Bugs emerging after a Microsoft update have become a familiar sight for users, yet the recent incident involving a classic game like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has raised eyebrows. Following the rollout of Windows 11 version 24H2 on October 1, 2024, players reported a curious disappearance: the Skimmer seaplane, a beloved aircraft within the game, was nowhere to be found. This peculiar glitch has sparked conversations among gamers and developers alike.
Skimmer seaplane disappeared after the Windows 11 24H2 update
Players who have remained loyal to the iconic title noticed that the Skimmer, typically found in its usual spawn location, had vanished entirely. Attempts to summon the aircraft using vehicle spawner mods resulted in game crashes, prompting the developer behind SilentPatch, a community-driven fix for older games, to investigate the issue further. Silent, the creator of SilentPatch, shared insights on his blog after receiving multiple reports on the SilentPatch GitHub issue tracker.
When I upgraded my windows to version 24H2, the Skimmer plane disappeared completely from the game. It can’t be spawned using trainer nor can it be found anywhere on its normal spawn points. I’m using both my modded copy (which is before the update, is completely fine) and vanilla copy with only SilentPatch (I tried the 2018, 2020, and the most recent version of SilentPatch) and the plane still won’t exist.
Silent noted that this was not an isolated incident; similar complaints had surfaced on GTAForums since November 2024. While some players speculated that a SilentPatch update was to blame, others experienced the issue even in unmodded versions of the game. One user reported success in spawning the Skimmer on a virtual machine running Windows 11 23H2, only to find it missing after upgrading to 24H2.
In his own testing, Silent found that the Skimmer appeared without issue on his home PC running Windows 10 22H2 and his work machine on Windows 11 23H2. However, upon upgrading to 24H2, he encountered the same problem as other users. To further investigate, he set up a virtual machine with the new update and confirmed the Skimmer’s absence, despite all other aircraft and boats functioning normally. An attempt to spawn the plane via script resulted in a humorous glitch, launching the character into the sky at an astronomical distance.
Don’t blame Windows 11 for this one
As Silent delved deeper into the issue, he discovered that the game would freeze due to a bug within the CPlane::PreRender function, which was caught in a loop while trying to normalize the rotor blade angle. The root cause lay in the game’s configuration file, vehicles.ide, where the Skimmer’s entry was notably shorter than those of other aircraft, lacking crucial parameters that control wheel scale. Silent explained that while this configuration was typical for boats, it was inappropriate for the Skimmer, which had been classified as a plane in San Andreas.
By adding the missing parameters, Silent was able to rectify the issue. He theorized that Rockstar Games might have overlooked this detail during development, as the Skimmer had previously been defined as a boat in GTA Vice City, making those parameters unnecessary at the time. The fact that this bug remained hidden for two decades only to surface now, specifically triggered by changes in Windows 11 24H2, is a curious twist of fate.
Ultimately, the internal adjustments made in the latest Windows update, particularly concerning temporary stack memory, inadvertently exposed the long-buried bug. Thus, the blame does not rest with Windows 11 or Microsoft, but rather with the legacy of GTA San Andreas itself. Silent has assured players that a fix will be included in the next update of SilentPatch, promising a return to normalcy for those eager to take to the skies once again.
