Well, as you may have surmised, I just this month installed FS20 and only have about 3 hours of actual use, including only 15-20 minutes of C152 and TBM930 training flight, fighting grossly oversensitive controls - I dumbed down my joystick to 30% and it's still twitchy- the rest of the 3 hours being spent struggling to force the sim to even recognize my throttle+joystick and get a few basic flight controls configured. So it's not so much that I believe internet hiccups are the problem, I just can't think of any other reason a flight sim would rhythmically freeze up in mid-approach on a fully capable machine for no apparent reason.
Just as a matter of principle, I do not want the complication (and privacy implications) of all the whiz-bang completely irrelevant doo-dads like up-to-the-minute real world wx and updating European city rush-hour ground traffic in real time while I'm trying to nail a visual approach into Toronto in an uber-sensitive almost unflyable TBM930. So being able to turn off ALL internet connection attempts by FS20 would be a major plus for me, whether or not it stops the freezups.
Wow, Steve, valuable info, I had no idea how to do that- FS20 is very different than FSX! Thank you for your help, which I will try to implement as soon as I get back into the sim. I'll post back here whether or not cutting the cord stops the freezups. :D
~Doug