Troubleshoot Crashes in STK

When working with STK (Systems Tool Kit), crashes can be frustrating and disruptive. This article provides techniques to prevent crashes and steps to troubleshoot a corrupted scenario.

Preventative Techniques

1. Save Often: Regularly save your work to avoid losing progress.
2. Turn AutoSave On: Go to Menu Bar > Edit > Preferences: Save/Load Settings and set AutoSave to 5 minutes or higher. This has saved our engineers many times.
3. Make Full Copies of Your Scenario Folder: Create full copies of your scenario folder with clear timestamps (e.g., MyScenario_Today_11am) to protect your content.
4. Avoid Duplicate Scenario Copies in the Same Folder: Do not keep multiple copies of the same scenario in the same folder.
5. Copy External Content into the Scenario Folder before loading: Ensure all external content used in your scenario is copied into the scenario folder.
6. Check your Graphics Card. It is recommended that you upgrade your graphics card driver when you are upgrading your version of STK.

 Troubleshooting STK Crashing. 

If STK crashes, follow these steps to identify and resolve the issue.

Note: Without the Auto-Save feature previously enable, there is no way to recover your unsaved scenarios. Auto-Save also does not guarantee that you maintain all of your work.

Identify When the Crash Occurs

1. Crash at Startup:
   • This could indicate a graphics issue where STK is unable to render the scenario.
   • Verify your graphics card exceeds the minimum system requirements and the graphics card driver is updated. meets and exceeds the minimum specs.
     1. Go to Verify Graphics Card article: Ensuring Graphics Card optimal usage for STK

1. Crash When Running Analysis:
   • If you are running analysis and STK says (Not Responding), do not click on STK. If you click on STK while its running analysis, Windows will think STK has crashed. Windows will attempt to kill the STK process. It is recommended to let STK calculate without touching the GUI.
   • If the analysis does not seem to end, please check the analysis that you are running. It could be calculating for a longer duration than you expected or have too many grid points. Consider shrinking your analysis to a very short duration or large grid. This way you can tell how long a subset takes, and then run the full analysis when you are ready to leave for the day or to go to lunch.

1. Crash During Analysis Object Recalculation:
   • This is likely a problem with the analysis object (e.g., coverage or comm systems).
   • Check the objects used in the analysis and ensure they are valid. Remove or recreate the analysis if necessary.

1. Crash Occurs at a Specific Time:
   • Determine if the error corresponds with adding an object or making a change. If there is a problem with the specific object, please check the dependencies. Is it using an external file that is not present? Is there any information in the Message Viewer when you try to add

1. Crash Occurs when rendering 3D Model or Coverage Definition or any other graphic intensive feature.
   • Rendering something uses the graphics card. If your graphics card is not powerful enough, this could cause STK to crash.
   • If the 3D Model has errors, this could cause STK to crash. AGI delivers a Modeler Application with every STK install. Use this application to verify if the 3D model is causing the problems.

Finding the Issue: 

1. Check Error Messages:
   1. Review Message Viewer: Since STK has crashed, you will need to check the message viewer logs.
      1. Check error messages in STK Scenario Directory. Default for Windows 11 machines is  C:\Users\{UserName\OneDrive}\Documents\STK 12\Config\Logs.
      2. Look for errors or messages before the crash to identify specific issues with objects or analysis.
2. Missing External Files
   1. Ensure File Integrity:
      1. Verify that all external files required by the scenario are correctly referenced and not moved.
3. Ensure the Online Operations are not causing an issue.
   • Disable Online Operations:
   • Go to Edit > Preferences > Online and clear the checkbox for “Allow Online Operations”
   • Restart STK and test for crashing.
     1. If there are no crashes with this, then there is problem with your firewall or other network settings. Please troubleshoot with your network administrator to allow STK to access online resources like Bing Maps and Databases.
4. Re-Create on a Blank Scenario.
   1. Recreate your steps that produce a crash with a blank scenario.
      1. If the blank scenario doesn’t cause and issue, it could be a problem with your scenario. See Troubleshoot Corrupted Scenario in STK
5. Disable Collada Models:
   • If inserting new objects (satellites, aircraft, etc.) causes issues, go to `Edit > Preferences > OpenGL` and check `Force MDL models on scenario level`
   • Restart STK and try inserting objects again.
   • If disabling the Collada models stops STK from Crashing, please verify your graphics card exceeds the minimum requirements. Ensuring Graphics Card optimal usage for STK
6. Retrieve Minidump Diagnostic File
   1. Generate Minidump:
      1. Set the environment variable AGI_GENERATE_MINIDUMP = 1.
      2. Reproduce the crash to create a dump file in %TEMP% in a subfolder called AGI-STK12Application.
      3. The %TEMP% directory is usually C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp. If not, paste %TEMP% into your browser file path to locate it.
      4. Send the content to support@lsas-tec.com