perspective-dev/perspective · error · Error

WebGL is not supported

Error message

WebGL is not supported

What it means

The WebGL context manager tries webgl2 first, then webgl1; when the browser/environment (headless browser, disabled hardware acceleration, exhausted context limit) returns null from both getContext calls, no rendering surface exists and the constructor aborts. This is an environment-capability failure, not bad input.

Solutions

1. Enable hardware acceleration or run in a browser with WebGL support
2. Check for too many live WebGL contexts (browsers cap ~8–16); release unused canvases
3. In headless/CI environments, launch with GPU-enabled flags (e.g. --use-gl=swiftshader) or render server-side

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at packages/viewer-charts/src/ts/webgl/gl-context.ts:82 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of perspective-dev/perspective@11c8238c0c (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2a1fe832c55d2995. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at packages/viewer-charts/src/ts/webgl/gl-context.ts:82

        this._precompile = options.precompile ?? false;
        const gl2 = canvas.getContext("webgl2", {
            antialias: true,
            alpha: true,
            premultipliedAlpha: false,
        });

        if (gl2) {
            this.gl = gl2 as WebGL2RenderingContext;
            this.isWebGL2 = true;
        } else {
            const gl1 = canvas.getContext("webgl", {
                antialias: true,
                alpha: true,
                premultipliedAlpha: false,
            });

            if (!gl1) {
                throw new Error("WebGL is not supported");
            }

            this.gl = gl1 as WebGLRenderingContext;
            this.isWebGL2 = false;
        }

        this.shaders = new ShaderRegistry(this.gl);
        if (this._precompile) {
            this.shaders.precompile(SHADER_MANIFEST);
        }

        this._maxVertexAttribs = this.gl.getParameter(
            this.gl.MAX_VERTEX_ATTRIBS,
        ) as number;
        if (!this.isWebGL2) {
            this._angle = this.gl.getExtension("ANGLE_instanced_arrays");
        }

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