IronBug crashing, I think plant loop issue?

I am hoping someone can give me some general advice dealing with IronBug. I have built a large model using Ironbug - 88 zones, 13+ Air Loops, 3 HW loops, CHW and Condenser loop, etc.

I am constantly battling crashes. When I reopen the .gh file I get an immediate crash about 50% of the time. I also get crashes often when editing minor details on AirLoops.

My only remedy is to lock solver, disable all IronBug plant loops, and slowly re enable the plant loops one at a time. Suffice to say this is very detrimental to efficient work.

Are there error logs anywhere that could explain what is happening? I think the issue is somewhere in the plant loops but that’s just a guess.

I am on Windows, Rhino 8 SR 15, LBT 1.8 and the associated IronBug version from the pollination installer.

Hi @grahamjlinn, have you tried to apply the same system to a smaller model, like 2~5 zones? 88 zones are not the largest model I have seen. I don’t find any issue with Ironbug even building a model with more than 200+ zones.

If you could try to downsize the model and try to isolate the part of system that causes crashing, it might be helpful for me to understand the problem.

Thanks Mingbo. Are there any error logs or anything hidden I could look at to get some clues?

Its really hard to tell what is going on. Whenever I have any PlantBranch components enabled, Grasshopper crashes about every other time I relaunch the program. Happens with both chilled water loops and hot water loops. I have tried rebuilding the PlantBranch inputs a bunch of times and it doesn’t seem to help.

All I know for sure is that as long as every single PlantBranch component is disabled the gh file relaunches successfully every single time, I tested it like 8 times in a row. As soon as I re enable one of the PlantBranch components it will crash within 1 or 2 restarts.

Mingbo I’ve attached my .gh file, care to take a look? All the offending PlantBranch components are in one big group in the middle of the .gh file

Here’s a link to the hbjson with the geometry, it was too big for discourse so I have a pcloud link instead: CJF_pc_v4.hbjson - pCloud

cjf_gh_p2_hvac_M.gh (1.1 MB)

I continue to battle this issue. It feels totally random. I can make edits to three air handler systems and associated coils and everything is fine. One more edit to one more system and boom I get a waiting circle icon and then crash.

My only solution is to keep the PlantBranch objects disabled at all times and only re enable when I am ready to build the OSM file. The model still builds and runs fine, all the coils seem to be created and in the right spots. But I have to keep the PlantBranches disabled at all times to avoid random crashing and especially crashing at gh file opening.

Hi @grahamjlinn I am not sure what happens on your machine. I am using your sample gh file and hbjson model on my 7-year-old laptop, and there is no crash at all (see my end-to-end video recording). I am not sure what went wrong.

Hi Mingbo, that is very kind of you to take a look, thank you!

When you load my sample file you also have to enable the plantbranch components - they are in a big white vertical group in the middle of gh screen (see green arrow in screenshot below)

Hi @grahamjlinn, ok, now I test it again with all plant loops enabled, but still no crashes. Are you able to recreate the crash on another machine?

Thanks Mingbo - I suggest reopening the file now that you’ve re enabled the loops. I almost always get the crashes in reopening

I will try and find another Windows machine to test the behavior on