Error when running SliceAssembly with SLC pairs acquired after March 2018

Hi community and developers,
I’m using SNAP 6.0 for assembling Sentinel-1 SLC IW pairs.
The graph is very simple and is shown here below.

Really, no errors are reported for SLC pairs acquired before March 2018, like the following one:

S1A_IW_SLC__1SDV_20160721T051920_20160721T051947_012242_013044_5553 [UUID: 95f3b14e-47ec-463d-8ba3-f9cdee3b6bcf]
S1A_IW_SLC__1SDV_20160721T051945_20160721T052012_012242_013044_15C1 [UUID: a7e0a273-be06-40a5-bd29-02320a299845]

On the contrary, I get the error reported in the subject whenever I try to run the same graph on SLC pairs acquired after March 2018, like the following one:

S1A_IW_SLC__1SDV_20180605T051940_20180605T052007_022217_026754_E4A9 [UUID: e2c2907f-815e-4544-9918-b9d00c09d4f1]
S1A_IW_SLC__1SDV_20180605T052005_20180605T052033_022217_026754_A2B3 [UUID: eef1e78f-ac07-49ea-bf4f-9f9b32d02a6c]

This is the full error message:

Executing processing graph
INFO: org.hsqldb.persist.Logger: dataFileCache open start
java.lang.NullPointerException
 done.
org.esa.snap.core.gpf.graph.GraphException: [NodeId: SliceAssembly] java.lang.NullPointerException
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.graph.NodeContext.initTargetProduct(NodeContext.java:79)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.graph.GraphContext.initNodeContext(GraphContext.java:195)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.graph.GraphContext.initNodeContext(GraphContext.java:178)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.graph.GraphContext.initOutput(GraphContext.java:162)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.graph.GraphContext.<init>(GraphContext.java:91)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.graph.GraphContext.<init>(GraphContext.java:64)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.graph.GraphProcessor.executeGraph(GraphProcessor.java:128)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.main.DefaultCommandLineContext.executeGraph(DefaultCommandLineContext.java:86)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.main.CommandLineTool.executeGraph(CommandLineTool.java:534)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.main.CommandLineTool.runGraph(CommandLineTool.java:388)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.main.CommandLineTool.runGraphOrOperator(CommandLineTool.java:287)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.main.CommandLineTool.run(CommandLineTool.java:188)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.main.CommandLineTool.run(CommandLineTool.java:121)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.main.GPT.run(GPT.java:54)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.main.GPT.main(GPT.java:34)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
	at org.esa.snap.runtime.Launcher.lambda$run$14(Launcher.java:55)
	at org.esa.snap.runtime.Engine.runClientCode(Engine.java:189)
	at org.esa.snap.runtime.Launcher.run(Launcher.java:51)
	at org.esa.snap.runtime.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:31)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
	at com.exe4j.runtime.LauncherEngine.launch(LauncherEngine.java:62)
	at com.install4j.runtime.launcher.UnixLauncher.main(UnixLauncher.java:57)
Caused by: org.esa.snap.core.gpf.OperatorException: java.lang.NullPointerException
	at org.esa.snap.engine_utilities.gpf.OperatorUtils.catchOperatorException(OperatorUtils.java:432)
	at org.esa.s1tbx.sentinel1.gpf.SliceAssemblyOp.initialize(SliceAssemblyOp.java:161)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.internal.OperatorContext.initializeOperator(OperatorContext.java:486)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.internal.OperatorContext.getTargetProduct(OperatorContext.java:273)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.Operator.getTargetProduct(Operator.java:387)
	at org.esa.snap.core.gpf.graph.NodeContext.initTargetProduct(NodeContext.java:77)
	... 28 more

Error: [NodeId: SliceAssembly] java.lang.NullPointerException

I got the same errors by repeating the experiment as follows:

  1. Using SNAP 5.0
  2. considering a different swath (obviously, the selected swath is the same for both the products)
  3. by performing first “SliceAssembly” and hence “TopSAR-split”

I’m wondering if something has changed in the SLC products format that is actually preventing the mentioned task for SLC pairs acquired since March 2018 to date

Thanks in advance for any suggestion
Best regards
Davide

Did you install all the updates to 6.0?

No, where I can find the installer of version 6.0.3 ?
Many thanks

There’s no installer, you need to “Check for Updates” under Help or under Plugins.

After further investigations, it seems that the error is returned when processing only S1 images with IPF version 2.90
No errors are instead reported in case of IPF version 2.84 (or lower)

Thanks a lot Marcus. Once updated, it works!
Best regards
Davide