Error Message on Mac OS X 10.9 Maverick: % X windows protocol error: GLXBadContext.

Problem:

We have had reports of the following problem from some ENVI users on Mac OS X 10.9:

If you cannot start ENVI using the ENVI icon and you try to start ENVI from the IDL command line by typing "envi" but you receive the following error message:

% Restored file: ENVI.

% Loaded DLM: TIFF.

% X windows protocol error: GLXBadContext.

 

Solution:

The problem can be resolved by renaming the gl_driver.so to gl_driver.so.bak

This file is located under the [IDL-directory]/bin/bin.darwin.[platform]/ directory of your ENVI installation. For example, for 64-bit ENVI 4.8, the default location on Mac is:

    /Applications/itt/idl/idl80/bin/bin.darwin.x86_64/gl_driver.so

 For ENVI 5.1, the default location is:

    /Applications/exelis/idl83/bin/bin.darwin.x86_64/gl_driver.so

(Note that this workaround will cause ENVI/IDL to use software based object graphics rendering rather than OpenGL hardware acceleration. We are hoping this issue will be resolved in a future update for XQuartz.)

Please contact support@exelisvis.com if you have further questions. 

Review on 1/14/2014  KK