Avalonia 12 crash issue

Avalonia 12 Crashes on Older Windows Versions

Posted on | by Editor

Avalonia 12 crashes on Windows Server 2012 R2 and other older systems so NervaOne Is staying on Avalonia 11.

The error looks like this in the Windows Problem Reports dialog:

Problem Event Name:    APPCRASH
Application Name:      NervaOneDesktop.exe
Fault Module Name:     KERNELBASE.dll
Exception Code:        e0434352

    This is a .NET runtime exception (0xe0434352 = CLR exception code) that surfaces as an unhandled crash at process startup, before the application window even opens. The root cause is not a bug in NervaOne itself — it is a dependency change introduced in Avalonia 12.

    Root Cause: Avalonia 12 Bundles SkiaSharp 3.119+, Which Requires DirectX 12

    Avalonia 12 upgraded its rendering backend from SkiaSharp 2.x to SkiaSharp 3.119+. This new version of SkiaSharp dropped support for DirectX 11 and now requires DirectX 12 as its Windows rendering backend.

    DirectX 12 requires Windows 10 (version 1507 or later) at minimum. Any system running an older version of Windows does not have DirectX 12 and cannot load the SkiaSharp native library. The result is a hard crash at startup — no fallback, no error message, just APPCRASH.

    The Avalonia team is aware of this. The issue was reported on GitHub (avaloniaui/Avalonia #20710) and was officially closed as “by-design.” There is no planned fix. Avalonia 12’s minimum supported platform on Windows is Windows 10 build 19045 (22H2).

    GitHub issue: https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia/issues/20710

    Affected Operating Systems

    Any Windows version that shipped before DirectX 12 is affected. This includes:

    Operating SystemDirectX VersionAffected?
    Windows Server 2012 R2DirectX 11.1YES – crashes
    Windows Server 2012DirectX 11.0YES – crashes
    Windows 8.1DirectX 11.1YES – crashes
    Windows 8DirectX 11.0YES – crashes
    Windows 7DirectX 11.0YES – crashes
    Windows Server 2008 R2DirectX 11.0YES – crashes
    Windows Server 2008DirectX 10.1YES – crashes
    Windows 10 early builds (pre-1507)DirectX 11.3YES – crashes
    Windows 10 (1507 / build 10240+)DirectX 12Works
    Windows Server 2016 and laterDirectX 12Works

    Android

    Avalonia 12 also drops older Android support. The officially supported Android tier now requires Android 12 (API level 31) or higher. Devices running Android 8, 9, 10, or 11 may encounter rendering issues or crashes.

    Linux

    Linux systems without Vulkan support or with very old Mesa drivers may also experience startup failures under Avalonia 12’s new rendering stack.

    What We Observed

    We confirmed this after trying to run NervaOne on VPS servers with Windows Server 2012 R2. The crash is 100% reproducible:

    • NervaOne built with Avalonia 11.3.14 -> starts and runs correctly
    • NervaOne built with Avalonia 12.0.x -> crashes immediately on startup

    What NervaOne is Doing

    NervaOne will NOT be upgrading to Avalonia 12.

    We are staying on Avalonia 11.3.14 (the latest 11.x patch release) to maintain compatibility with:

    • Windows Server 2012 R2 and older Windows Server editions
    • Windows 8.1 and earlier
    • Older Android devices (Android 8+)
    • Low-end VPS environments

    We take compatibility seriously. Many Nerva users run NervaOne on modest hardware and server environments, and we do not want an upstream rendering dependency to silently break the app for those users.

    We will revisit the Avalonia 12 upgrade path if the team introduces a software fallback renderer for DirectX 11 systems. Until then, Avalonia 11.3.14 is stable and fully functional for our needs.

    Technical Reference

    NervaOne is an open-source wallet and miner for the Nerva (XNV) cryptocurrency.
    Source code: https://github.com/nerva-project/NervaOneWalletMiner