# Corrupted refinement ratio when processing an "amrmesh" mesh in paraview-catalyst
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/corrupted-refinement-ratio-when-processing-an-amrmesh-mesh-in-paraview-catalyst/17571
**Category:** In Situ Support
**Created:** [May 19, 2026, 1:10pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/corrupted-refinement-ratio-when-processing-an-amrmesh-mesh-in-paraview-catalyst/17571 "2026-05-19T13:10:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cityadmirer](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cityadmirer)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2026, 1:10pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/corrupted-refinement-ratio-when-processing-an-amrmesh-mesh-in-paraview-catalyst/17571/1 "2026-05-19T13:10:03Z")
### Overview
I’m working on some CFD code based on the AMReX library. It provides utilities to map a uniform Catersian AMR mesh to a `conduit::Node` object based on the nestsets blueprint. However, when the data is processed by paraview catalyst, `this->GetRefinementRatio` in `vtkOverlappingAMRMetaData::CalculateParentChildRelationShip` sometimes returns invalid refinement ratios like `-2026166424` or `506225616` on some MPI ranks, leading to hanging and crash of the program.
### Reproduce
To reproduce the issue, I build a minimal test case including a 64x16x16 grid. There are 12 block domains on 2 levels of refinement (4 on level 0 and 8 on level 1) distributed over 4 MPI procs. The AMR generated blueprint meshes are written to 4 yaml files for debugging (see attachments). I checked these with files with my eyes but found no problem.
Strangely, if the total grid dimension is increased, the problem is gone. Run the executable with only one process has the same effect.
[bp\_mesh\_4.0.yaml](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/rKhmRrfJi9c6FWaNUrnOyuC0x4h.yaml) (76.5 KB)
[bp\_mesh\_4.1.yaml](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/6pJOrWwKCRPnpHB0byKXzxBAMkd.yaml) (81.2 KB)
[bp\_mesh\_4.2.yaml](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/eX1KsslxQs6cs8LeVBw0iUlIBBX.yaml) (117.7 KB)
[bp\_mesh\_4.3.yaml](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/7aCQm0dcl95zrO3st3mTnqasVRm.yaml) (110.5 KB)
### Build Information
I use the Spack package manager to organize all my dependencies. The spec is
```yaml
11 ~ │ - amrex@73b6cea70705ab07a4dc8e26ee8449cb12b371b9=26.05 +mpi~ascent+conduit+hdf5~fft~linear_solvers~sycl~shared+plotfile_tools+tiny_profil
│ e build_type=Release
12 │ - conduit@ca56731fbfe71c199ae7a5e5db71868eef15d47d=0.9.6 ~fortran+mpi+hdf5+python
13 │ - libcatalyst@2.1.0 +mpi+python
14 │ - paraview@=6.1.0 build_edition=catalyst_rendering +mpi+tbb~qt~x+python+libcatalyst+hdf5+osmesa_fallback
```
I managed to build them mannually but the problem still exists. It may or maynot be relavant to paraview. Any help is appreciated.
---
### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2026, 1:16pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/corrupted-refinement-ratio-when-processing-an-amrmesh-mesh-in-paraview-catalyst/17571/2 "2026-05-20T13:16:14Z")
Hi @cityadmirer
Could you share a dataset in .vthb format to reproduce within ParaView/VTK without using catalyst ?
---
### Author:  [@cityadmirer](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cityadmirer)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2026, 2:57pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/corrupted-refinement-ratio-when-processing-an-amrmesh-mesh-in-paraview-catalyst/17571/3 "2026-05-20T14:57:03Z")
The AMReX library does not support direct output using vthb format. Is that OK that reading from AMReX/BoxLib plotfile and save as vthb file?
---
### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2026, 3:01pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/corrupted-refinement-ratio-when-processing-an-amrmesh-mesh-in-paraview-catalyst/17571/4 "2026-05-20T15:01:13Z")
Please share the AMReX file then 🙂
---
### Author:  [@cityadmirer](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cityadmirer)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2026, 3:04pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/corrupted-refinement-ratio-when-processing-an-amrmesh-mesh-in-paraview-catalyst/17571/5 "2026-05-20T15:04:25Z")
[plt.tar.gz](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/GqhfX7mwGT4ssE8Mkrb0MRLv8Z.gz) (4.4 KB)
[plt00000.tar.gz](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/abTqG51j1xat4FyHA7q8wlHWEQi.gz) (2.5 KB)
---
### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2026, 2:38pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/corrupted-refinement-ratio-when-processing-an-amrmesh-mesh-in-paraview-catalyst/17571/6 "2026-06-09T14:38:21Z")
Here is the converted to .vthb version
[vthbconv.zip](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/wv9uq6RUY7TBOuyPstchMuzuka7.zip) (9.3 KB)