ParaView on Ubuntu 22.04 shows empty transparent window — tried multiple versions

ParaView Support
1

Dear ParaView Community,

I’ve been trying to install and run ParaView on Ubuntu 22.04 (CPU-only system with Mesa/llvmpipe), but I consistently encounter the same issue:
When I launch ParaView, the window opens but remains completely blank and transparent — no splash screen, no menus, no render view. Just a transparent shell.

Here’s what I’ve tried:

Tested ParaView versions 5.12.1, 5.11.1, and 5.10

Used both the standard (GUI) builds and OSMesa headless builds

Installed and confirmed working Mesa (llvmpipe) with glxgears

Set the following environment variables:

export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1
export MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=3.3
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb

Verified OpenGL is working:

OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.7, 256 bits)

Despite all this, the GUI still opens as a transparent/empty window.

Has anyone else encountered this? Is there a known workaround for CPU-only systems on Ubuntu 22.04?

Thanks in advance for any insights or suggestions.

2

Please test with ParaView 6.0 RC1 binary release from https://www.paraview.org/download/

3

Thanks, but i already tried that too. I can only run the headless versions, without GUI. So i suspect it is the graphics.
I’ve tested the following:

ParaView versions: 5.8, 5.10, 5.11.1, 5.12.1, 6.0

Also tried Flatpak version

Confirmed that glxgears and glxinfo work

Forced software rendering with:

export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1
export MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=3.3
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb
./paraview

Only the headless builds (OSMesa) work — I can use pvbatch and pvpython without issues

Hardware:

HP EliteBook 830 G7

Intel UHD Graphics (CML GT2)

OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.7, 256 bits)

Running X11 (not Wayland)

At this point I suspect the issue is with Mesa or Intel graphics compatibility, as the GUI seems to fail silently when trying to initialize the OpenGL context.

4

Are you able to run ParaView 6.0 headless ?

5

Please run the following command and post the results here.
glxinfo

Then, try running glxgears. Does that work?

6

Dear Vivian,
just wanted to ask if you ever got it to work? I ran into the same issue, also under Ubuntu 22.04. If you happen to have a workaround, I would appreciate it if you could share it here!
Best,
Lina