As you probably know, Windows 11 is the latest edition of Microsoft’s popular operating system, and the fact that Windows 10 end-of-life is fast approaching means that more and more people will finally need to upgrade. Well, if you’re a fan of the classic GTA title San Andreas, then you have another reason to hold off upgrading (at least to Windows 11 24H2).

Just last week, we reported on Windows 11 blue screens in the April update, but since October, fans of San Andreas who were playing on the latest major version noticed something peculiar about the game: there was no Skimmer propeller seaplane.

Skimmer disappears from San Andreas in Windows 11 24H2

GTA San Andreas was first released to PC in June 2005, after nearly a year of exclusivity on the PlayStation 2. Rockstar has released various remastered classics with its Definitive Edition collection, and this bug also affects the remaster. Players have been left baffled by the disappearance, but community member Silent has done a thorough investigation. Silent is the creator of SilentPatch, a set of fixes for PC games to run on modern hardware. These include Rockstar titles such as GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, and Bully: Scholarship Edition.

When I upgraded my windows to version 24H2, the Skimmer plane disappear completely from the game. It can't be spawn using trainer nor it can't be found anywhere on it's 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’s Blog

After some debugging, Silent discovered that Skimmer’s entry in a configuration file, vehicles.ide, was missing some essential parameters for the front and rear wheel scale. He theorizes that this is because in the previous game, Vice City, the Skimmer is defined as a boat and does not need these parameters. In San Andreas, where the Skimmer’s vehicle type was changed to a plane, the missing values cause a problem, but for some reason only in Windows 11 24H2.

You can read through Silent’s blog post for a deeper dive into the technical details.

It’s not Microsoft’s fault

Before you jump to blaming Microsoft for the missing Skimmer, Silent says: “I want to make it clear: all these findings prove that the bug is NOT an issue with Windows 11 24H2”. The findings in question suggest that this has been a long-standing mistake from Rockstar, and it seems like a miracle that no previous OS versions clashed with the error.

Luckily, SilentPatch will be getting a new hotfix that fixes the problem. You can also fix it yourself by editing the values of the vehicles .ide file. Here’s how to do so:

1. Navigate to data\vehicles.ide in your San Andreas directory and open the file in Notepad
2. Scroll down to the entry for Skimmer, then begins with 460, skimmer
3. Replace the original line with the following values:

460, 	skimmer,	skimmer, 	plane,		SEAPLANE,	SKIMMER,	null,	ignore,		5,	0,	0,		-1, 0.7, 0.7,		-1

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.