Question-and-Answer Resource for the Building Energy Modeling Community
 | 1 | initial version |
Ideally, users should never see a divide-by-zero dump. The code should be programmed to protect against a zero denominator everywhere, but that is not always the case. Any idf file that crashes like this should be submitted to the helpdesk so the code can be fixed.
The causes could range from a bad user input (zero value or a value that results in, say, a zero deltaT somewhere), a zero sizing result as suggested by @Archmage, or a simulation condition that produces a zero value.
To diagnose the problem, the user should check the error output (.err) first. In many such cases, there may be an error message or warning that indicates a problem prior to the crash. The most direct way to debug this type of error is to look at the referenced line of source code. In this case "line 6654 PlantWaterThermalTank.f90". Even without looking at the source code, the source file name gives a clue, in this case that the problem is with a water heater or chilled water storage tank.
