Troubleshooting

This page explains solutions that you can incorporate for troubleshooting different issues on the SimScale Workbench.

Workbench Errors

If you come across any error on the Workbench while performing simulation and wish to dig deeper into the issue then look no further than our dedicated section for warnings and errors.

Browser Support

SimScale officially supports the current versions of all major browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. A minimum screen resolution of 1366×768 is also required, as well as a broadband Internet connection. We recommend using 100% zoom and default font sizes.

3D Viewer Problems

On these pages you can test whether your browser supports 3D visualization:

• https://www.x3dom.org/contact/
• https://get.webgl.org/

If the WebGL tests from above say that your browser doesn’t have JavaScript enabled, please refer to the section JavaScript (JS) problems below.

Get specific help for your Operating system and browser:

• https://get.webgl.org/troubleshooting/

If you are prompted with information in the viewer that your browser does not have WebGL enabled, refer to the WebGL not enabled section below.

WebGL Not Enabled

If WebGL is not receiving the data from our server, the reason is most likely that WebGL is either disabled or has crashed. Please try deleting the locally cached files and restart your browser. If you still have the same issues, please reset WebGL by following these steps:

Chrome

First, make sure that hardware acceleration is enabled:

• Go to chrome://settings
• Click ‘Advanced’ at the bottom of the page
• In the System section, ensure the ‘Use hardware acceleration when available’ checkbox is checked (you’ll need to relaunch Chrome for any changes to take effect).

Then enable WebGL:

• Go to chrome://flags
• Ensure that ‘Disable WebGL’ is not activated (you’ll need to relaunch Chrome for any changes to take effect).

Then inspect the status of WebGL:

• Go to chrome://gpu
• Inspect the ‘WebGL’ item in the Graphics Feature Status list. The status will be one of the following:
  • Hardware accelerated — WebGL is enabled and hardware accelerated (running on the graphics card).
  • Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable — WebGL is enabled, but running in software. See here for more info: “For software rendering of WebGL, Chrome uses SwiftShader, a software GL rasterizer.”
  • Unavailable — WebGL is not available in hardware or software.

If the status is not Hardware accelerated, then the ‘Problems Detected’ list (below the Graphics Feature Status list) may explain why hardware acceleration is unavailable.

For more information, see: Chrome Help: WebGL and 3D graphics

If you’ve tried all this and it still doesn’t work, then there are some other things you could try:

• Try Incognito mode. If that works, please try disabling extensions temporarily and enable them one by one to check which extension is causing the problem.
• If you’re using an older version of Chrome there is the possibility that under certain settings WebGL is still not working. Try upgrading to the newest version of Chrome.

Firefox

First, enable WebGL:

• Go to about:config
• Search for webgl.disabled
• Ensure that its value is false (any changes take effect immediately without relaunching Firefox)

Then inspect the status of WebGL:

• Go to about:support
• Inspect the ‘WebGL Renderer, row in the Graphics table:
  • If the status contains a graphics card manufacturer, model, and driver (eg: “NVIDIA Corporation – NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M OpenGL Engine”), then WebGL is enabled.
  • If the status is something like “Blocked for your graphics card because of unresolved driver issues” or “Blocked for your graphics driver version”, then your graphics card/driver is blacklisted.

(Like Chrome, Firefox has a ‘Use hardware acceleration when available’ checkbox, in Preferences > Advanced > General > Browsing. However, unlike Chrome, Firefox does not require this checkbox to be checked for WebGL to work.)

Post-Processor Issues

The post-processing component of the SimScale Workbench requires secure WebSockets support. In order to use the web-based post-processor, check if your browser supports secure WebSockets.

This is valid for most modern browsers, including Firefox 11 and above, Chrome 16 and above, Safari 6 and above, Opera 12.10 and above, Internet Explorer 10 and above. To test whether your web browser offers this support:

• Visit https://websocketstest.com/.

A message will be presented to you stating whether WebSockets are supported.

JavaScript (JS) Problems

If the WebGL tests from above warn that your browser doesn’t have JavaScript enabled, please refer to the following sections. If none of the proposed solutions work and you don’t administer the system yourself, please contact your administrator.

In any case, perform the following steps:

• Make sure your browser is up to date. In the Help menu, click on ‘Check for updates’ and install if necessary.
• Make sure you don’t have add-ons installed which block JavaScript like “No-Script” or “QuickJava”. These extensions will block JavaScript access.

Firefox

• In the address bar, type “about:config” (without quotation marks), and press Enter.
• Click on the button ‘I’ll be careful, I promise’
• In the search bar, search for “javascript.enabled” (without quotation marks).
• View the result named “javascript.enabled” and check if the setting is set to ‘true’. If not, right-click and click on ‘Toggle’. JavaScript is now enabled.
• If the above steps don’t work, please consider trying a different browser (e.g. Google Chrome)

Chrome

• Open ‘Settings’
• In the panel on the left, again click ‘Settings’
• Scroll to the bottom and click on ‘Advanced’
• Scroll to ‘Privacy and security’
• Click on ‘Content settings’
• Scroll to ‘JavaScript’
• Make sure that the toggle for ‘Allowed (recommended)’ is enabled
• If the above steps don’t work, please consider trying a different browser (e.g. Firefox)

Browser Cache Problems

If your browser crashes while loading a large mesh or CAD model, the cache might be to blame. In order to ensure a fast and responsive interaction with the 3D models on SimScale, they are partly loaded into the browser cache memory. Some browsers do limit the cache memory size, such that the application crashes as soon as this limit is reached. To solve the problem, first try to clean your browser cache or increase the cache limit. To clean your browser cache:

• Clear Google Chrome Cache
• Clear Mozilla Firefox Cache

If you encounter unexpected behavior of the user interface (e.g. certain actions are not executed or you get error messages where you wouldn’t expect them), please try clearing your browser cache as described above.

Operating System Support

SimScale works platform-independent on Windows, Linux (for example Ubuntu), and Mac OS. However, your graphics hardware and driver must support WebGL. Please make sure that you have the latest version of your graphics driver installed.

Third-Party Software

The SimScale platform relies on several great software tools for numerical simulation such as Code_Aster and OpenFOAM®.

Last updated: November 29th, 2023