Q100340: Why Nuke 11+ crashes on launch or has GUI problems without OpenGL 2.0 GPU driver support

Tim

Updated : July 31, 2024 16:08

Created : November 09, 2017 02:28

SYMPTOMS

Since the release of Nuke 11, some users may experience crashing immediately after launching Nuke in interactive mode (GUI), or notice minor errors and GUI inconsistencies. These issues happen starting with Nuke 11, but are not present in any previous Nuke releases (Nuke 10.5v8 and below).

These problems may occur when:

• No graphics card (GPU) is present on the machine from which Nuke is run

• GPU drivers are disabled 

• The GPU hardware does not have at least 512 MB of video memory and driver support for OpenGL 2.0

CAUSE

Nuke's minimum system requirements state that in order to run the software you require a graphics card, and that your graphics card needs to have at least 512 MB of video memory and driver support for OpenGL 2.0. 

The cause of the crash on launch and/or GUI issues stems from running Nuke on a machine with:

• No GPU

• Not installed or disabled GPU and/or drivers

• Using a Virtual Machine with GPU passthrough not fully passing through the GPU

• Having a GPU running an OpenGL version previous to the required 2.0 framework

• Having a GPU with less than 512MB of video memory

• Launching Nuke via a remote desktop session on a machine with no GPU or a GPU not meeting the above requirements

• Any combination of the above factors

By default, Nuke 11 and later require a GPU in order to run all GUI processes correctly and cannot use the CPU as was the case prior to the 11.0v1 release. 

This is due to the VFX Reference Platform 2017 integration requirements for Nuke 11+, that provides a standardized set of libraries for cross-compatibility. The particular cause is the update to Qt5, which requires OpenGL 2.0 to function correctly.

EXAMPLE

Here is a scenario where Nuke crashes on launch and the following GPU error related to 'QOpenGLShaderProgram' is displayed in the command prompt. This is due to the machine's GPU having an OpenGL driver version below 2.0, and being unable to load the information required to run Nuke 11. 

The error displayed is the most common iteration we have seen of this issue and is recorded in the following bug report: 

ID 311343 - Nuke 11 crashes without the minimum required GPU hardware which supports OpenGL 2.0

RESOLUTION

If you are encountering a crash on launch or other GPU related errors and/or GUI problems starting with Nuke 11, that cannot be recreated in the Nuke 10 releases (or earlier), please try the following:

• Confirm that your graphics cards driver are updated to the most recent version

• Ensure that your GPU is OpenGL 2.0 compatible

• Ensure that your GPU has minimum 512MB of video memory

NOTE: You cannot run Nuke 11+ in interactive mode (GUI) without having an integrated or dedicated graphics card with the native OS graphics drivers installed, that meets the minimum system requirements of 512MB video memory and supports OpenGL 2.0. 

FURTHER INFORMATION

If you've confirmed that your graphics card meets the minimum system requirements and has up to date drivers, and are still seeing issues then please open a Support ticket and let us know the problem you are encountering and the troubleshooting steps you have taken so far.