Onshape suddenly reports WebGL is not enabled in Chrome. Is this a bug?

doug_curtis · October 2016

Have been using onshape for a good while with no issues. Suddenly today when I attempted to go into a document it responded
"It looks like your browser doesn't have WebGL enabled. Click here for more information."
After searching for what was going on, I have finally confirmed that WebGL is indeed enabled (Using chrome://gpu in the address bar, it shows WebGL is hardware accelerated). I even updated the graphics driver for my Nvidia 8500 GT. Granted it's an older card but as I said, it has worked fine up until today.

So is this a bug with the latest update to onshape? Need help. I can't get to my work at all.

ANY input is much appreciated.

Doug

paul_premakumar · October 2016

Can you try opening https://get.webgl.org/ ? Do you see a spinning cube?

Other questions :
1. What operating system are you on?
2. Are you able to access Onshape using another browser?
3. Did you recently update your browser?

bradley_sauln · October 2016

Try it in another browser. This most likely is not an Onshape issue but rather a browser issue. As @paul_premakumar pointed out more information will be helpful

doug_curtis · October 2016

Running Win 7 pro. Only other browser I have installed right now is IE which isn't supported by onshape. Guess I will have to try installing a different browser. I have not actively updated chrome. I was using onshape to edit my project just this past Thursday and haven't done anything to the system other than update my video driver today in an attempt to resolve the issue.

And no, the spinning cube did not appear so I concur that it is not an onshape issue. Maybe I will just uninstall chrome and reinstall and see what that does first. Not really wanting a bunch of browsers cluttering up my system.

I did make a bug report to google about the issue but I figure I will be lucky if I hear back at all.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will update this post once I have tried a reinstall of chrome and/or an alternate browser.

Doug

doug_curtis · October 2016

After additional research, I discovered that the WebGL feature of chrome is subject to just up and stop working for no apparent reason. I found several other posts in assorted places that detailed the same condition. Even when the settings show hardware acceleration to be enabled, it does not work. In most cases, google advised the user to do all the standard work (reboot, reinstall, update, etc. etc.) to no avail. Their final suggestion was to install chrome canary along side standard chrome as it was the latest beta version and would have all the most recent, yet to be distributed, updates. In other words, they don't know why it quit working and they are not going to put any effort into figuring it out.

To that end, I have installed firefox which works fine (maybe even a little better than chrome did) and will uninstall chrome. Don't have time to continue to troubleshoot something that isn't working when there is a working alternative available.

Josy_La · October 2016

I had the same issue this morning; got prompted when opening my first document. I was able to use Safari instead without any problem regarding to WebGL.

paul_premakumar · October 2016

This is a Chrome issue : https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=656989. We added a comment as well. For now use another supported browser such as Firefox or Safari. Thanks.

øyvind_kaurstad · October 2016

I also got this issue today, probably because Chrome has auto-updated. In the thread that @paul_premakumar links to, there is a suggested workaround to add a command line argument to Chrome:

--disable_chromium_framebuffer_multisample

This fixes the issue for me, but I expect the Chrome developers to fix the issue so that we don't have to use this workaround.

eric_juve · November 2016

I had Chrome break today as well and adding the " --disable_chromium_framebuffer_multisample" fixed it for me. I am running windows 7. Simply right click on the Chrome shortcut , open the properties tab and cut and paste the command line argument to the end of the target entry.

nick_lumb · November 2016

WebGL has stopped working in Chrome for me as well. This happened as a new Chrome update was installed (Version 54.0.2840.87 m). We tried to go back to the previous version but without success. Currently using Firefox as a workaround.

jakeramsley · November 2016

nick_lumb said:

WebGL has stopped working in Chrome for me as well. This happened as a new Chrome update was installed (Version 54.0.2840.87 m). We tried to go back to the previous version but without success. Currently using Firefox as a workaround.

Unfortunately we've had a couple reports of this with Chrome 54. If you are still interested in using Chrome, I would suggest adding the flag that eric_juve referenced above (--disable_chromium_framebuffer_multisample).

eric_juve · November 2016

I need to retract my comment earlier about the fix being adding
" --disable_chromium_framebuffer_multisample" to the command line as it no longer seems to be working for me. I had to go back to using Firefox which runs fine but is not my default browser. If I find another workaround I will post it to this thread. Sorry about the false information, but I'm not sure yet why it stopped working.

brian_brady · November 2016

Every time a problem like this happens due to a browser change, it makes me think that Onshape needs to create a branded browser based on a stable version of Chrome or Firefox. They could strip away all non-essential features and extra trim. Push browser updates as necessary but not until they know the updates won't break Onshape. Almost like the tablet and phone apps. They are essentially browsers that will only connect to Onshape.com.

shashank_aarya · November 2016

øyvind_kaurstad said:
I also got this issue today, probably because Chrome has auto-updated. In the thread that @paul_premakumar links to, there is a suggested workaround to add a command line argument to Chrome:
--disable_chromium_framebuffer_multisample
This fixes the issue for me, but I expect the Chrome developers to fix the issue so that we don't have to use this workaround.

Thanks very much for sharing this. But honestly I am not sure how it can be done. Is it possible for you to share the steps to be followed in this? I faced similar web GL issue repetitively but could not solve even after updating the drivers, finally it got solved after installing the updates in Windows 7. For now I always run the updates on daily basis to avoid the issue. But I think its annoying to run daily updates without any major upgrade. Hope Chrome developers will fix the issue. Many thanks again.

øyvind_kaurstad · November 2016

@shashank_aarya : What you do is to right-click the Chrome shortcut (could be in the start menu or on the desktop), and go to properties. Then you add the quoted command flag after the ending double quote sign (i.e you tag it at the end of whatever is there) in the target box, like so:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022071/uploads/editor/uy/8crkcst3n2r3.png

Please remember that the fix is then only applied to this specific shortcut. If you have multiple shortcuts to Chrome (for instance both in the start menu and the desktop), it will only work for those you have edited.

Hope this helps.

benjamin_lambert · November 2016

I also recently ran in to this problem last week. What worked for me was to go to chrome://flags and enable Override software rendering list (for me it was the first one on the list). Then I relaunched Chrome and all worked well.

Hope this helps and is an easy fix for you.

ales_1 · December 2016

benjamin_lambert said:

I also recently ran in to this problem last week. What worked for me was to go to chrome://flags and enable Override software rendering list (for me it was the first one on the list). Then I relaunched Chrome and all worked well.
Hope this helps and is an easy fix for you.

Thank you, that works. My chrome version is
Verze 55.0.2883.87.

shashank_aarya · December 2016

Thanks
øyvind_kaurstad @benjamin_lambert It works good!

ridde_jocelyn · February 2017

Hi there, I had exactly the same problem. The question is finally found on the USB DisplayLink for an additional screen that I connected. I then disconnected the USB DisplayLink and use only the screen and graphic card of my laptop. All returned to normal. Hope this is helpful.

Jeran_Cloete · August 2022

@benjamin_lambert

This solution worked for me.

benjamin_lambert said:

I also recently ran in to this problem last week. What worked for me was to go to chrome://flags and enable Override software rendering list (for me it was the first one on the list). Then I relaunched Chrome and all worked well.

Hope this helps and is an easy fix for you.

Onshape suddenly reports WebGL is not enabled in Chrome. Is this a bug?

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