WebGL errors in Chrome recently started showing up in websites where they didn't previously

I'm the tech at a school, and several teachers have been having WebGL errors in Chrome start showing up in sites they have been having no trouble with this previously. After finding no useful help in several forums, I thought I would post one thing that resolved this issue:

Today's Resolution:

Our staff's computer accounts are tied to AD, so they are not local accounts (though it does create a local account on first login), so I logged in as a local user, and had no issues, so it seemed to be a user-specific issue. I then renamed the following folder:

/Users/first.last/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome

/Users/first.last/Library/Application Support/Google/ChromeTemp

When she logged back in, both of the site apps she was seeing the WebGL errors were able to load successfully.

I had to be careful about her Chrome account, as I noticed that she had 'sync' turned off, so I made sure she turned in on in order to not lose her bookmarks, history, etc., before changing the name of that folder and having Chrome create the new folder.

I have some other instances of this WebGL error with other teachers in different web apps, and will try this remedy for them as well. If it does not resolve it, I will report back.

Posted on Mar 17, 2023 9:19 AM

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Level 9

68,630 points

Posted on Mar 17, 2023 3:36 PM

I use Vivaldi which is a Chromium based browser and sometimes one of the browser configuration files becomes corrupt. On the Vivaldi forums, they suggest to start the browser with a different profile to confirm if the issue is with the browser or with the configuration (sometimes it may be an issue with a browser extension or plug-in). It may just be one of the configuration files within that Chrome folder. I have had this issue with a corrupt profile a couple times after the browser or computer freezes and I have to force quit or hard power cycle it.

Maybe try toggling the WebGL function or the GPU hardware accelleration setting off & on. I know GPU hardware acceleration in browsers has been implicated other issues as well. For the longest time this setting was disabled as a default setting.

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WebGL errors in Chrome recently started showing up in websites where they didn't previously

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