# OpenMC Killed while attempting to plot **URL:** \ **Category:** User Support\ **Created:** [September 3, 2025, 12:38pm UTC](https://openmc.discourse.group/t/openmc-killed-while-attempting-to-plot/5986 "2025-09-03T12:38:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tghaddar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/97f17d/32.png) [@tghaddar](https://openmc.discourse.group/u/tghaddar)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2025, 12:38pm UTC](https://openmc.discourse.group/t/openmc-killed-while-attempting-to-plot/5986/1 "2025-09-03T12:38:25Z")
Howdy! I’m attempting to plot a TRISO-based geometry with version 0.15.0. However, the process is killed during `Preparing distributed cell instances`, and I’m curious if anyone has encountered that before and what could be causing it? Here is the full screen output: ```shell openmc --plot %%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ############### %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ################## %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ################### %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% #################### %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ##################### %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ###################### %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ####################### %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ####################### %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ###################### %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% #################### %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ################# %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ############### %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ############ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ######## %%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%% | The OpenMC Monte Carlo Code Copyright | 2011-2024 MIT, UChicago Argonne LLC, and contributors License | https://docs.openmc.org/en/latest/license.html Version | 0.15.0 Git SHA1 | 84fb85977f46e162fea8f5a20ea653a3ec62ac24 Date/Time | 2025-09-03 08:07:11 MPI Processes | 1 OpenMP Threads | 186 Reading settings XML file... Reading materials XML file... Reading geometry XML file... Preparing distributed cell instances... Killed ``` Thanks in advance! ---
**Author:** ![ligross](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/openmc.discourse.group/ligross/32/1653_2.png) [@ligross](https://openmc.discourse.group/u/ligross)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2025, 5:32pm UTC](https://openmc.discourse.group/t/openmc-killed-while-attempting-to-plot/5986/2 "2025-09-05T17:32:27Z")
Depending on your system, it might have run out of memory. Especially for a high packing-fraction, large reactor. What are the file sizes of your XML (`ls -lh *.xml`) and what is your machine memory limit (`lscpu`)? Also are you able to share your XML? If so, then we could test if it works on a system where we are sure the plotter functions normally. ---
**Author:** ![tghaddar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/97f17d/32.png) [@tghaddar](https://openmc.discourse.group/u/tghaddar)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 12:13pm UTC](https://openmc.discourse.group/t/openmc-killed-while-attempting-to-plot/5986/3 "2025-09-09T12:13:36Z")
It was indeed that our system ran out of memory. After tweaking the slurm submission we got it to plot. Thanks!