# ParticleTracer segmentation fault any time paraview is run in parallel
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/particletracer-segmentation-fault-any-time-paraview-is-run-in-parallel/10634
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [October 30, 2022, 4:14am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/particletracer-segmentation-fault-any-time-paraview-is-run-in-parallel/10634 "2022-10-30T04:14:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@moonlightcockroch](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/moonlightcockroch)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2022, 4:14am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/particletracer-segmentation-fault-any-time-paraview-is-run-in-parallel/10634/1 "2022-10-30T04:14:48Z")
I am running a parallel paraview server on a large cluster. I am trying to use the ParticleTracer to visualize a flow field with a plane as a source. This works completely fine for serial runs of paraview, whether that be locally or through pvserver. However, anytime I run in parallel, I immediately get a seg fault error when applying the particle trace filter. I have attached the error to this post. It seems the problem is in the ParticleTracerBase class when trying to call getCacheDataTime. I have tried to turn on “Ignore Time” in the pipeline browser, but that also does not work.
I have tried this both with ParaView 5.10.1 and 5.11 on two completely different clusters. I am wondering if this is a known issue and if there might be some way to fix it. Unfortunately, I am short of time as I have a deadline soon and have very little time to debug over the next few days. This is also the reason I am not able to provide much in the way of helping you all reproduce my error.
Sorry about that and thanks a lot.
[pv-error.txt](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/iObOwgE0gFhkx7Jbd6J08WKJa5f.txt) (39.0 KB)
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2022, 1:29am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/particletracer-segmentation-fault-any-time-paraview-is-run-in-parallel/10634/2 "2022-10-31T01:29:55Z")
Hi @moonlightcockroch
Please share your data,
Best,
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### Author:  [@moonlightcockroch](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/moonlightcockroch)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2022, 3:43am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/particletracer-segmentation-fault-any-time-paraview-is-run-in-parallel/10634/3 "2022-11-01T03:43:59Z")
Thanks for getting back. I attached a few time-steps of my data. I get the error right when applying the ParticleTracer filter on every dataset that I have tried. Again, this only happens for parallel runs.
[flow0000.vtk](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/6mCHweh76e0TTgMihdldQgVe6qv.vtk) (2.2 MB)
[flow0001.vtk](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/zvDZfh82o4ssH9E0Z8euSw1Q0Qa.vtk) (2.2 MB)
[flow0002.vtk](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/KW4euyY77ItMF5wXuTSLlcJmSN.vtk) (2.2 MB)
[flow0003.vtk](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/dEO3Ppx67wxcjRJc484aDKbIgoS.vtk) (2.2 MB)
[flow0004.vtk](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/lE0jiUY0eJ26zqn4Rx5u6HkURc1.vtk) (2.2 MB)
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### Author:  [@moonlightcockroch](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/moonlightcockroch)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2022, 3:49am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/particletracer-segmentation-fault-any-time-paraview-is-run-in-parallel/10634/4 "2022-11-01T03:49:14Z")
Also, the time-step size of these is 0.01. So, I make a calculator filter and divide by 100, and then apply the particles tracer to that.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2022, 12:31am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/particletracer-segmentation-fault-any-time-paraview-is-run-in-parallel/10634/5 "2022-11-02T00:31:31Z")
You need to distribute your dataset before the particle tracer, using “RedistributeDataSet” filter.
I’ve opened an issue for the segfault:
[https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/issues/21637](https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/issues/21637)
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### Author:  [@moonlightcockroch](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/moonlightcockroch)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2023, 9:30pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/particletracer-segmentation-fault-any-time-paraview-is-run-in-parallel/10634/6 "2023-01-05T21:30:21Z")
I appreciate the help with this. I found that this helps in preventing immediate crashing; however, I have found the particle tracer to be generally unstable no matter what if a significant number of particles are used. Unfortunately, this makes it pretty much unusable for me.
I am trying to create a smoke tracer effect to visualize my flow field, so I obviously need a lot of particles for this. I am assuming that the particle tracer wasn’t designed for this use though, so I can’t really complain.
I haven’t been able to find another of way doing this in Paraview, unfortunately. Is there perhaps a way to compute an Eulerian advection (as opposed to the Lagrangian approach of the ParticleTracer filter) of some species inside of Paraview given the time-dependent velocity field that I compute from my CFD code? I obviously could do this myself with my own advection-diffusion solver, but it would be extremely convenient to be able to do in Paraview.
Any ideas?
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2023, 8:59am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/particletracer-segmentation-fault-any-time-paraview-is-run-in-parallel/10634/7 "2023-01-06T08:59:05Z")
> [@moonlightcockroch](#):
>
> I have found the particle tracer to be generally unstable no matter what if a significant number of particles are used
Please isolate and open any issues you may have.
> I am trying to create a smoke tracer effect to visualize my flow field, so I obviously need a lot of particles for this. I am assuming that the particle tracer wasn’t designed for this use though, so I can’t really complain.
The StreamTracer was not designed to produce an effect but to simply simulate particles behavior in a vector field.
The Lagrangian particle tracker let you implement your own model if that helps you.