what is this

[victor]

and how do i stop it

Rats WebGL hit a snag

Anybody????

[Workingman]

Vic, it is a bug in Chromium which is the heart of Google Chrome, Opera and many other variants.

I use Opera and was getting: "Oops: something went wrong!'

The solution was to go to the browser Settings and turn off 'use hardware acceleration'

There is also an extension for Chrome users to diable WebGL which should fix it.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... bldadobpah

[Suff]

WM, I saw that article too. But it irks me because switching off WebGL significantly slows down the browser. It was Hardware acceleration that led the browser wars around IE8/9 time, where Chrome and Firefox only had a lead because they supported hardware rendering and IE did not.

Reading about getting WebGL to enable on the FF support site explains that it could be your graphics drivers which are at issue. WebGL is a thin layer around OpenGL. As such any changes in WebGL or OpenGL (graphics drivers), could cause a mismatch.

In this case I see three possible options.

1. The graphics drivers have updated, via Windows Update, to a version of OpenGL that is not supported by the current WebGL
2. Chrome has updated to a version of WebGL which is no longer compatible with the Graphics Driver OpenGL currently installed
3. The graphics drivers have become corrupted

Personally I would check the latest revision dates for the graphics drivers and for Chrome. If Chrome is the latest revision, I would update my graphics drivers. If the drivers are the latest update, I would install the current manufacturers driver (not the one pushed out by Windows update).

In general I would probably just refresh the graphics drivers first.

[Workingman]

Suff, I suspect the solution depends upon how often it happens and on which sites.

I know my graphics drivers are the latest as I keep them up to date via Intel.

With Opera the problem was the 'use hardware acceleration' which has been turned on by default for about the last six updates, so I manually turn it off. When it comes to WebGL in Opera opera://flags shows that it is turned off with a warning that Enabling it could lead to browsing problems. The default is Disabled.

All the Chrome extension does is go into chrome://flags and disables WebGL without the danger of a novice user messing other things up. It is ever so tempting for some of us (Me) to wonder what might happen if I change this or that...!

[Suff]

Isn't it just.... I must admit I avoid going into those sections because I know I will fiddle.

I must admit I just use IE for the most of it. If IE won't work (some of the Google plug in's being used by climate sites today), I either push that link into Edge or use Firefox.

The point is that hardware acceleration is not a cost free disablement. If you have to disable hardware acceleration on Opera or Chrome or Firefox then you might as well use Edge or IE (with complementary AV), because, for those browsers, it just works.

About 10 years ago Chrome and Firefox made a really BIG thing about how their GPU acceleration made their browsers so much better than IE. Now we are, blithely telling users to switch it off when a better alternative (Edge), is sitting there for all users to use (Edge is available on Android and iOS now).

Visibly this should be a BIG thing. So big I should see it in the news and know it is going on. Instead it is being ignored. Such is the power Google now has over the Internet.

It makes the EU actions against Microsoft, around 2000, farcical..

[Workingman]

I must admit that since moving to W10 I have started using Edge a lot more.

Opera is my go-to browser, but Edge could be getting there especially as the extensions list grows.