Sean Meighan
Welcome => Do You Need Help? Post it here => Topic started by: Centauri61032 on April 13, 2022, 08:38:47 PM
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OK, I'm actually trying to help out a friend with this issue...
When he was running a 2021 version, his background image showed up just fine. He did upgrade to an early 2022 version, and still had the image. (He isn't exactly sure which early version, but 'thinks' it was .04.) When he did another upgrade to a later version, the background image went away.
We have tried a complete uninstall/reinstall of xLights.
We have tried using my background image in place of his, which works fine on my xLights.
Can the experts here tell me other things to check?
I saw a past post that had something to do with Open GL. But I don't know how to confirm that. I also don't know if that may even bee an issue since the image did work previously. He has xLights running on a WIN10 laptop at the moment. He is new to xLights this year, and doesn't have any controllers or elements built yet. He's just learning the setup and sequencing pieces for now. The PC device will probably change before showtime.
Any troubleshooting tips would be appreciated! Thanks!
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The problem is there are a lot of folks trying to run xLights on laptops that are running OpenGL 1.0 drivers. I'm betting with the latest updates after 2022.02 that we don't support that 20 year old driver version any longer. So all because it worked in the past doesn't mean it will work in the future. People should be able to install a newer graphics driver. Inside the code it was becoming a nightmare trying to maintain special code to make features work with those old drivers. At some point we start using features that are not supported at all and no work around in the old driver. Now I'm mainly guessing but I know Dan did a big overhaul of the graphics so that we could have an abstraction layer allowing him to run Metal on Mac and OpenGL on Windows. We had also discussed dropping support for the older video drivers. It may have happened even though it wasn't specifically announced and I'm pretty sure the reply will be its not going to be fixed.
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Also if you look in the log file its spelled out which driver version you are using. That's why we ask folks to do a Tools -> Package Log Files and post that zip file. Nobody that complained about this issue has provided the logs.
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OK, thanks for the info. It makes perfect sense considering the PC he is using.
I'll see if I can get the log files and post them. (He isn't a member on here 'yet'.)
The 2022.02 timing seems right.
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OK, he just sent me the package file. It's attached.
Thanks!
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Did you figure this out? I loaded your file and created a background image where the effects file said it would be. I had the following observations.
The log file created appears to be missing some things. IF you are still having problems. Open xLights and go directly to tools/package logs and send them again. According to Gil's theory about OpenGL, look for this line in the log (You could just view log as well) log_opengl [INFO] Layout - glVer: 3.3.13571.
The image name was truncated when I went into layout and had to re-select it.
Personal preference but I avoid spaces in file names.
Keep the image in the show directory to make it easier.
The image I created loaded okay but it was very transparent. On my monitor, I couldn't make out any features in the picture and had to reduce transparency a lot.
Hope you did figure it out but now would be a good time to resolve it if he decided to jump in.
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He was using an older computer with old OpenGl. And no way to upgrade the graphic controller. He upgraded to a new(er) machine with a more current OpenGl version and all was well.