@Black-Square thank you Nick as always for such a quick and well-considered reply. Yeah, the pause situation is really a nuisance. Even in 2020 I could never get the "true pause" binding to work - the only thing that ever worked in 2020 for me was an escape pause followed by opening the load/save file plan windows system file selection dialogue. That wound pause the sim, and I could even sleep and resume the computer! None of that is possible in 2024, sadly.
That's good to know that an esc pause should stop all code execution - if I scheduled a failure immediately before the pause, I support that would work as a test to see if the code is executed during the pause? In general using esc pause means resetting sim time manually when I resume (and not needing flow any more, but I've wasted worse money flight simming ) but the caravan is quickly becoming the only plane I fly so I'd love to have the most reliable/realistic process possible.
Will test when I can and report back - in the meantime, yes indeed I hope someone can shed more light on the arcane pausing situation