These are all symptoms of the aircraft's plugin not loading, which will impact a wide variety of the functions of the aircraft. The most common solutions for this are:
- Don't move the SASL plugin, and don't place it in X-Plane's main plugins folder.
It is very important you don't move any files out of the folder for the aircraft you download. SASL has its own instance per plane, so it needs to stay where it is in the plane's plugins folder. When in doubt, simply redownload the aircraft and install the new copy in place of the old one. If you manually copy SASL to X-Plane's main plugins folder (X-Plane 11/Resources/plugins), that is a Bad Thing (tm) and will interfere with any SASL plane you try to run.
- Make sure the file path to the plane isn't too long.
This can affect some users, especially those who have installed X-Plane through Steam. Steam's location for programs is already buried down several layers of folders, and makes the file path quite long to begin with. If your plane is installed in the "X-Plane 11/Aircraft/General Aviation" folder, try moving it out to the main "Aircraft" folder and see if that helps.
- Windows users: Make sure you have the 64-bit version all of the Microsoft visual C++ Redistributable packages installed, especially the 2010 package.
This is especially an issue with new installations of Windows 10, but it can affect any Windows user. The solution is simple: you just need to download the 64-bit version of the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable packages, then restart your computer. Start with the 2010 package, and see if that helps. If not, go through and make sure you have the 64-bit version of ALL the different packages installed. In the end you would have 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2015 installed. You can find these packages at these Microsoft links:
2010: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=13523
2005: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=18471
2008: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=2092
2012 through 2017 can be found on this page, though some need a Microsoft login:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads
- Disable any anti-virus software, or create an exception for X-Plane.
If you use an anti-virus program it may be intercepting the plugin files either at the time of download, or when you try to fly the plane in X-Plane. This has especially been an issue with Norton lately, but it can occur with other anti-virus software too. Try two things: 1. Disable the antivirus and re-download the plane (this will make sure you have a complete download package). 2. Create an exception for X-Plane in your anti-virus software (this will make sure the plugin isn't blocked from running).