MSMS 2.6.2 released

A robustness release: MSMS no longer crashes on very large or unusual inputs, merges duplicate atoms instead of stopping, and computes all surface components in parallel.

Published

November 6, 2026

MSMS 2.6.2 is out for Linux 64-bit. It makes MSMS more robust:

Fewer crashes. Inputs that used to crash MSMS, hang it or make it write corrupt files now work. These include surfaces with more than 2 million triangles, molecules of around 100,000 atoms and more, very large and very small spheres, and more than 253 surface components with -all_components (the limit is now 65,535). Several recovery paths after numerical problems are also fixed.
Duplicate atoms. Two atoms with the same centre no longer stop the run. MSMS keeps one of them, prints a warning and keeps the numbering of the input file.
Faster -all_components. The search for buried components now runs in parallel. With 8 threads it is about twice as fast.

The output is unchanged. For inputs that 2.6.1 handled, the .vert, .face and .area files are byte-for-byte identical to those of the 2.6.1 source built with the same compiler.

The macOS and Windows downloads are still version 2.6.1.

Download MSMS 2.6.2 · Release notes

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