Hi Angelika, Your problem is virtualgl configuration. ChimeraX is probably working fine but it appears the Qt window toolkit can't get an OpenGL graphics context that is needed. In the ChimeraX system requirements we discourage use of remote display ChimeraX, it often runs into configuration problems like what you are hitting and even when it works it often performs poorly (slow graphics update). https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/system_requirements.html That said ChimeraX can work with VirtualGL but we do not know how to debug VirtualGL problems. Tom
On Jan 18, 2026, at 7:43 PM, Angelika Dibijo via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:
Hi Chimerax Team,
Could you please assist me in making ChimeraX 1.11 work on my machine?
It was built without error from GitLab.
./ChimeraX --version UCSF ChimeraX version: 1.12.dev202601140146 (2026-01-14) © 2016-2026 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
My machine is: nvidia-smi +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NVIDIA-SMI 570.195.03 Driver Version: 570.195.03 CUDA Version: 12.8 | |-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+ | GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC | | Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. | | | | MIG M. | |=========================================+========================+======================| | 0 NVIDIA L4 On | 00000000:E5:00.0 Off | 0 | | N/A 36C P8 15W / 72W | 45MiB / 23034MiB | 0% Default | | | | N/A | +-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Processes: | | GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory | | ID ID Usage | |=========================================================================================| | 0 N/A N/A 1877027 G /usr/libexec/Xorg 39MiB | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The window pops up, then crashes as below.
$ module load virtualgl Loading virtualgl/2.5.0 Loading requirement: libjpeg-turbo/1.4.2
$ vglrun ./ChimeraX
NOTE: available bundle cache has not been initialized yet WARNING: GBM is not supported with the current configuration. Fallback to Vulkan rendering in Chromium. [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.807851:ERROR:gl_surface_egl.cc(303)] No suitable EGL configs found. [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.807872:ERROR:gl_context_egl.cc(159)] Failed to get config for surface 0 [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.807885:ERROR:gl_surface_egl.cc(303)] No suitable EGL configs found. [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.807889:ERROR:gl_surface_egl.cc(1018)] No suitable EGL configs found for initialization. [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.807892:ERROR:gpu_info_collector.cc(85)] gl::GLContext::CreateOffscreenGLSurface failed [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.807895:ERROR:gpu_info_collector.cc(597)] Could not create surface for info collection. [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.808002:ERROR:gl_surface_egl.cc(303)] No suitable EGL configs found. [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.808006:ERROR:gl_surface_egl.cc(1018)] No suitable EGL configs found for initialization. [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.808062:ERROR:gl_surface_egl.cc(303)] No suitable EGL configs found. [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.808065:ERROR:gl_surface_egl.cc(1018)] No suitable EGL configs found for initialization. [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.808068:ERROR:gpu_info_collector.cc(85)] gl::GLContext::CreateOffscreenGLSurface failed [1896428:1897552:0115/140239.808070:ERROR:gpu_info_collector.cc(597)] Could not create surface for info collection. Fatal Python error: Segmentation fault
Thread 0x00007f62af7fe640 (most recent call first): File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/ssl.py", line 1382 in do_handshake File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/ssl.py", line 1104 in _create File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/ssl.py", line 517 in wrap_socket File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/http/client.py", line 1475 in connect File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/http/client.py", line 996 in send File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/http/client.py", line 1058 in _send_output File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/http/client.py", line 1298 in endheaders File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/http/client.py", line 1349 in _send_request File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/http/client.py", line 1303 in request File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py", line 1348 in do_open File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py", line 1391 in https_open File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py", line 496 in _call_chain File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py", line 536 in _open File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py", line 519 in open File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py", line 216 in urlopen File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/core/toolshed/available.py", line 62 in load File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/core/toolshed/__init__.py", line 516 in reload_available File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/threading.py", line 982 in run File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/threading.py", line 1045 in _bootstrap_inner File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/threading.py", line 1002 in _bootstrap
Thread 0x00007f6378614740 (most recent call first): File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/ui/gui.py", line 414 in event_loop File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/core/__main__.py", line 1064 in init File "/apps/src/CHIMERAX/src/ChimeraX/ChimeraX.app/lib/python3.11/site-packages/chimerax/core/__main__.py", line 1229 in <module> File "<frozen runpy>", line 88 in _run_code File "<frozen runpy>", line 198 in _run_module_as_main
Extension modules: chimerax.arrays._arrays, numpy.core._multiarray_umath, numpy.core._multiarray_tests, numpy.linalg._umath_linalg, numpy.fft._pocketfft_internal, numpy.random._common, numpy.random.bit_generator, numpy.random._bounded_integers, numpy.random._mt19937, numpy.random.mtrand, numpy.random._philox, numpy.random._pcg64, numpy.random._sfc64, numpy.random._generator, chimerax.geometry._geometry, PyQt6.QtCore, PyQt6.QtGui, PyQt6.QtWidgets, PyQt6.QtNetwork, PyQt6.QtPrintSupport, PyQt6.QtWebChannel, PyQt6.QtWebEngineCore, PyQt6.QtWebEngineWidgets, psutil._psutil_linux, psutil._psutil_posix, chimerax.atomic_lib._load_libs, tinyarray, chimerax.atomic.cymol, chimerax.atomic.cytmpl, chimerax.map._map, chimerax.pdb_lib._load_libs, PIL._imaging, chimerax.surface._surface, OpenGL_accelerate.errorchecker, OpenGL_accelerate.wrapper, OpenGL_accelerate.formathandler, OpenGL_accelerate.arraydatatype, OpenGL_accelerate.latebind, OpenGL_accelerate.vbo, OpenGL_accelerate.numpy_formathandler, OpenGL_accelerate.nones_formathandler (total: 41) Segmentation fault (core dumped)
Thank you so much.
Please let me know if you need more information.
Regards, Angel
--
ANGELIKA DIBIJO System Administrator Monash eResearch Monash University, Clayton Campus
M: + 61 426371313 E: angelika.dibijo@monash.edu <mailto:angelika.dibijo@monash.edu> W: Monash-eResearch <http://www.monash.edu.au/eresearch>
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