Team Menu blank

[bmxjeff]

So, the teams menu is blank on an external monitor, but not on the MacBook's built in screen. It doesn't seem to matter if the External Video card is attached or not. 

2016 MacBook Pro w/external Radeon Pro WX7100 

[lance.carocci]

Hi @bmxjeff, sorry to hear you're experiencing this.

When a specific menu or panel is blank, it often points to a minor graphics quirk between a specific GPU and the embedded web frame we're trying to render. The fact that it happens even without the eGPU is particularly interesting. Could you please check a few more areas for me?

• Are you able to confirm which GPU (integrated Intel versus dedicated AMD) Fusion is running on when on your internal display? Same for external display?
• Could you please also check the Comments window and Insert McMaster-Carr command and see if they are able to render?
• Can you confirm how your external display is connected? It sounds like it's either a direct Thunderbolt 3 connection, or at most Thunderbolt 3 to an eGPU on Thunderbolt 3. Are there any other cable types or adapters in the way? (e.g. some USB-C plug adapters are actually USB 3.1+ and not Thunderbolt 3)

[bmxjeff]

When I installed the e-GPU, I turned off graphics switching in Settings, then right clicked Fusion 360 checked "Prefer External Graphics." When I check Fusions Graphic Diagnostic, it shows the correct e-GPU correctly. 

You are correct, McMaster isn't working  : )

The e-GPU is connected via Thunderbolt to the Razer Core enclosure then to the Card, and a "Display port" from the Card to the monitor. Nothing else in line.

The odd thing is, if I Start Fusion while the Built in Monitor is open, it works fine. If I boot Fusion while the  Built-in monitor is closed, the menu's fail to render. 

I have not tried Running Fusion on an external monitor without the e-GPU. I assume that's common enough. : )

Fusion started while laptop closedFusion started While laptop open  

[lance.carocci · Accepted solution]

@bmxjeff, I have asked around on this behavior - the likely case is that, even though Fusion 360 itself is running on the external GPU, some of our embedded components (e.g. Chromium browser libraries utilized by Team Hubs, McMaster) might be trying to render on one of the internal GPUs.

There are two ways we can try to mitigate this:

1. Much like you forced Fusion 360.app to utilize the External GPU, repeat this process with QtWebEngineProcess as well, located in the same directory as Fusion 360.app
2. We can disable hardware acceleration for the embedded browser libraries, independently of Fusion, using a system-wide environment variable. We can test this and easily revert it before making the setting permanent:
   1. Open Terminal.app and type the following:

      launchctl setenv NEUTRON_CHROME_DISABLE_GPU 1

      • This sets the variable

        NEUTRON_CHROME_DISABLE_GPU

        equal to

        1

      • If you wish to undo this, use unsetenv, e.g. 

        launchctl unsetenv NEUTRON_CHROME_DISABLE_GPU

   2. Restart Fusion 360 with the eGPU attached, and check if you can once again switch teams or insert McMaster Carr parts
   3. If successful, we need to make the variable permanent. This will change a bit depending on version of macOS - can you please confirm which version you have? 

[bmxjeff]

@lance.carocci That was it! We have menu's again! : )

Thanks again for your help on this.

2016 MBP 10.15.6 Catalina 

e-GPU Radeon Pro WX-7100

[bmxjeff]

After the computer Re-started, it went back to not working. So, I closed fusion and ran this command in Terminal again. So, it seems that this will be a regular boot process. : ) 

Not a big deal. Much easier than opening the laptop every morning. As odd as that sounds. 

[lance.carocci]

Hi @bmxjeff  - there is a process to get macOS to save these variables at a system level, but I want to caution before moving forward with this:

What we've done here is told the embedded browser to use software instead of hardware rendering. For most Fusion operations, this is fine because we are just loading in content from your team hub or, for example, McMaster-Carr.

Where this workaround becomes a problem is when browser hardware acceleration is mandatory, such as viewing Generative Design and Simulation results.

I am hoping we can come up with a more sustainable solution for this, but the environment variable may be the best workaround for the moment.

If that is okay with you, we can make this setting more permanent at a local machine-level.