kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["Steven A. Falco" <stevenfalco@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 1/11/22 12:31 PM, Ian McInerney wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 3:47 PM Steven A. Falco <stevenfalco@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:stevenfalco@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>
>     I've opened https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/10375 <https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/10375>
>
>     I'll be adding more info to the issue as I do more testing.  Right now, the issue just reports on visual artifacts that make accelerated graphics unusable on my desktop machine.
>
>     I'll add info on the segfaults that I see in VMs asap.
>
>
> This might already have been reported in https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/8944 <https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/8944> and fixed in the master and 6.0 branches. There is a workaround in there for v6 that you could try (it is setting an environment variable before launching KiCad).

I'll do that - thanks for the pointer.

>     This stuff will no doubt take time to resolve.  The artifacts may be even harder to address than the segfaults, because I don't see how to gather data on what is causing the flickering and pad color errors as described in the issue.  I therefore respectfully recommend putting the dialog back in until the issues are resolved.
>
>
> I don't think the dialog would help any in the situation you are describing with the artifacts on the screen. It was only shown on first start, so it wouldn't give the choice in future runs (which would be after you notice all the artifacts). You can change the rendering backend in the preferences pane though, so you can switch back to the fallback graphics that way.

I'm describing two situations.  One is the artifacts on my desktop, and one is the segfault on VMs.  As long as the window opens and is somewhat usable, then one can select fallback graphics easily from preferences, as you said.  The bigger problem is on the VMs where it crashes before the window gets a chance to even open.  I'll look at the issue you linked and see if that helps.  I'll also try a test build from the tip of the 6.0 branch and see how that behaves.

I'm more concerned that fallback graphics might be removed entirely at some point.  Hopefully accelerated mode will be bullet-proof before that decision is made.

	Steve

> -Ian
>
>              Steve
>
>     On 1/11/22 09:03 AM, Seth Hillbrand wrote:
>      > Hi Steve-
>      >
>      > Please open an issue with the details of your machines that crash when trying to use accelerated graphics.  We thought that we had addressed all or almost all of these cases.
>      >
>      > Our current plan is to shift our backend graphics away from the OpenGL/Cairo engines and use a third-party library like libbgfx.  This may remove any option for Cairo rendering in the future, so it'll be good to work out the kinks.
>      >
>      > And for the peanut gallery: of course we check libraries and query features before using them.  The segfaults happen when libraries return values that they don't actually support.  Mesa/X11 is a big culprit here on Linux and older bulit-in intel drivers on Windows do the same.  The way we do better is to get detailed system reports when segfaults happen.  If folks just sit on these issues because fallback works for them, then we'll never fix them.
>      >
>      > Seth
>      >
>      > On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 8:55 PM Steven A. Falco <stevenfalco@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:stevenfalco@xxxxxxxxx> <mailto:stevenfalco@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:stevenfalco@xxxxxxxxx>>> wrote:
>      >
>      >     In the past, when running eeschema or pcbnew for the first time, it would ask if I wanted to try accelerated graphics.  That no longer seems to be the case - I don't get that dialog.
>      >
>      >     I don't know if the dialog was intentionally removed or if it is a bug, but I think it is an issue either way, because the default is now accelerated graphics, which results in segfaults on some machines that I have here.
>      >
>      >     Today I was trying some experiments in a new VM, and I couldn't launch eeschema, either from the main app or standalone.  It would segfault before putting up its window.  Then I remembered that I had had that problem in the past when I was trying out accelerated graphics.  But in the past, I was able to select fallback graphics from that initial dialog.
>      >
>      >     In this case, my only way to fix the situation was to copy the json config files from another machine that was already configured for fallback graphics.  That worked.  KiCad was now usable in the VM.
>      >
>      >     Most people won't have a set of suitable json files laying around to get past the segfault, or even know to try that.  Thus, I think the initial dialog needs to be there, or perhaps the default should be changed to fallback graphics.
>      >
>      >              Steve
>      >
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>      > Seth Hillbrand
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