Cannot enable hardware opengl R2021b Ubuntu 20.04

I have a fresh install of Ubuntu 20.04 and matlab 2021b. My machnine has a mobile RTX 3060 gpu and an 11th gen intel processor (system76 gazelle laptop). I have the latest nvidia 470 driver installed. I cannot enable hardware opengl, when I start matlab using a terminal I see this text:

MATLAB is selecting SOFTWARE OPENGL rendering.
Gtk-Message: 16:41:13.106: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
MESA-LOADER: failed to open iris: /usr/lib/dri/iris_dri.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory (search paths /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri:\$${ORIGIN}/dri:/usr/lib/dri, suffix _dri)
failed to load driver: iris
MESA-LOADER: failed to open kms_swrast: /usr/lib/dri/kms_swrast_dri.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory (search paths /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri:\$${ORIGIN}/dri:/usr/lib/dri, suffix _dri)
failed to load driver: kms_swrast
MESA-LOADER: failed to open swrast: /usr/lib/dri/swrast_dri.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory (search paths /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri:\$${ORIGIN}/dri:/usr/lib/dri, suffix _dri)
failed to load swrast driver

running "opengl info" in matlab returns this:

>> opengl info
                          Version: '2.1 Mesa 17.1.3'
                           Vendor: 'Brian Paul'
                         Renderer: 'Mesa X11'
                   MaxTextureSize: 16384
                           Visual: 'Visual 0x290, (RGBA 32 bits (8 8 8 8), Z depth 16 bits, Hardware acceleration, Double buffer, Antialias 0 samples)'
                         Software: 'true'
             HardwareSupportLevel: 'none (known graphics driver issues)'
        SupportsGraphicsSmoothing: 0
    SupportsDepthPeelTransparency: 1
       SupportsAlignVertexCenters: 0
                       Extensions: {152×1 cell}
               MaxFrameBufferSize: 16384
               

Matlab can see that I have a gpu and I can run gpu operations (ex gpuArray) and generally have no other problems with graphics or cuda. For reference running "gpuDevice" returns this:

>> gpuDevice

ans = 

  CUDADevice with properties:

                      Name: 'NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU'
                     Index: 1
         ComputeCapability: '8.6'
            SupportsDouble: 1
             DriverVersion: 11.4000
            ToolkitVersion: 11
        MaxThreadsPerBlock: 1024
          MaxShmemPerBlock: 49152
        MaxThreadBlockSize: [1024 1024 64]
               MaxGridSize: [2.1475e+09 65535 65535]
                 SIMDWidth: 32
               TotalMemory: 6.2354e+09
           AvailableMemory: 5.9395e+09
       MultiprocessorCount: 30
              ClockRateKHz: 1425000
               ComputeMode: 'Default'
      GPUOverlapsTransfers: 1
    KernelExecutionTimeout: 1
          CanMapHostMemory: 1
           DeviceSupported: 1
           DeviceAvailable: 1
            DeviceSelected: 1
            

The output of my nvidia-smi

Wed Oct  6 16:53:53 2021       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 470.63.01    Driver Version: 470.63.01    CUDA Version: 11.4     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce ...  Off  | 00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   56C    P8    14W /  N/A |    282MiB /  5946MiB |      0%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A      1075      G   /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg                  4MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      3836      G   /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg                  4MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A     34456      C   ...R2021b/bin/glnxa64/MATLAB      269MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I attempted to force hardware opengl by running "opengl("save","hardware")" and restarting matlab. After doing that and trying "opengl info" again I see this output

opengl info
MATLAB has experienced a low-level graphics error, and may not have drawn correctly.
Read about what you can do to prevent this issue at Resolving Low-Level Graphics Issues then restart MATLAB.
To share details of this issue with MathWorks technical support,
please include this file with your service request.
                          Version: ''
                           Vendor: ''
                         Renderer: 'None'
            RendererDriverVersion: ''
        RendererDriverReleaseDate: ''
                   MaxTextureSize: 0
                           Visual: ''
                         Software: 0
             HardwareSupportLevel: 'full'
        SupportsGraphicsSmoothing: 0
    SupportsDepthPeelTransparency: 0
       SupportsAlignVertexCenters: 0
                       Extensions: {}
               MaxFrameBufferSize: 0

com.jogamp.opengl.GLException: X11GLXDrawableFactory - Could not initialize shared resources for X11GraphicsDevice[type .x11, connection :1, unitID 0, handle 0x0, owner false, ResourceToolkitLock[obj 0x331d5547, isOwner false, <9a81ff0, 27b40220>[count 0, qsz 0, owner <NULL>]]]
	at jogamp.opengl.x11.glx.X11GLXDrawableFactory$SharedResourceImplementation.createSharedResource(X11GLXDrawableFactory.java:326)
	at jogamp.opengl.SharedResourceRunner.run(SharedResourceRunner.java:297)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Caused by: com.jogamp.opengl.GLException: main-SharedResourceRunner: Unable to create temp OpenGL context(1)
	at jogamp.opengl.x11.glx.X11GLXContext.createImpl(X11GLXContext.java:368)
	at jogamp.opengl.GLContextImpl.makeCurrentWithinLock(GLContextImpl.java:759)
	at jogamp.opengl.GLContextImpl.makeCurrent(GLContextImpl.java:642)
	at jogamp.opengl.GLContextImpl.makeCurrent(GLContextImpl.java:580)
	at jogamp.opengl.x11.glx.X11GLXDrawableFactory$SharedResourceImplementation.createSharedResource(X11GLXDrawableFactory.java:297)
	... 2 more

The "file" that the error message refers to contains this information:

com.jogamp.opengl.GLException: Profile GL_DEFAULT is not available on X11GraphicsDevice[type .x11, connection :1, unitID 0, handle 0x0, owner false, ResourceToolkitLock[obj 0x331d5547, isOwner false, <9a81ff0, 27b40220>[count 0, qsz 0, owner <NULL>]]], but: []
	at com.jogamp.opengl.GLProfile.get(GLProfile.java:990)
	at com.jogamp.opengl.GLProfile.getDefault(GLProfile.java:721)
	at com.jogamp.opengl.GLCapabilities.<init>(GLCapabilities.java:84)
	at com.mathworks.hg.uij.OpenGLUtils$MyGLListener.getGLInformation(OpenGLUtils.java:332)
	at com.mathworks.hg.uij.OpenGLUtils$MyGLListener.getGLData(OpenGLUtils.java:512)
	at com.mathworks.hg.uij.OpenGLUtils.getGLData(OpenGLUtils.java:79)
    

I have also tried 2020b with basically the same results. I am pretty stuck at trying to figure out what to do to fix this. Software opengl is incredibly slow and spins up my processor a lot

[Mark Debord]

I have tried to install matlab-support package with apt, and that caused the MESA error messages at launch to go away, but after I launch matlab I still get this error:

com.jogamp.opengl.GLException: X11GLXDrawableFactory - Could not initialize shared resources for X11GraphicsDevice[type .x11, connection :1, unitID 0, handle 0x0, owner false, ResourceToolkitLock[obj 0x158afa41, isOwner false, <36192993, 67a0981a>[count 0, qsz 0, owner <NULL>]]]
	at jogamp.opengl.x11.glx.X11GLXDrawableFactory$SharedResourceImplementation.createSharedResource(X11GLXDrawableFactory.java:326)
	at jogamp.opengl.SharedResourceRunner.run(SharedResourceRunner.java:297)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
	at jogamp.opengl.GLContextImpl.makeCurrent(GLContextImpl.java:688)
	at jogamp.opengl.GLContextImpl.makeCurrent(GLContextImpl.java:580)
	at jogamp.opengl.x11.glx.X11GLXDrawableFactory$SharedResourceImplementation.createSharedResource(X11GLXDrawableFactory.java:297)
	... 2 more
        

Unfortunately opengl now does not work at all

opengl info
MATLAB has experienced a low-level graphics error, and may not have drawn correctly.
Read about what you can do to prevent this issue at Resolving Low-Level Graphics Issues then restart MATLAB.
To share details of this issue with MathWorks technical support,
please include this file with your service request.
                          Version: ''
                           Vendor: ''
                         Renderer: 'None'
            RendererDriverVersion: ''
        RendererDriverReleaseDate: ''
                   MaxTextureSize: 0
                           Visual: ''
                         Software: 0
             HardwareSupportLevel: 'full'
        SupportsGraphicsSmoothing: 0
    SupportsDepthPeelTransparency: 0
       SupportsAlignVertexCenters: 0
                       Extensions: {}
               MaxFrameBufferSize: 0
               

I've tried the 'official' answer here (from 2012!!!) but no progress. I've also tried uninstall-reinstall nvidia driver, and even tried another completely fresh ubuntu install with an older matlab version (2019a) still with the same issues. I feel like I've tried all of the suggestions I've found elsewhere.

Answer 1

[Mark Debord]

I have recieve official support from matlab with this fix:

Please create a file with the name 'java.opts' in the directory where you execute MATLAB. This file should have a single line:

-Djogl.disable.openglarbcontext=1

I generally launch matlab with a terminal from my home directory, so I placed the 'java.opts' file there and that has resolved this issue. I additionally had to set my preffered X renderer to Nvidia (by default MATLAB was using my onboard IRIS graphics for hardwre opengl). I was able to do this with the power settings icon in the system tray and selecting "Nvidia Graphics" instead of "hybrid". This will affect laptop battery life. Another option would be to change this setting in the nvidia x server settings application under "PRIME profiles"

To recap my setup:

• Ubuntu 20.04 with proprietary nvidia 470 driver installed an enabled
• MATLAB R2021b and matlab-support package installed
• created 'java.opts' file as discussed above
• enabled Nvidia graphics as system default (NOT hybrid mode, not iGPU mode, must be Nvidia graphics mode)

Thank you to Dennis Henneman from support.

[Ethan Blackwood]

Thanks, this finally solved my issue! I also found counterintuitively that I had to NOT launch MATLAB (through matlab-support) "using Discrete Graphics Card" in order for it to work.

[Pradeep Kumar]

Thank you...the fix suggested by Mark worked for me. Thank you so much Mark.

[Lea Anne Gainon]

It worked also for me! Thank you so much!

[Christopher Nix]

Hello

I am running matlab from the command line on ubuntu 20.04. I am also getting the message

matlab is selecting SOFTWARE OPENGL rendering.

The result is that the matlab environment gui has very tiny script and the graphics windows are so small to be useless. I am not sure if the fix suggested above will work for me, since I do not have an nvidia GPU. Instead I have MESA Intel Graphics (ADL GT2).

Could you let me know which matlab support package I should install and how I should enable the graphics as system default. I have created the java.opts file as mentioned above and this is sitting in my home directory, although the matlab executable is in /usr/local/MATLAB/R2021b/bin

Can you help please?

Thanks

Ivan Graham

[Lucija Babic]

Thank you, this worked for me too!

[Walter Roberson]

ZHIFENG comments to @Mark Debord

Good answer!

Answer 2

[Michael]

I came across this answer, since I had a similar problem. I did want to keep hybrid mode enabled, though, since fully running Ubuntu on the Nvidia GPU has caused some studdering issues with X11. I am running Ubuntu 24.04, an I9 13900K, and 3090 with the Nvidia 535 drivers. In "Nvidia X Server Settings" under "PRIME Profiles", it is set to "NVIDIA On-Demand". Running Matlab 2024a from the desktop shortcut caused similar issues as in this thread:

>> opengl info
MATLAB has experienced a low-level graphics error, and may not have drawn correctly.
Read about what you can do to prevent this issue at Resolving Low-Level Graphics Issues then restart MATLAB.
To share details of this issue with MathWorks technical support,
please include this file with your service request.
                          Version: ''
                           Vendor: ''
                         Renderer: 'None'
            RendererDriverVersion: ''
        RendererDriverReleaseDate: ''
                   MaxTextureSize: 0
                           Visual: ''
                         Software: 0
             HardwareSupportLevel: 'full'
        SupportsGraphicsSmoothing: 0
    SupportsDepthPeelTransparency: 0
       SupportsAlignVertexCenters: 0
                       Extensions: {}
               MaxFrameBufferSize: 0

However, executing "prime-run matlab" from a terminal yielded the following and enabled graphics to render ok (at least workable):

>> opengl info
                          Version: '2.1 Mesa 17.1.3'
                           Vendor: 'Brian Paul'
                         Renderer: 'Mesa X11'
                   MaxTextureSize: 16384
                           Visual: 'Visual 0x20f, (RGBA 32 bits (8 8 8 8), Z depth 16 bits, Hardware acceleration, Double buffer, Antialias 0 samples)'
                         Software: 'true'
             HardwareSupportLevel: 'none (known graphics driver issues)'
        SupportsGraphicsSmoothing: 0
    SupportsDepthPeelTransparency: 1
       SupportsAlignVertexCenters: 0
                       Extensions: {152×1 cell}
               MaxFrameBufferSize: 16384