Blank screen or crash on Linux
Fix blank screens and startup crashes on Linux caused by Wayland, NVIDIA drivers, or WebKitGTK
Yaak is built on Tauri, which renders the interface with the system WebKitGTK webview. Some combinations of graphics drivers and display servers cause the window to appear blank or white, or crash the app on launch. This happens most often with Wayland and NVIDIA proprietary drivers.
Common error messages
Launching Yaak from a terminal may print one of the following before the crash:
Error 71 (Protocol error) dispatching to Wayland display
Cannot create EGL context: invalid display
Could not create default EGL display: EGL_BAD_PARAMETER. Aborting...
Fix with environment variables
Launch Yaak with one of the following environment variables. Try them in order:
WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 yaak
WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 disables the DMA-BUF renderer, which is the default in
recent WebKitGTK versions. It is generally the right rendering path, but has been flaky
with NVIDIA proprietary drivers (white or blank screens, flicker).
WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 yaak
WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 forces accelerated compositing off in WebKitGTK.
__NV_DISABLE_EXPLICIT_SYNC=1 yaak
__NV_DISABLE_EXPLICIT_SYNC=1 makes the NVIDIA driver and EGL-Wayland layer ignore the
explicit sync path and fall back to older, less strict synchronization.
Applying the fix permanently
Once a variable works, apply it to every launch by adding it to /etc/environment:
WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1
Or copy the desktop entry and add the variable to its launch command:
cp /usr/share/applications/yaak.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/
# Edit the Exec line:
# Exec=env WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 yaak
AppImage issues
Messages like Failed to load module "xapp-gtk3-module" are harmless and can be ignored.
If the AppImage crashes with an EGL error even with the environment variables above, try a distro-native package instead:
- Debian/Ubuntu: the
.debfrom the download page - Arch: the yaak AUR package
Still not working
Launch Yaak from a terminal and check the output, then check the application logs. Report what you find on the Linux graphics feedback post with your distro, GPU, and display server (X11 or Wayland).
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