Black screen on linux

[empirefox]

Hi!

I create a new flutter test project. It runs fine on the web, but on Linux it shows a black screen.

console:

Building Linux application...                                           
✓ Built build/linux/x64/debug/bundle/test
Syncing files to device Linux...                                   280ms

Flutter run key commands.
r Hot reload. 🔥🔥🔥
R Hot restart.
h List all available interactive commands.
d Detach (terminate "flutter run" but leave application running).
c Clear the screen
q Quit (terminate the application on the device).

A Dart VM Service on Linux is available at: http://127.0.0.1:40135/XkrxDzMhUVs=/
The Flutter DevTools debugger and profiler on Linux is available at:
http://127.0.0.1:40135/XkrxDzMhUVs=/devtools/?uri=ws://127.0.0.1:40135/XkrxDzMhUVs=/ws
.... initOpenGL
EGL createTexture
Window Size:1280,720
Create Texture
.... OpenglRenderer create
EGL resizeTexture
Window Size:1920,1080
Disposed of and deleted everything.
Create Texture

Application finished.

pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  flutter:
    sdk: flutter
  flutter_localizations:
    sdk: flutter
  three_js: 0.2.7
  fullscreen_window: ^1.2.0

flutter doctor -v

[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.38.6, on Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS 6.11.0-29-generic, locale zh_CN.UTF-8) [82ms]
    • Flutter version 3.38.6 on channel stable at /home/dev/soft/Flutter/flutter-sdk
    • Upstream repository https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git
    • Framework revision 8b87286849 , 2026-01-08 10:49:17 -0800
    • Engine revision 78fc3012e4
    • Dart version 3.10.7
    • DevTools version 2.51.1
    • Feature flags: enable-web, enable-linux-desktop, enable-macos-desktop, enable-windows-desktop, enable-android, enable-ios, cli-animations,
      enable-native-assets, omit-legacy-version-file, enable-lldb-debugging

[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 36.1.0) [2.3s]
    • Android SDK at /home/dev/Android/Sdk
    • Emulator version 36.2.12.0 (build_id 14214601) (CL:N/A)
    • Platform android-36.1, build-tools 36.1.0
    • ANDROID_SDK_ROOT = /home/dev/Android/Sdk
    • Java binary at: /home/dev/soft/android-studio-2025.2.1.7-linux/android-studio/jbr/bin/java
      This is the JDK bundled with the latest Android Studio installation on this machine.
      To manually set the JDK path, use: `flutter config --jdk-dir="path/to/jdk"`.
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 21.0.8+-14196175-b1038.72)
    • All Android licenses accepted.

[✓] Chrome - develop for the web [18ms]
    • CHROME_EXECUTABLE = /snap/bin/chromium

[✓] Linux toolchain - develop for Linux desktop [1,037ms]
    • Ubuntu clang version 18.1.3 (1ubuntu1)
    • cmake version 3.28.3
    • ninja version 1.11.1
    • pkg-config version 1.8.1
    • OpenGL core renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GT 730/PCIe/SSE2 (X11)
    • OpenGL core version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 470.256.02 (X11)
    • OpenGL core shading language version: 4.60 NVIDIA (X11)
    • OpenGL ES renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GT 730/PCIe/SSE2 (X11)
    • OpenGL ES version: OpenGL ES 3.2 NVIDIA 470.256.02 (X11)
    • OpenGL ES shading language version: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20 (X11)
    • GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit: yes (X11)
    • GL_EXT_texture_format_BGRA8888: yes (X11)

[✓] Connected device (2 available) [555ms]
    • Linux (desktop) • linux  • linux-x64      • Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS 6.11.0-29-generic
    • Chrome (web)    • chrome • web-javascript • Chromium 143.0.7499.146 snap

[✓] Network resources [19.8s]     
    • All expected network resources are available.

• No issues found!

[Knightro63]

Hi @empirefox,

Yes linux still seems to have some issues. Could you try an older version of flutter_angle.
This is an older version for flutter_angle. This uses GLEW. You will need to run sudo apt install libglew-dev.

dependency_overrides:
  flutter_angle: ^0.3.3

let me know if this fixes the issue?

[empirefox]

No luck. Still a black screen.

Building Linux application...                                           
✓ Built build/linux/x64/debug/bundle/starx_gift
Syncing files to device Linux...                                   348ms

Flutter run key commands.
r Hot reload. 🔥🔥🔥
R Hot restart.
h List all available interactive commands.
d Detach (terminate "flutter run" but leave application running).
c Clear the screen
q Quit (terminate the application on the device).

A Dart VM Service on Linux is available at: http://127.0.0.1:45255/oCY8QdOboms=/
The Flutter DevTools debugger and profiler on Linux is available at:
http://127.0.0.1:45255/oCY8QdOboms=/devtools/?uri=ws://127.0.0.1:45255/oCY8QdOboms=/ws
.... initOpenGL
EGL createTexture
Window Size:1280,720
Create Texture
.... OpenglRenderer create
EGL resizeTexture
Window Size:1920,1080
Disposed of and deleted everything.
Create Texture

Application finished.

dependencies:
  flutter:
    sdk: flutter
  fullscreen_window: ^1.2.1
  three_js: 0.2.7
  flutter_angle: ^0.3.3

[Knightro63]

Hi @empirefox,

Looks like it is a bug introduced by an updated version of flutter. Please take a look here.

[ddovod]

Hello. Came here for the same reason, I'm trying to use flutter_angle for the first time and I thought it didn't work on linux at all until I found this issue. I hope it will work again eventually, if I can help you with investigations, please let me know. My suspicion was related to the fact that the opengl context is created in one thread (MethodChannel) and all other opengl calls (including makeCurrent) are performed using ffi in the dart isolate thread. But looks like this is not the issue and everything should work fine.
Btw I'm embedding Texture widget into the existing application as a widget, and looks like it shows the default flutter framebuffer instead of rendered scene. On Android everything works as expected, this is the Texture drawn on top of the red rectangle

[Knightro63]

Hi @ddovod ,

After doing some testing today here is what I have learned. Since flutter has updated to improve impeller performance it has caused an issue with opengl to talk to flutter. I have looked through the document and have made changes to no avail. As of right now Linux only works for anything below 3.27. I will try to fix it but I am struggling. Although I did move some method channels to ffi and it did increase performance.

Sorry for the issue. If you have any suggestions or know of a Linux flutter opengl guru let me know.

[ddovod]

Hi!
Thank you very much! I'll let you know if I find something helpful

[debuggerx01]

Hi @Knightro63 ,
I tested the official example project (packages/three_js/example) against three specific versions of Flutter to narrow down when the regression occurred. Here are the results:

2.mp4

Flutter 3.29.3:
Status: ✅ Works correctly out of the box.
Flutter 3.35.7:
Status: ⚠️ Fails with Framebuffer (color) check failed: 36055.
Workaround: As mentioned earlier, adding a delay before initialization fixes the issue, and it works normally.
Flutter 3.38.7:
Status: ⛔ Black Screen.
Observation: There are no error logs (the 36055 error is gone), but the screen remains black.
Workaround: Unlike 3.35.7, adding a delay does not fix the black screen issue in this version.
It seems that the underlying Linux runner or GL implementation has changed significantly across these versions, leading to different behaviors.

[ddovod]

I've tested some things in my project related to opengl, and I believe that the best approach for now would be to create separated context, render everything we need, and then using glReadPixels/PBO copy content to the flutter texture. This is not optimal, but at least it works

[Knightro63]

Hi @ddovod,

Can you give a basic working example. I have moved the linux part to use either flutter texture or read pixels, but have not been able to get either to show correctly. The texture shows corrupted and the readpixels is black.

[ddovod]

Sorry, I was a bit busy.
All my opengl rendering (and context creation) is happening in the separated thread on the c++ side. I'll try to share the distilled example of my app, but I need some time to prepare it

[ddovod]

Here you go. A bit hacky and dirty, sorry about that
https://github.com/ddovod/linux_ogl_example
And this is what you should see after flutter run -d linux