Please post here all of your reports about bugs or crashes in SpaceEngine. Before you post any bugs, please follow these steps:
First of all, make sure you make a clean install of SpaceEngine and update your video card drivers. This may solve 99% of all isues.
Read the Fixing common issues section below. It is possible that your problem can be solved there.
Read the List of known issues section below and make sure that your bugs are not on in it. You can use your browser's word finder to help search the list.
If the bug is not on the list then please post it in this thread. Attach to your message a screenshot (if possible) and a log file (it's called the se.log and is located in the SpaceEngine/system/ directory). Only the log file will help us to understand your problem and find a solution!
Fixing videocard-specific issues
If you do not know which videocard do you have, open the system/se.log file in the text editor and read the Vendor information in the beginning:
INITIALIZING OPENGL [MT] Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Then look for a solution for you:
Nvidia: Major lag spikes
To prevent major lags with Nvidia, go into Nvidia control panel, and in SpaceEngine's profile set Threaded optimization to off.
ATI/AMD: Transparent or invisible planets, no landscape
ATI/AMD: Crash on approaching to the black hole, neutron star or white dwarf, on using ship's hyperdrive, or when enabling the Oculus Rift mode or the Fish Eye mode
First, try the solution in in the previous paragraph. If this didn't help, open config/user.cfg and change this parameter value to false, so that it looks like this:
EnableMipmapsWarp false // use mipmapping for warp effects rendering
If crashes on enabling the Oculus Rift mode or the Fish Eye mode still remains, change these two parameters to false as well:
EnableMipmapsGUI false // use mipmapping for GUI FBO EnableMipmapsFrame false // use mipmapping for scene FBO
Intel HD: Glitchy landscape and textures on planets
Open config/main.cfg and change this parameter to 13:
PlanetHeightmapFormat 13 // format of the terrain heightmap textures: 13 - R32F, 16 - RGBA32F
If this didn't help, open config/user.cfg and change this parameter to true:
- "Error loading surface generator shaders. Press YES to run program with procedural planets disabled. Press NO to exit"
Download and install latest drivers for your video card. If you still get this message, it could be that you have an incompatible video card (see next paragraph).
But you still can try and run SpaceEngine by disabling checking of critical errors at startup. Open main.cfg and change value of this parameter to 'true':
IgnoreCriticalCheck true // ignore checking of OpenGL version and critical extensions supporting
NOTE: I can give no guaranties that SpaceEngine will be stable and work correctly if you do make this change.
If you have an "Error loading surface generator shaders" error and press Yes, SpaceEngine can run, but it will not be able to render procedural planetary landscapes.
After updating or rollback of the drivers, you must delete the cache folder in the SpaceEngine directory.
2) Weak system
Most of the forum posts I receive are from users that report an inability to start SpaceEngine, This is because those users have inbuilt Intel graphics card, or some old GeForce 5700 series, or not a proper "gaming" laptop. There is no way but to update your hardware system. There are no plans to make a second version of the engine for weaker systems with simplified graphics, CPU texture generation, etc. It would be like coding another engine from scratch. Once again, I would remind everyone that the minimum system requirements can be found on the Home page, but I will mention it here as well:
CPU 2.0 GHz RAM 2 GB Video GeForce 8600, Radeon HD 2600 VRAM 512 MB
I stress the special role played by videocard onboard memory (VRAM). 512 MB is the absolute minimum. The engine uses a large amount of data that must be in video memory (textures, meshes, vbo, etc). If your system meets the recommended requirements, the engine will work, because its development is made for this hardware:
CPU 3.0 GHz RAM 4 GB Video GeForce 9800 GTX, ATI Mobility HD 5730 VRAM 1024 MB
If you have a Intel HD graphics card, it is better to disable asynchronous loading in the main.cfg as well:
3) System with hybrid graphics (NVidia/ATI + Intel HD)
If you're running SE on a laptop with dual graphics, make sure SE runs on NVidia or ATI chip instead of Intel HD. You may see it in the beginning of "SpaceEngine/system/se.log" file. If it says: Vendor: Intel Renderer: Intel® HD Graphics 4000
then you should open Nvidia Control Panel or ATI Catalyst and force SpaceEngine.exe run on NVidia/ATI graphics card. If you do not found SpaceEngine profile there, create a new one.
4) Artifacts on procedural planets
If you get missing landscape blocks, blurry or blinking textures, random spikes sticking out of surface, check out these recommendations here:
a) If you have a laptop with hybrid graphics, read item #3.
b) Make sure that you make a "clean" installation of SE. If you install a new version overwriting the old one, you may get many bugs and glitches. If you get some glitches after the patch is installed, remove the folder called cache from SpaceEngine's directory.
5) Frequent crashing while generating planetary surface
If you have frequent crashes on planets, or get an "OUT OF MEMORY" message on screen, or "Unexpected deleting of child node" in the log file, try taking these steps first:
- Close any other programs that can consume the video memory (games, video players, graphics editors, etc.). SpaceEngine is not a small flash type game, video memory is the most important resource for it. It may help to disable the Windows Aero theme too, as it consumes a lot of video memory. - Disable "3D water" in Graphics settings (Ctrl-F4) - Reduce "Landscape LOD" to -2 in Graphics settings (Ctrl+F4) - Set up the amount of video memory in the main.cfg file:
VideoMemorySize 2048 // video card onboard memory (VRAM) in megabytes
The value must not be less than 1024, but not more than the total amount of physical video memory plus amount of RAM. For example, if you have a graphics card with 1024 MB of video memory, and more than 2 GB of RAM, you can increase VideoMemorySize to 2048.
6) Spaceship disappears when far from a star
It is not a bug. Current version have not yet completed spaceships rendering system - they cannot be rendered if there is no stars or planets in the renderlist. Just imagine that ship becomes invisible in interstellar flight
7) Blurry textures on Solar system planets
It is not a bug. Our Solar system planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and its satellites) have no procedural textures, only real ones with limited level-of-detail. You can download addons with high resolution textures to increase level of detail of real planets.
8) Crash on entering the Display menu
If you experience a crash when trying to open the Display menu, open config/main.cfg and change the Maximized parameter value to true, so that it looks like this:
Maximized true // start with a maximized window
9) Problems with very high resolution displays
If you're using a very high display resolution and have problems selecting things with the cursor, or your screenshots are being output at a lower resolution than you're using, try the following:
1) Open Windows Control Panel, navigate to Display, and set the DPI scaling to "Smaller - 100% (default)" - it should look like this.
2) If you want to adjust the DPI scaling, click on "Set custom text size (DPI)" in the sidebar and change its value to suit your preference.
List of known issues
Green items have been fixed for the next release
Not real bugs, but effects caused by limitations in the engine:
- Star mode "points" and "sprites" looks the same. This is right! This switch changes the rendering technology, not the visual appearance. - Ships do not render in interstellar space - Star catalog has many errors in star classification, so there are many "giant dwarfs" and "dwarf giants" - Many real binary stars rendered as single, and many single rendered as binary - SE simply have incomplete catalog of binary stars - Comet nucleus star-sprite will shine through planets [example]. - Galaxy/nebula sprites will rotate when seen from certain angles - Skybox edges are visible when near the center of galaxy - Auroras, comet tails and rings can be rendered in front of ships/moons sometimes - Lens flares are distorted by gravitational lensing (black holes and ship warp drive effect) - Text editor for Wiki descriptions is not working - it is not implemented yet - Solar system moons don't have extremely accurate orbits (requires implementation of custom orbit models, e.g. VSOP-87) - Sunspot distribution is not always realistic - Ocean tag not yet implemented in planet editor - Rounding errors (e.g. 30° in catalog rounds to 29°59'59.99" displayed on HUD) - "Normal" autoexposure mode is unfinished - Bloom effects from the bottom of the screen are replicated at the top of the screen in anaglyph mode - Many HIP and HD stars do not appear in the search menu
Real bugs:
- Inaccurate tidal heating calculations, makes some moons too hot (e.g. asteroid Dactyl) - Crash when entering the Display menu for users with single-monitor setups - Does not work in Windows XP - Menu button sound doesn't work - Lens flare color in Normal or Super diffraction spike mode is inaccurate when close to a star - Changing "modes" between simulation and orbital when piloting ships can cause glitches - Few issues with asynchronous loading (stars don't always generate properly, especially when flying to new galaxies) - Flashing landscape LOD on a planet when Wiki for it is displayed - GUI response issues with some users (interface items glitchy or not respond easily) - GUI toolbars may completely disappear when pressing pin button while half-hidden - Flickering flare color in close binary systems [example] - Auto-exposure does not react when a sun is blocked while diffraction spikes are set to normal or super - "Eclipse bug" on distant planets (weird dark shimmering on outer planet caused by inner planet crossing the sun or two suns eclipsing) - Cloud cyclones have cut edges sometimes - Level horizon command (End key) doesn't work properly on oblate objects - Problems when releasing Left + Right click - Lines or junctures are visible on planetary surface - Switching to fullscreen doesn't work sometimes - Weird behavior of movement keys in tracking mode (T) and after releasing it - Automatic reference object setting with spacecraft doesn't always choose the best object (for example, when near dwarf moons or debris asteroids close to a planet you are trying to orbit) - 3D water fog sometimes starts above the water surface - Problems with the skybox export interface, and with the planetarium after using it, for some users - Music player will unpause when SE window is minimized and restored, or when entering and exiting the main menu - If a galaxy model is selected, the camera is not following any object, and the program is in Edit Mode, closing and restarting the program will cause the WASDRF movement keys to behave incorrectly until the camera is set to follow an object - Visual atmosphere heights are inconsistently and unrealistically generated - Physical atmosphere properties are inconsistently and unrealistically generated, and are not tied to the visual models - Cyclones are not generated in the southern hemispheres of gas giants - Shimmering bloom splotch when very close to the surface of a planet [example] - Lighting errors in system browser when viewing from outside the system - "Opacity spot" in the subsolar region of atmospheres - Strange behavior of fish eye and cube map views when near planets (only when a planetary object is in the neg_z face) - Only one planetary nebula model is used per galaxy - Camera will be set to 90° FOV when returning from fisheye or cubemap view sometimes - If spacecraft .sss Length is very different from its .cfg length, there may be rendering glitches - Eclipse shadows on atmosphere not occluded by planet [example]
I downloaded the newest version (0.9.7.2), but it won't start. I'm not having problems with it crashing or randomly exiting. It just won't start, not a window, not a background program... nothing...
Nevermind, found the problem. It's a download error that happens with the IndieDB download. If anyone is having the same problem, I recommend just downloading uTorrent.
crashes instantly when I press F2 on Sol (Sun). So I tried moving towards a Solar System object remotely and the outcome was exactly the Same... I really want to visit (our) my home planet T.T
My problem is the opposite of majority above - I have no problems with procedural objects but SE crashes anytime I approach solar planet with regular textures. It happened with default texture pack and it happens with hires addons. Changing things in config didn't help much, neither did lowest landscape detail. Positive thing is that I've discovered that interleave loader works the best Additionaly, I have similar problem as The Blazer does - green artifacts on some textures but it doesn't disappear regerdless of my texture compression settings. Here are my specs:
Intel Quad Q9400 8GB DDR2 NVidia 450 GTS 512MB HDD via SATA2 Windows Vista x64
edit:
I've solved problem myself. First thing was that my drivers were slightly older than required but that didn't fix the problem. Initially I didn't get that texture compression needs SE restart. So after switching compression off and restarting everything works nicely - no artefacts and no crashes whatsoever
Hey I have a quick question. Im using Samsung 3d tv for Space engine. Im experiencing severe 3d ghosting especially when Im orbiting planets. Do you if I can somehow minimize 3d ghosting? I use vertical, horizontal, and stutterer mode and I get same results, however I get much better frame rate with horizontal and vertical.
Edited by mirek4365rm - Wednesday, 31.12.2014, 03:34
Very bad texture glitch when editing a planet. Yes. That's a planet. Also, another very strange bug. First off, the screen turned black, planet "b"'s temp. bugged out, and planet "c" is shown to be a giga-lightyear across.
Terrestrial (organic multicellular) life textures load very slowly and tend to choke down the whole texture loading process (major FPS drops, neverending loading).
This is heavily happening when looking at the horizon with large 'life' organic textures.
My LOD is set on 0.000, and loading of all other textures or models is quick and smooth.
Hello there! I have problems even pre-startup. I click on the Space-Engine symbol and the windows pops up. When the status is at "Initializing Filesystem" it says "Space-Engine stopped working". My System: Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz 4 GB RAM ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series (Microsoft Corporation WDDM 1.1) I attached the SE.log file. It seems, that OpenGL isnt initialized at all and it stops at "Initializing Engine"
Hey guys i have a problem, i want to change cloud shader, i've downloaded DoctorofSpace's Modified cloud shader and replaced it on tg_common.glsl and tg_clouds_heigh.glsl. And then my Space Engine just get an message that there is an error on the shader. I forgot to make the backup files. Can someone put the original files that didn't changed?
isdebesl, if you're having a problem related to a mod, you should post it in that mod's thread.
Lord_Darkflame, have you tried updating your graphics drivers, and/or creating a profile for SpaceEngine in the Catalyst control panel?
QuoteBountyMoon ()
Terrestrial (organic multicellular) life textures load very slowly and tend to choke down the whole texture loading process
Unless I'm mistaken, there's nothing different about "life" textures compared to other textures, they're created in the same way, and all the detail textures are loading from a single common texture file, so they can't have differing performance. Also, what LOD setting are you using? Your card only has 1 GB of VRAM, so you should set it to a low setting, otherwise you will certainly experience "infinite loading" on complex planets.
All forum users, please read this! My SE mods and addons Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
have you tried updating your graphics drivers, and/or creating a profile for SpaceEngine in the Catalyst control panel?
Thats the problem: I downloaded the latest driver and started the setup. But instead of finishing and saying "finished" it says "errors occured while installing". The only things, that aren't installed are the graphiccards driver itself (and the hdmi audio driver that i dont need). The problem is like "You need to be member of the Administratorgroup to install" although I am the integrated win 7 Admin and started the setup as Admin( rightclick -> "start as Admin"). -> so ccc (catalyst control center) doesnt work at all and I dont think it will get fixed unless I renew Win7 or get a new graphicscard...
Look at those happy sunflowers . . . Now you should be happier than before!
Unless I'm mistaken, there's nothing different about "life" textures compared to other textures, they're created in the same way, and all the detail textures are loading from a single common texture file, so they can't have differing performance. Also, what LOD setting are you using? Your card only has 1 GB of VRAM, so you should set it to a low setting, otherwise you will certainly experience "infinite loading" on complex planets.
I experience the infinite loading only on zones with certain terrestrial life (as in the pic), my LOD is set on medium (0.000 in the settings). I don't see anything more complex on these life textures than on any other ones, yet they load slowly and cause the infinite loading loop. For example the 'green jungle' textures or complex mountain models load perfectly.
ENG
New site
United States 
It looks like (null) 2.1 (null).
Russian Federation 
Poland 
Additionaly, I have similar problem as The Blazer does - green artifacts on some textures but it doesn't disappear regerdless of my texture compression settings. Here are my specs: 
Pirate 
Czech Republic 
Germany 
Indonesia