#22 Ansys 13 does not run properly with VirtualGL

[DRC]

When attempting to run Ansys with VirtualGL in a TurboVNC environment, VirtualGL is not loaded, and errors such as:

Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":1.0".

are generated, indicating that the application is attempting (and failing) to directly issue GLX commands to the X server.

[DRC]

We do not currently have access to this application, but information from users
https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=4D822DE1.7060802%40spicycrypto.ca&forum_name=virtualgl-users
https://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualgl/forums/forum/401860/topic/4514749
indicates that Ansys is using mono. We have attempted several techniques to attempt to make it work (see e-mail thread), all to no avail. I have built the Tao OpenGL examples (https://sourceforge.net/projects/taoframework/files/The%20Tao%20Framework/2.1.0/) in Mono, and these run fine in VirtualGL, indicating to me that whatever is amiss is specific to the app and not related to the fact that it is a C# app. However, without knowing more about how the app is performing OpenGL rendering, it's impossible to say for sure.

[fixitben]

If you are willing maybe we can do a gotomeeting and you can do some testing using my computer.

Thanks
Fixitben

[DRC]

I'm willing. Send me an e-mail to coordinate.

[DRC]

Attempted to debug the application remotely. Symptomatically, it appears to be ignoring LD_PRELOAD at some lower level of the app. It is probably using some sort of special sauce with regards to dynamic library loading.

There is little more I can do without a copy of the app. It would probably take dozens of hours to debug, so I would need to secure funding for this effort as well.

[DRC]

Have been working with a customer on Ansys 14 support, and we believe that the latest pre-release build of VGL (http://virtualgl.sourceforge.net/vgl.nightly/) should work properly with Ansys 14.5. They also confirmed the issue with Ansys 13 and that it was indeed the application stomping on LD_PRELOAD, so there's unfortunately nothing we can do for that release of Ansys.

[fixitben]

I just tried version 14.0 with the vitrualgl 2.3.3 and still see the same issue. I will need to update the license manager to verify if 14.5 works or not. Do you know if 14.0 was tested during your troubleshooting? Is there a special way to launch workbench?

I am launching Ansys workbench via this command "vglrun /ansys_inc/v140/Framework/bin/Linux64/runwb2".

Also while looking for a solution to this problem I ran across this post.

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=50B8DF93.2040507%40users.sourceforge.net&forum_name=virtualgl-users

I believe this guy is having the same issue except he would open an xterm (vglrun xterm) and then open Ansys as a workaround. I know this isn't the intended way to run vgl.

Thanks
Fixitben

[DRC]

I definitely did not test with anything before 14.5, and I don't think the company I was working with most recently on the issue did either. 14.5 is the only version at this point that we know to work with VirtualGL, and only with the latest & greatest code in the VirtualGL SVN trunk. If you are still having issues after upgrading, please let me know. I can get access to 14.5 for testing.