Background
COMSOL Multiphysics relies on hardware accelerated graphics rendering for mesh visualization and postprocessing plots for 1D, 2D and 3D models. It is also used for 3D geometry visualization. COMSOL Multiphysics might thus appear to work properly for a while when you draw the geometry and set physical properties in 1D or 2D, while failing later on when displaying the mesh or the solution. For 3D it would appear to fail as soon as you open the geometry. The first section describes the most common PC/Windows related symptoms and solutions. The second section describes more detailed problems and fixes.
Symptoms for General Graphics Adapter Problems
- The main window of the COMSOL Multiphysics user interface is empty or becomes empty when I plot the mesh or postprocessing plots.
- The main window of the COMSOL Multiphysics user interface is empty in Draw mode for a 3D geometry.
- Gray shadows of the menus are left behind after you have used them.
- Dialog boxes appear completely gray not showing any contents.
PC/Windows Solutions for General Graphics Adapter Problems
The first solution below helps in most cases, so begin with that. The second is only applicable to those having an old graphics card, and is less common.
- Lower the hardware acceleration of your graphics card:
- Open the Display Properties Dialog box (for example right-click on the desktop and click Properties, or open it from the Control Panel).
- Click the Settings tab and click the Advanced button.
- This dialog box often has a Troubleshooting page where you can lower the Hardware Acceleration.
- Begin with setting the Hardware Acceleration to the lowest possible, apply and restart COMSOL Multiphysics to see if it resolves the problem.
- If it helps the problem you may try to increase the Acceleration gradually, apply and see if it works, to find the optimal setting.
- Lower the color depth or the screen area of your graphics card. This item often works for older graphics cards with less than 16 MB on-board graphics memory.
- Click the Settings tab in the Display Properties dialog box to find the screen resolution and color quality settings.
- -Try selecting a lower color quality setting and/or screen resolution, apply the settings, restart COMSOL Multiphysics to see if the changes helped.
Symptoms for Graphics Rendering Problems
Symtoms indicating 3D rendering problems (less common):
- COMSOL Multiphysics displays the message "Failed to Initialize 3D Graphics".
- COMSOL Multiphysics crashes when you open a model.
- You can create the geometry and set physical properties in 1D or 2D but COMSOL Multiphysics crashes when you initialize the mesh or solve the problem.
Symtoms indicating that your graphics card has too little memory for your current screen resolution and color depth:
- COMSOL Multiphysics crashes when you resize or maximize its graphical user interface.
Symtom indicating that your graphics card is configured with too small color depth:
- The graphical user interface in COMSOL Multiphysics appears in strange colors all the time or only when the graphical user interface is not in focus.
PC/Windows Graphics Rendering Solutions
Begin with trying the solutions described in the previous section. The following two solutions involve downloading and installing software. Running the latest graphics drivers is important for greater stability and performance. Thus it could be worth implementing these solutions even if you do not experience any graphics rendering problems.
- Update to the latest version of DirectX. COMSOL Multiphysics requires at least version 8.0, but a later DirectX version can imply greater performance and stability. To determine the DirectX version on your computer, run the command dxdiag.exe. Download the latest driver from www.microsoft.com/directx or use windowsupdate.microsoft.com.
- Update the drivers for your graphics card. Most graphics card and graphics chip vendors have web sites where you can download up-to-date stable drivers. Microsoft also provides graphics card driver updates at windowsupdate.microsoft.com.
By default COMSOL Multiphysics uses DirectX for 2D software rendering and OpenGL for 3D hardware rendering. If you cannot find stable OpenGL drivers for your graphics card, you can decide to use DirectX also for 3D hardware rendering. This solution may result in a slight degradation in COMSOL Multiphysics graphics quality, but COMSOL Multiphysics should still function properly.
- Switch to using the DirectX version of Java3D with COMSOL Multiphysics.
To switch to DirectX, do the following:
- Go to Options menu > Preferences.
- In the Visualization page, change the Renderer to DirectX (OpenGL by default).
- Click OK.
If you want to return to using OpenGL, do the same but select OpenGL instead.
If you encounter jagged or incomplete drawings in 2D, you can try to disable DirectX: Open the comsol.opts file in the bin directory of your COMSOL Multiphysics installation directory and remove the #-character from the line directly following the line
# Uncomment line below to disable DirectX...
PC/Linux Solutions for General Driver and Rendering Problems
You need OpenGL drivers installed to run COMSOL Multiphysics on Linux. Use vendor graphics drivers when available. Both NVIDIA and ATI provide drivers for their recent graphics cards on their web sites. See www.nvidia.com and www.ati.com. Other graphics card vendors may provide similar services.
If you cannot find hardware accelerated OpenGL drivers for your graphics card, you can use software OpenGL rendering. Software OpenGL drivers are often provided with the Linux distribution. As an alternative, you can use the ones provided with COMSOL Multiphysics. Untar the file mesa.tar in the COMSOL33 installation directory and modify the line
LIBGLPATH=
in the file comsol33/bin/comsol to include the path to the mesa drivers, for example,
LIBGLPATH=/usr/local/comsol33/mesa
assuming that you installed COMSOL Multiphysics in the /usr/local directory.
Solaris Solutions
Make sure you have one of the supported graphics cards from the system requirements in the section
Solaris Graphics Requirements in the
COMSOL Multiphysics 3.3 Installation Guide.
Also make sure that you have at least OpenGL 1.2.2 for Solaris or later installed. To find your current version, use the command pkginfo -l SUNWglrt
. OpenGL for Solaris can be obtained at http://www.sun.com/solaris/opengl.
Sometimes X-Windows is configured with too small color depth. Use the command m64config -propt
to determine the display settings. Use m64config -depth 24
to set 24 bit color depth.
Problems During Startup on Windows
If COMSOL Multiphysics fails during startup (meaning that the Model Navigator screen does not appear), there might be a problem with the DirectX drivers. You should either update these drivers or disable COMSOL Multiphysics from using DirectX entirely. Update to the latest version of DirectX at
www.microsoft.com/directx. In the event that you cannot or do not wish to update the DirectX drivers, an alternative is to disable DirectX. To do so, edit the file bin/comsol.opts in the installation directory and remove the first #-character on the line following the line:
# Uncomment line below to disable DirectX...
This fix can also help if your 2D model look jagged and incomplete on the screen.
COMSOL Multiphysics does not start (splash screen pops up but then nothing more happens)
or the COMSOL Multiphysics installer does not start)
A java crash report is generated saying:
An unexpected exception has been detected in native code outside the VM.:
Unexpected Signal : EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) occurred at: PC=0x252C45DE
Function=[Unknown.]
Library=fontmanager.dll
Current Java thread: at sun.awt.font.NativeFontWrapper.registerFonts(Native Method)
SOLUTION:
The problem is probably caused by a damaged font on your computer. The fonts directory in the windows directory (C:\WINNT or C:\WINDOWS) can have corrupt fonts or links to fonts that do not exist. To find out which fonts that are damaged you can do the following:
- Alternative 1: find and remove damaged font
Copy the attached file FontTester.jar to C:\. Run (replace with C:\WINNT\fonts or C:\WINDOWS\fonts) C:\COMSOL33\java\win32\jre\bin\java -cp C:\FontTester.jar FontTester and check the created log file C:\fonttest.log. If the log file do not end with a "Done..." line the last line in the log file tells you which font to remove from your system (remove it from the fonts directory). Repeat this until the log file ends with a "Done..." line.
- Alternative 2: reinstall all fonts
a) copy all the fonts in the fonts directory to a temporary location
b) delete all the fonts in the fonts directory
c) copy all the fonts from the temporary location back into the fonts directory, this reinstalls the fonts and detects any corrupt/damaged fonts.
Adjusting the Polygon Offset
Some OpenGL graphics cards do not render touching edges and faces correctly in COMSOL Multiphysics. This makes the edges in mesh plots appear dashed or dotted. To improve their appearance, follow these steps:
- Click the Draw Mode toolbar button.
- Go to the Options menu and choose Preferences.
- In the Preferences dialog box, click the Visualization tab.
- Adjust the value in the Polygon offset edit field to a larger integer.
- Click Apply.
Polygon offset settings affect only 3D rendering when using OpenGL and are not applicable when using COMSOL Multiphysics with DirectX.
Keywords: Crash, graphics