Problem Description :

STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition crashes and throws a Fatal error message while opening it.

Reason:

When opening STAAD.Pro CE for the first time, the program requires an access to User's AppData folder (C:\Users\<user.name>\AppData\Local\) in order to install some files, which are necessary for the program to operate successfully. However, currently STAAD.Pro CE has a limitation, due to which it cannot create those files in the path, which contains non-Latin symbols. This usually happens when the user name (account name) in Windows has some non-Latin (or non-English) symbols, i.e.: ñ, ü, č, etc.

Solution :

A usual solution when STAAD.Pro crashes during start-up is described here: https://communities.bentley.com/products/ram-staad/w/structural_analysis_and_design__wiki/43121/staad-pro-connect-edition-has-stopped-working

However, if non-Latin letters are used in the user name (account name), you will not be able even to locate the path C:\Users\<user.name>\AppData\Local\Bentley\Engineering\STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition. This means, that STAAD.Pro could not create the required folders.

So in order to allow STAAD.Pro to create the required folders, the user needs to change his User Name in Windows, so that it would contain only letters from English alphabet. Here are the instructions on how to change the user name in Windows 10: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-change-account-name-windows-10-sign-screen

Note: this limitation is already logged as a defect #541629 and it should be addressed in the nearest future.