PyCharm 2026 crashes on the Welcome Screen in Citrix: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION in skiko-windows-x64.dll

October 22, 2026 07:34 Updated

Problem

A few seconds after the Welcome Screen appears, PyCharm 2026 becomes unresponsive and closes. No error message is shown.

Reproduces in a Citrix environment (Windows Server 2019, roaming profiles). The same PyCharm 2026 installation works on a standard Windows workstation, and PyCharm 2025 works in the same Citrix environment.
Starting PyCharm with non-bundled plugins disabled (pycharm64.exe disableNonBundledPlugins) keeps the IDE running, but Java Runtime Environment crash reports still appear in the IDE Internal Errors dialog.

The crash log contains:

# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
# EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) at pc=0x00007ffa25e828ff, pid=6888,
#
# JRE version: OpenJDK Runtime Environment JBR-25.0.2+1-329.117-jcef
# Java VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM JBR-25.0.2+1-329.117-jcef
# Problematic frame:
# C  [skiko-windows-x64.dll+0x7128ff]

Cause

The crash happens in native code in skiko-windows-x64.dll, the Skia-based library that renders the IDE UI. The default hardware-accelerated rendering fails in the virtualized graphics environment; forcing software rendering avoids the crash.

Resolution

Open Help | Edit Custom VM Options….
Add the following line to the file:
```
-Dskiko.renderApi=SOFTWARE
```
Save the changes and restart PyCharm.