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  • Igor12

    Hello!
    I'm having trouble calculating the elastic tensor using the ELASTCON keyword.
    Every time, the calculation stops at STRAIN MATRIX 3
    The structure's geometry has been pre-optimized.
    Could you tell me what the problem might be and if it can be fixed?
    INPUT.d12
    fort34.txt
    fort87.txt


    Hello, @aerba! The method you proposed actually worked. Thank you very much for your help in resolving this issue.
  • piquini

    Is there a way to estimate the necessary RAM to run a job, given specifications of this job as: number and types of atoms in the assymetric unit cell, basis sets, exchange and correlation functional, number of k-points, MPI tasks and number of threads?


    Hi, While there is no option to estimate the necessary memory, there are a couple of advanced printing options to monitor the memory used step-by-step throughout the calculation. Please, refer to the MEMOPRT and MEMOPRT2 keywords in the User's Manual. Let me know if this helps,
  • J_Manisha

    Dear CRYSTAL Team,

    Recently I have encounered an issue while using CRYSTAL software. My jobs get stuck at cell and coordinate opimization stage, the job status show 'running' but out file and temporary files are not being updated for days. Could you tell me what might be causing this issue and how do I resolve this?

    I am sharing my input file and .out file for reference, please find attached documents.

    Thank you
    GO4O3-th.d12 GO4O3-th.out


    Hi, The input/output files you uploaded look fine. It is difficult for me to understand what happened.
  • job314

    I am sorry for the ignorant question:

    what is the purpose of MOLEBSSE keyword (I mean I know what is the purpose, I am confused about its usability)? I am running a classical CRYSTAL and MOLECULE calculation (extracted from CRYSTAL at crystalline geometry) and the same MOLECULE extracted from crystal and optimized to calculate the formation energy (E(crystal)-n*E(molecule)) and strain energy (E(molecule in crystalline geometry)-E(optimized molecule)). For the fully optimized molecule (to get lattice or cohesive energy) I extract the unit with the keyword MOLECULE the molecule that composes the crystal, and optimize it. No MOLEBSSE needed here.

    BUt then I would also like to see this "strain" energy, e.g. how much that molecule reorganizes from the crystalline geometry during optimization in a gas phase. But for that, I can again do single point with MOLECULE extraction from a crystal, compare that with fully optimized molecule and I am done. MOLECULE keyword generates a single molecule in gas phase. There are no neighboring molecules (that would contribute their basis sets which can be corrected with BSSE) when one uses MOLECULE keyword. So why have MOLEBSSE here? I knew why but I somehow lost it when I was thinking about it, sorry

    Jonas


    Hi Jonas, I see from your input that you are scanning along mode number 12 (with positive harmonic frequency of ~66 inverse centimeters). Have you tried scanning along mode 1 (with "negative" harmonic frequency of ~-14 inverse centimeters)?
  • pw_mit

    Hi,
    I'm trying to optimize a crystal with B97-3c with the following input:

    Glycine beta form
    CRYSTAL
    0 0 0
    4
    5.0932 6.272 5.3852 113.19
    10
    {N x y z}*10
    OPTGEOM
    FULLOPTG
    ENDOPT
    BASISSET
    mTZVP
    DFT
    B973C
    ENDDFT
    SHRINK
    0 4
    5 4 5
    ENDSCF
    

    However, it failed with message "ERROR **** CRYSTA **** KEYWORD MTZVP NOT ALLOWED".
    Although, it runs well when I remove "OPTGEOM \ FULLOPTG \ ENDOPT".

    It seems that 'BASISSET' was not parsed properly.
    Do I do anything wrong? Or has anyone seen this issue before?


    Hi Filippo, Thank you for jump in to help! Glad to hear it works on your end. I did expect it to work as following the manual. Here's the input glycine.d12 and output glycine.out files. Uploading fort.7 file is not allowed here. It has two lines in it: ERROR **** CRYSTA **** KEYWORD MTZVP NOT ALLOWED ERROR **** CRYSTA **** KEYWORD MTZVP NOT ALLOWED And there is a warning from the system as: forrtl: warning (496): BACKSPACE is a no-op on a terminal device This run was tested with slurm on 1 core on a 48-core machine with such commands: #SBATCH --nodes=1 #SBATCH --ntasks=1 export OMP_STACKSIZE=16M export OMP_NUM_THREADS=1 mpirun -np 1 MPPcrystalOMP < glycine.d12 > glycine.out Since it worked on your end but not mine, I'm afraid it is because something was missing in the building. Is there any clue come to your mind? Thanks, Peng
  • piquini

    I generated a nanotube from a slab. After optimizing I would like to use the symmetry of the nanotube and (only) the atoms of the assymetric unit in additional calculations. However, by getting the coordinates of the atoms of the assymetric cell in the output, and using the group as identified through the symmetry operations in the .gui file, the supercell generated (when looking at it in the crysplot) is not what I expected. There are some atoms very close to each other. Is there a robust way to select the atoms of the assymetric cell and the symmetry group in order to proceed with further calculations? Or, what I am doing wrong?


    Dear Silvia, thank you very much for your help. Using the EXTERNAL and the .gui file solved my problem
  • Luz

    Hello,

    I have performed a topological calculation using the TRHO keyword. In my output file, within the "CRITICAL POINTS FOUND" section, I notice that some atoms or sites are labeled as "PS" instead of a chemical symbol. The "PS" label is associated with a (3,-1) critical point.
    Could anyone please explain what the "PS" label stands for and how to interpret it? If "PS" represents an atom, is there any way to determine which atom it is?

    It is worth mentioning that I used a pseudopotential for one of the atoms in my system. Please find below the relevant section of my output file, as well as the input file used for the calculation.

    Thank you in advance for your help.

    Best regards

    Captura desde 2026-06-14 00-30-41.png

    Captura desde 2026-06-14 00-39-17.png


    @aerba Thank you for your response, it has been very helpful. Best regards
  • Alexander

    Hello!

    I am getting previously unseen error when doing NEWK. Two other similar solid solutions worked well with the same inputs.

    NEWK
    0 0
    1 0
    XFAC
    -8
    1
    DW
    0 0
    END
    XRDSPEC
    8
    1.5406
    1
    END

    *** K POINTS COORDINATES (OBLIQUE COORDINATES IN UNITS OF IS = 4)
    1-R( 0 0 0) 2-C( 1 0 0) 3-R( 2 0 0) 4-C( 1 1 0)
    5-C( 2 1 0) 6-R( 2 2 0) 7-C( 0 0 1) 8-C( 1 0 1)
    9-C( 2 0 1) 10-C( 1 1 1) 11-C( 2 1 1) 12-C( 2 2 1)
    13-R( 0 0 2) 14-C( 1 0 2) 15-R( 2 0 2) 16-C( 1 1 2)
    17-C( 2 1 2) 18-R( 2 2 2)
    ERROR **** KLGCLS **** OPERATION LOST IN LITTLE GROUP K = 1

    CrTaO4_SG136_SIC5_FREQ.d3
    CrTaO4_SG136_SIC5_FREQ.f9
    CrTaO4_SG136_SIC5_FREQ.outp


  • rbnfritz

    Hi,

    I am trying to reproduce the results of an article that specifically focuses on LiNbO3. When using the 'BETAVIB' option, the manual states that the estimation is performed via "d", and the result is printed in the output as:

    " VIBRATIONAL POCKELS TENSOR, FREQ.=

    DIRECTION CHI(2)"
    And

    VIBRATIONAL SHG TENSOR, FREQ.=

    DIRECTION CHI(2)

    But in this article https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pssb.20230005, they (or maybe I misunderstood) said they compute beta using crystal17, and the same is true in this one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927025623005232. Also, https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.045140 seems to follow the same rule.

    I want to clarify which term is printed in the output file "Using" BETAVIB, and in what unit it is printed?.

    Best.
    Rubén Fritz.


    Excellent, thank you for the quick feedback.
  • CaesarSalad

    Hello, I used an example from the Crystal23 manual to build an input file for Wannierization of the fort.9 , however, the program says that the input deck is empty. This is the file so far:

    NEWK
    6 6
    1 0
    LOCALWF
    VALENCE
    SYMMWF
    END
    VALENCE
    SYMMWF
    END
    PRINTPLO
    0 0 0 -8
    1 1 60 1
    1
    END
    END
    END

    I was trying to run it via Pproperties - could this also be an issue?

    Chris


    Hi Giacomo Now that you pointed that out... I can see that my launch script was at fault indeed. I wasn't actually passing the correct file name to the launch script. It is running well now, thanks a lot! C.
  • leszek_malec

    Dear developers,

    I tried to add the D3-BJ correction to HISS and PBESOL0 functionals using the DFTD3 section, as D3 is not implemented automatically in the CRYSTAL code by the addition of "-D3" for these functionals. I used such SCF section:

    DFT
    HISS
    SPIN
    XXLGRID
    END DFT
    DFTD3
    VERSION
    4
    S6
    1.0000
    S8
    1.6112
    A1
    0.0000
    A2
    7.3539
    END
    SPINLOCK
    24 30
    SHRINK
    4 4
    TOLINTEG
    10 10 10 10 20
    TOLDEE
    9
    MAXCYCLE
    1000
    EXCHSIZE
    90000000
    BIPOSIZE
    90000000
    FMIXING
    40
    POSTSCF
    PPAN
    END SCF
    

    The same implementation works properly if the keyword HISS is changed to PBE0 or CAM-B3LYP, but not for PBESOL0. For HISS and PBESOL0 computations immediately crash. Is there a method to work around this problem?


    Hi Lorenzo, It is quite non-intuitive, but it works properly. Thank you very much. Best regards, Leszek
  • job314

    I have a paper revisions requested and they asked for stability calculations. I found a similar paper, they used MD calculations. Thier plot are shown below and they talk about atomic vibrations and Dulong-Petit law. I was wondering if that has anything to do with lattice dynamics of any sort I can calculate in CRYSTAL to measure this equilibrium point before phase transition occurs? So not necessarily the method in the paper below, but something similar that show molecular stability with a temperature in a similar fashion?

    Thank you

    bf93868b-b329-471b-8f47-9e8ae81c0f3c-image.png


    Also, is there a way to restart calculations since I want to run for a series of increasing temperatures?
  • Chhatra

    Dear User!

    Could someone please help me understand what the number ‘67 501’ in the INPUT section is used for?
    NEWK
    3 3
    1 1
    67 501
    LOCALI
    END
    ORBITALS
    Corundum-CMOs
    1
    1
    END
    EN

    Screenshot from 2026-05-04 17-28-07.png

    Thank you


    Thankyou so much for your guidance. I will try!
  • Alexander

    Hello,

    I get this error after optimising the geometry of one of solid solution structures:

    [SYMMETRY ALLOWED INTERNAL DEGREE(S) OF FREEDOM: 6
    TOTAL NUMBER OF PARTNERS = 2
    NUMBER OF THE FIRST COMPONENT = 2
    STAR VECTOR = 1
    IRREDUCIBLE REPRESENTATION = 1
    ERROR **** CLSEGV **** NOT PAIRING AT K = 7
    ----------------------------------------------------------------]

    The optimization starts as expected, but after reaching convergence criteria and going for FINALRUN calculations stops. Using obtained geometry for OPTGEOM restart or FREQCALC results in this error. All other 8 solid solutions were optimized smoothly.

    CrTaO4_SIC4_FREQ.out
    CrTaO4_SIC4.f34
    CrTaO4_SIC4.out


    I honestly don't know, because when I tried to use your .f34 with the input you provided the FREQCALC was starting without any issue.
  • CaesarSalad

    Hello.

    If I want to run a calculation with ATOMSPIN 1 for an ion that has no unpaired electrons in its valence orbitals (as defined in its basis set), should I define a new basis set for it ?

    For example, I have a basis set for Oxygen 2- that is closed shell, and I'd like to force crystal to see it as O1- from the very beginning.

    Should I write a new basis set for it or can I simply just use ATOMSPIN with the same basis set as for O2-?

    Thanks a lot!

    Chris


    Hi Aleks, that's very helpful, thank you! I'll try that on my cells, cheers, C.
  • denkos

    Hi!
    I want to calculate the electric field gradient using POTC keyword (with CRYSTAL14) and am confused about the output. From the convention, the EFG components value should follow |CC|>|BB|>|AA|, which is not the case here. So my question is, can I consider the coordinate system to have an issue and just sort the output values to fulfill the convention and "rotate" the coordinate axes "by hand", or how should I interpret the output?

    Thank you for your help!

    TOTAL ELECTROSTATIC POTENTIAL


     3  POINT  COORDINATES      V0           V1(Z)        V1(X)        V1(Y)
    

    1 1.9790 2.3308 1.8870 -2.43511E+01 -1.44599E-04 -3.08862E-02 -2.33966E-02
    2 -7.8558 -3.2175 1.8921 -2.75956E+01 3.35688E-05 -1.79861E-03 -5.24897E-03
    3 -2.4880 0.9348 1.8905 -5.97785E+01 3.49451E-05 1.44597E-02 -8.08926E-03

    TRACELESS ELECTRIC FIELD GRADIENT TENSOR

    POINT 1 POSITION 1.9790 2.3308 1.8870

    TENSOR IN ORIGINAL CARTESIAN AXES
    XX -4.074007E-02 YY 1.062909E-02 ZZ 3.011098E-02 XY -3.411483E-02 XZ -7.494557E-05 YZ -2.045206E-04

    TENSOR IN PRINCIPAL AXES SYSTEM
    AA -5.775846E-02 BB 2.763815E-02 CC 3.012031E-02

    PRINCIPAL AXES
    X Y Z
    A 8.948364E-01 4.463906E-01 1.802221E-03
    B -4.456747E-01 8.931575E-01 6.036308E-02
    C 2.533584E-02 -5.481828E-02 9.981749E-01

    ANGLES BETWEEN PRINCIPAL AXES AND ORIGINAL AXES (DEGREES)
    X Y Z
    A 26.512576 63.487657 89.896740
    B 116.466512 26.727256 86.539347
    C 88.548208 93.142432 3.462197


    Okay, so then I need to sort the values manually according to convention. Thank you!
  • Aleksand75

    Hello, I'm trying to calculate the bulk modulus of elasticity for a solid. I'm entering the following part of text in a *d.12 file:
    ...
    EOS
    RANGE
    0.99 1.01 3
    PRANGE
    0 10 5
    END
    ....
    DFT
    PBE
    END
    TOLINTEG
    7 7 7 7 14
    TOLDEE
    9
    MAXCYCLE
    200
    SHRINK
    6 6
    FMIXING
    70
    PPAN

    The calculation results return an error:
    " ERROR **** SCF **** SG_IRR ALLOCATION ERROR: ALREADY ALLOCATED"

    Could you tell me what's wrong and what to do?
    Thank you.


    Thank you very much for your attention to this issue! I'm glad it's not my understanding that's wrong. I've already begun implementing your proposed approach.
  • yuliyaglushkova

    Hello, i I tried to calculate the molecular orbitals: "Crystalline Orbitals (COs) - Canonical Orbitals". I have the fort.9 file ready with the following .d3 file :
    NEWK
    8 8
    1 0
    ORBITALS
    Pd_Cu_Act
    1
    0
    END
    END
    After some time, in outfile an error appears:
    ERROR **** F90MAIN3 **** KEYWORD ORBITALS NOT ALLOWED
    Could you help which problem is this?


    Thank you!
  • zhuyt

    I want to build the carbon nanotube supercell with keyword “supercell ”, unfortunately, the crystal reports errors:“**** MULTIP **** SYMMOPS DO NOT FORM A GROUP ”
    the INPUT file:
    TEST07_1 - armchair C NANOTUBE - 6-21G, PBEsol
    SLAB
    77
    2.47
    1
    6 -0.33333333333 0.33333333333 0.
    SWCNT
    5 5
    supercell
    2
    end


    To generate a supercell of a nanotube, you should first build the supercell of the slab and then generate the nanotube (without applying the supercell). In this case, you should adjust (n,m) according to the desired diameter.
  • GiacomoAmbrogio

    The Department of Chemistry and the Thomas Young Centre at Imperial College London 🇬🇧 and the Theoretical Chemistry Group of the University of Torino 🇮🇹, in collaboration with the Computational Materials Science Group of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), are organising the

    logo0.png

    MSSC2026 Summer School on

    Ab initio Modelling in Solid State Chemistry

    The School is designed for Master and Ph.D. students, as well as for post-docs and researchers who have an interest in getting or strengthening a background in:

    • ⚛️ Computational Solid State Chemistry
    • 🧠 Physics
    • 🧱 Materials Science
    • 🌐 Surface- and Nano-Science

    📅 The week-long School consists of morning lectures and afternoon hands-on tutorial sessions, where the formal framework and functionalities of the CRYSTAL electronic structure package will be explored.

    📌 While we strongly encourage in-person participation, we also offer the possibility to attend remotely through streaming of morning lectures and afternoon hands-on tutorials.

    📝 Participants will have the opportunity to present their research at a poster session.

    👉 You can register here!
    Friday 8 May - Deadline for payment of early bird fees.

    See the School website for further details.