RC Astro Xterminator Tools Not Showing in Pixinsight After Installing Windows Updates on 4/21/26

Russell Croman Astrophotography NoiseXTerminator Russell Croman Astrophotography StarXTerminator
6 replies•229 views
Jim Raskett avatar
Jim Raskett avatar

Hi Everyone,

I am just curious if anyone else has had a similar issue recently.

I am running Windows 11 build 26200.8246 and StarXterminator, NoiseXterminator and BlurXterminator in Pixinsight.

After installing three Windows 11 updates last night, KB5083769, (KB5082417, and KB2267602 and Version 1.449.234.0, I could no longer see StarXterminator or NoiseXterminator in the Pixinsight Processes. I only see BlurXterminator available. This is when using my regular Windows user account which worked fine before the updates last night.

I did a clean Windows 11 Pro install a few weeks ago and all has been running well until last night.

If I start PI as an administrator, all three Xterminators are available and work.

I did see a message when I started PI just after installing the updates related to Smart App Control. I did have it enabled in Windows Security. I turned it off, rebooted, and still not do not see StarX and NoiseX in the PI processes. Like I mentioned earlier, they all do show when I log into PI as an administrator.

I submitted a ticket to RC Astro with detailed hardware information hoping to a resolution to this issue.

Anyone else having an issue with the RC Astro tools after installing the recent updates?

I will post the response from RC Astro when I hear from them.

Thanks!

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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar

I recently did a reinstallation of PI and everything came back except the RC Astro stuff. They were still on the list, just not visible. After a “reset updates” and two restarts, they came back.

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Jim Raskett avatar
Jim Raskett avatar

Thanks Tony.

They were all working well Until the three windows updates on the 21st.

It looks like a permission issue since I can access all the plug-ins fine when I start Pixinsight as an administrator. I can do that until I get this issue resolved with my user account.

I’m a bit surprised that no one else has had this issue since my windows installation is clean. It looks like the updates affected only the RC Astro scripts, though at least without admin permissions.

Still haven’t heard anything back from RC Astro.

I will update this to red when I hear back from them.

Jim

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Jim Raskett avatar
Jim Raskett avatar

Tony, I forgot to ask if you are running Windows 11 and have installed these three 4/21 updates?

If so, what was your experience with the the Xterminators?

Thanks,

Jim

Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar

I do have those updates but nothing was affected.

Michel avatar
Michel avatar

The tensorflow.dll version under C:\Program Files\PixInsight\bin is obsolete, it is necessary to replace it by following the following instructions (this procedure should correct your problem; I used it successfully during the last 2 updates of PixInsight which caused this anomaly):

Sous RC : PixInsight + Windows

For PixInsight users on Windows, a repository containing all of the software libraries needed for NVIDIA GPU acceleration is provided. Add the following to your PixInsight repositories:

https://www.rc-astro.com/TensorFlow/PixInsight/GPU

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Additionally, make sure your NVIDIA graphics driver is up to date. It is best to download the appropriate driver for your GPU directly from NVIDIA.

If this doesn’t work for your hardware, you can revert to CPU-only operation by replacing that repository entry with the following:

https://www.rc-astro.com/TensorFlow/PixInsight/CPU

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This only applies to PixInsight + Windows. Photoshop users, or PixInsight users on Linux, manual setup is required – see below.

https://www.rc-astro.com/faq/blurxterminator-2-0-ai4-error-in-pixinsight-mlload-could-not-load-tensorflow-graph/

An error such as the following can occur when running BlurXTerminator version 2.0 with AI4:

*** Error: ERROR: MLLoad() could not load tensorflow graph. Error 3: Converting GraphDef to Graph has failed.

This error indicates that the tensorflow.dll file in PixInsight’s installation on your computer is out of date. There are two solutions:

Update or re-install PixInsight, which includes a recent version of the tensorflow.dll file in its distribution.

Download version 2.10 of the file directly:

If you are using GPU acceleration, use the link provided in these instructions.lien

If you are not using GPU acceleration, download the file from the TensorFlow project using this link.

Unzip the download, find the tensorflow.dll file within, and place this in PixInsight’s bin directory (C:\Program Files\PixInsight\bin), overwriting the outdated version that is there.

Good luck Michel

Jim Raskett avatar
Jim Raskett avatar

Thanks Michel.

This information will come in handy and I appreciate you sharing this.

In my case, all of the xterminators work fine when I run Pixinsight as an admin. Not sure, but I feel it is a permissions issue but I am hoping to hear back from my RC Astro help ticket before I start tinkering. I am not down as I can run fine with admin privileges.

Thanks a bunch for responding!

Jim

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