as you click around in it and it has gamemanager on, some buttons seem to become white and the gameengine crashes. But yeah, for the motion stopping, time seems to be the factor in both cases.

Then I tried redoing the registration of the license for my license, but after that evereything was the same. ACC drops out after about 3 mins 15 seconds after game manager is started after the game engine. And same for LFS with it´s 2 minutes, just that there the gameengine crashes.

Now how can that be explained??? What can we do?

Also how can I enable some logging or some output ? It has to have some error or something when crashing, unfortunately it does not say anything when disappearing.

I ended up leaving it without motion for a week since I had no time, but today I basically spent all day testing and that's all I could find so far, I can't go any further on my own, this is killing me... :/ No idea what's scheduled inside SimTools to reoccur after a defined timeinterval and why the timeinterval is different for ACC and for LFS...

Hmm, but nothing had changed with my rig I believe. It was basically in a half - a new PC, but after that it was all running very well for at least a week.

Hmm, at some point I did move from Norton Commander to Bitdefender. I will try out play around with the things you mentioned and let you know how it's looking. Thanks so far.

Yep, thank you both very much!!! Yes, indeed, yesterday night disabling the antivirus shield protection or live protection or whatever it's called did solve the problem. Sorry, I did not write yesterday anymore as I was just able to test everything to make sure and then went straight to sleep.

But yes. Hope this helps to anybody else encountering those symptoms. Strange though. I did switch the antivirus, but on my old PC I believe I was using Bitdefender all the time and I don't remember ever switching it's shield protection off. And I thought I had already tested this with the antivirus as Patrick from Prosimu had mentioned to try that, but apparently I must have not tried it until now.

So yeah, it's very strange for me that on the previous PC I never had to turn off anything. But yes at least I can drive like this and I will see if I can add Simtools to exclusions or something. Also strange that the antivirus never notified me. I checked it's notifications but it was just blocking some web threats a couple of times a day, but it was not visible that it was blocking anything everytime when I would start Simtools to test.

Thanks again guys!