Just a FYI to the list, the problem here was an ancient OpenGL graphics driver. Upgrading it made the problem disappear. I'll be adding an entry to our Graphics Driver bugs web page, <http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/graphicsbugs.html> with a few more details. - Greg ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 12:25:41 -0500 From: Chen Xu <xuchen66@gmail.com> To: chimera-users@cgl.ucsf.edu Subject: [Chimera-users] chimera startup problem Dear List, after upgrading to 1.2304 (1.2303 freeze the computer after several minute loaded with a volume pdb file) , I have problem to start it up on (RedHat): agnieszka@raptor ~]$ chimera Error starting chimera: ValueError: attempt to create string with null pointer (see reply log for Python traceback info) Traceback (most recent call last): File "/sware/chimera/chimera-1.2304/share/__main__.py", line 59, in ? value = chimeraInit.init(sys.argv) File "CHIMERA/share/chimeraInit.py", line 255, in init tkgui.initializeGUI(exitonquit) File "CHIMERA/share/chimera/tkgui.py", line 2407, in initializeGUI File "CHIMERA/share/chimera/tkgui.py", line 2368, in createApp File "CHIMERA/share/chimera/tkgui.py", line 1784, in __init__ File "CHIMERA/share/chimera/tkgui.py", line 1811, in makeGraphicsWindow ValueError: attempt to create string with null pointer any help?