Blender won't start, except when started from terminal

Support Software & Applications
1

Hi all

When starting Blender the normal way, meaning using the Application Launcher in KDE Plasma, the Blender window will either remain grey and hang, show the opening dialog and hang, or just shut down before showing anything (briefly shows up in Task Manager and vanishes again).

When starting blender from a terminal emulator, blender works fine without showing any errors in the logs.

I tried passing log switches to the blender command (--log '*' --log-level -1 --log-file $HOME/username/blender.log) by creating a local .desktop file for blender, but no logging appears in this file.

As blender seems to work fine when started in the terminal this isn’t a pressing issue, but I’d like to know anyway what could possibly be the reason for this.

Some info about my system:

uname -a
Linux nathan-yg 6.1.11-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Feb 9 14:03:23 UTC 2023 x86_64 GNU/Linux

inxi -Gxx

Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 620 vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 v: kernel
    arch: Gen-9.5 ports: active: HDMI-A-1 off: eDP-1 empty: none bus-ID: 00:02.0
    chip-ID: 8086:5916
  Device-2: AMD Sun XT [Radeon HD 8670A/8670M/8690M / R5 M330 M430 Radeon
    520 Mobile] vendor: Lenovo driver: radeon v: kernel arch: GCN-1 pcie:
    speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 4 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:6660 temp: 34.0 C
  Device-3: Syntek EasyCamera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-5:3
    chip-ID: 174f:2409
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.7 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X:
    loaded: modesetting,radeon alternate: fbdev,vesa dri: iris,radeonsi
    gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96
  Monitor-1: HDMI-A-1 mapped: HDMI-1 pos: primary model: Idek Iiyama PL2888H
    res: 1920x1080 dpi: 79 diag: 708mm (27.9")
  Monitor-2: eDP-1 note: disabled model: ChiMei InnoLux 0x14b1
    res: 1920x1080 dpi: 158 diag: 353mm (13.9")
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 22.3.5 renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 620 (KBL
    GT2) direct-render: Yes

blender -v

Blender 3.4.1
	build date: 2023-02-07
	build time: 00:22:22
	build commit date: 2022-12-20
	build commit time: 08:50
	build hash: ef9ca44dee7f
	build platform: Linux
	build type: Release
	build c flags:  -Wall -Werror=implicit-function-declaration -Werror=return-type -Werror=vla -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wno-char-subscripts -Wno-unknown-pragmas -Wpointer-arith -Wunused-parameter -Wwrite-strings -Wlogical-op -Wundef -Winit-self -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wno-div-by-zero -Wtype-limits -Wformat-signedness -Wrestrict -Wnonnull -Wabsolute-value -Wuninitialized -Wredundant-decls -Wshadow -Wno-error=unused-but-set-variable -Wimplicit-fallthrough=5 -march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fno-plt -fexceptions         -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -Wformat -Werror=format-security         -fstack-clash-protection -fcf-protection -g -ffile-prefix-map=/build/blender/src=/usr/src/debug/blender -flto=auto -fopenmp -std=gnu11 -msse -pipe -fPIC -funsigned-char -fno-strict-aliasing -ffp-contract=off -msse2  
	build c++ flags:  -Wuninitialized -Wredundant-decls -Wall -Wno-invalid-offsetof -Wno-sign-compare -Wlogical-op -Winit-self -Wmissing-include-dirs -Wno-div-by-zero -Wtype-limits -Werror=return-type -Wno-char-subscripts -Wno-unknown-pragmas -Wpointer-arith -Wunused-parameter -Wwrite-strings -Wundef -Wformat-signedness -Wrestrict -Wno-suggest-override -Wuninitialized -Wundef -Wmissing-declarations -Wimplicit-fallthrough=5 -march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fno-plt -fexceptions         -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -Wformat -Werror=format-security         -fstack-clash-protection -fcf-protection -Wp,-D_GLIBCXX_ASSERTIONS -g -ffile-prefix-map=/build/blender/src=/usr/src/debug/blender -flto=auto -fopenmp -msse -pipe -fPIC -funsigned-char -fno-strict-aliasing -ffp-contract=off -msse2  
	build link flags:  -Wl,--version-script='/build/blender/src/blender/source/creator/symbols_unix.map'
	build system: CMake

Thanks in advance for any info/help on this!

Nathan

2

Hi and welcome to the Forum :+1:

Are you using an official Manjaro package or a custom/AUR package of Blender?
(Include the package version)

With that info i’m sure there will be people able to find what’s the problem :slight_smile:

3

I had almost the same problem periodically with the official package and after trying different one, I got “dumped core” errors after KDE updates and Blender became unusable for that until I found it on Steam that uses official version, but may include Python library differencies. Now everything is fine for me.

4

I just checked, and I have no problem at all with the version from the official repo.
It version 3.4.1, but it seems to be loading a bit slower than usual

5

Same here, no problems with Blender and loading is fast.

6

I’m using the official Manjaro package, version 17:3.4.1-13.

This is a reasonably fresh install (couple of weeks old) of Manjaro: aside from some extra software/packages, I didn’t install any specific packages like graphics drivers or custom versions of mesa or that kind of stuff :wink:

7

That’s interesting @FancierTech, and a possible workaround could be to install a different version (like the one on Steam), but it still makes me wonder about the difference between starting it normally and using the terminal… Thanks for your info though!

8

The main differences I know are:

  1. For some reason, shortcut may ‘loose’ its executable command and get stuck on “command not found” or “wrong argument” or “referring to non-existand part of drivers” (for example, they can be renamed) or something like that, but you cannot see this because of you launch it graphically. You may catch the error if trying to launch the .desktop file from terminal;
  2. Terminal launches the app with arguments you put or don’t into it and shows every key log of the app processes. Terminal commonly executes the command from /bin directory where full path can be placed into the bash file when installing the app.