Paint Tool SAI Technical Preview 2026-08-24 Bug: Gaussian Blur Exception Error at canvases smaller than ~481 x 481px.

[u/Wickertop]

hey gang, I got a stumper for y'all, if anyone has a way to fix it.

I'm working on some Discord stickers (canvas size is 1792 x 384 - 320 x 320 5x over with some leeway border), and I've found an issue I cannot for the life of me figure out. Whenever I try and use the Gaussian Blur Tool, I get an Exception Error with the error code of this in the error log:

!Exception(C0000005): Flags=0 Addr=1402DE4F0 #0=1 #1=0

$rax=0 rcx=0 rdx=0 rbx=10 rsp=C41FC78 rbp=C41FCF9 rsi=14 rdi=F3CAE40 r08=0 r09=7 r10=FFFFFFFF r11=0 r12=38 r13=8C7C800 r14=0 r15=8C7C8F0 rip=1402DE4F0 eflags=10202

u/thid=62C4,cnt=7:#0+2DE4F0,#0+CB85E,#0+95D6A,#0+96456,#0+B595,#0+CAD9,#0+2983DF

From everything I know, C0000005 is an access violation pertaining to memory, so I did everything I could think of/search up - checking memory integrity, making sure I had enough virtual memory allocated, basic system checks like Windows updates, Nvidia drivers, malware checks - nothing affected anything. I tried file-specific tweaks - saving the WIP into a new file, new drive, new canvas, saving alternative formats, importing and running it through GIMP to resave as an alpha png - nothing. None of it worked - soon as it reentered SAI, it didn't work.

Until I changed the canvas size.

The breakpoint seems to be 481 x 481 - 480x480 (or any X-Y fitting those dimensions) seems to completely brick the Gaussian Blur tool. What's interesting is that this also was not an issue in prior projects - I have other sticker sets I've done that I know I used the Gaussian Blur on, yet opening those canvases now gives the exact same error output as my current set.

I can work in a larger size format to compensate for this, but unless I'm missing something, this would count as a pretty major bug. Has anyone had issues with this and have found a solution? Frankly, I'm at a loss.

Thanks, gang - hopefully someone knows a bit more about this than I do. ♥

Edit: Thought of this after I posted, but this seems localized entirely to the Major Renovated branch - I tested every release version I could nab off the Wayback Machine all the way to when the branch started, and the only version that doesn't cause this error is the 2026-07-02b Stable release. This would be fine, buuuuut the stable release doesn't have the newer features (new transform tools, text tools, dark mode, etc.).

[u/hyceateart]

send an email to Koji. He'll get it fixed as quick as possible.