Fatal errors and crashes

No program is immune to crashing. If Keysight "hard-crashes" (closes itself and gives a white "fatal error" pop-up, usually on start-up), pay attention to what it actually says and see if it matches the entries below. If it does not, get in touch with support via Discord➚ or the Steam forums➚.

"Fatal error" crashes

"...Create Unordered Access View..."

Cause

Either: the Windows device running Keysight does not support WDDM 1.2 / D3D11.1 render features. This is usually due to:

• Running Windows 7
• Having ancient graphics drivers (particularly common on Intel HD integrated graphics)

Or: the device does not have enough video memory to initialise Keysight and all its necessary texture resources. The minimum required video memory (VRAM) is 1GB (or possibly a value between 512mb and 1GB), having less than this will crash Keysight upon opening. The only systems observed as not having enough VRAM are old laptops with no dedicated GPUs and only 4GB of system memory (RAM), which results in typically 512MB or less being assigned as video memory. These devices fall far below minimum supported hardware specifications for Keysight.

Solution

• Ensure you are above minimum specification (which includes being on Windows 10 or above)
• Ensure your graphics drivers are up to date. Be cautious when searching around, as "fix drivers" type applications are a common malware vector! It is recommended to find out what graphics device you have (if no dedicated graphics card, then search the CPU model) and then go to the manufacturer's first party website and search there.
• If a VRAM issue: it is possible to assign more video memory to the integrated graphics card in BIOS➚, but if using a system with only 4GB of system memory to begin with, this is strongly advised against.

Explanation

"Unordered access views" or UAVs are a type of graphics card memory resource which are required for render-to-video to function. These are initialised on start-up, and so Keysight literally will not open unless these are supported. UAVs are fairly modern (well, 2011) and niche compared to everything else Keysight requires, and so particularly old/basic drivers or Windows installations do not support them.

"...D3D device being lost..."

Cause

The graphics adapter (GPU) Keysight was using to run has been disconnected or reset.

Solution

• Ensure your graphics adapter is stable and not crashing under load. Keysight can produce 100% GPU utilisation, after all.
• If you have multiple graphics adapters (common on gaming laptops with Intel CPUs), it is common for the laptop to switch between graphics adapters for better battery efficiency. Ensure Keysight will not have its graphics adapter swapped while it is running either by forcing "high performance" mode in power management for your device (this should force the full GPU to be used for applications like Keysight 100% of the time) or manually force Keysight to use a specific graphics adapter➚.

Explanation

This error is Keysight reporting that it lost connection to the graphics adapter. Keysight's entire purpose is rendering graphics via a graphics adapter, so it ought to be fairly self-explanatory why disconnecting the graphics adapter is fatal.

Silent crashes

These are usually much more difficult to troubleshoot, as Keysight is breaking without reporting anything. However, a few silent crashes have been identified, so give the following fixes a try.

Keysight closes during loading screen

Possible cause

Steam overlay hook clashing with other 3D application hooks.

Solution

• Try disabling the Steam overlay for Keysight by right clicking on Keysight in your Steam Library, then navigating to Properties > General > disable "Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game". Thus far, this issue has only been confirmed on one Apple Silicon device.

Explanation

The Steam overlay has been known to clash with other 3D application hooks and cause weird behaviour. Due to Keysight silently closing soon after starting, it could be some other 3D party hook attempting to hook into Keysight, running into the Steam overlay, and taking the whole thing down. Just a guess though.

Keysight never opens

Possible cause

Steam service interruption.

Solution

• Try fully closing and reopening Steam. This means navigating to the very top left of Steam and selecting "Steam > Exit" and then confirming that all Steam processes are closed in Task Manager. (I'm not sure what the Mac equivalent of double checking Task Manager is...)
• Try restarting the whole computer. You never know.

Explanation

None. This just sometimes happens. -shrug-