webgl extension "OES_texture_float" not supported on some android devices

[Shane98c]

Recently (seemingly within the last two months) there's been a change/update in Google Chrome on android (or android system webview) that has removed support for the "OES_texture_float" extension. All maps apps throw errors when this extension is not available.

This has been reproduced on Pixel 6a devices (Shane, Tyler, Tyler's partner). Surprisingly, I haven't been able to track down a recent outcry about this issue causing errors elsewhere. Becky's Pixel 3 does not reproduce the error, so it may be specific to Google's more recent processors.

The functionality is available without extensions in webgl2, and there's been a bit of discussion about making regl compatible with it. https://github.com/regl-project/regl/issues/561 It's likely that this wouldn't play nice without significant updates to maps though.

A stopgap could be sniffing for extension support and surfacing a more friendly user facing error than the current one.

Just really odd that we'd lose support for a previously supported extension!

[Shane98c]

This seems to have been fixed on latest chrome/android combo

edit: not true :(

[Shane98c]

discussion of the same issue hitting openlayers here: https://github.com/openlayers/openlayers/issues/15581 also interesting with a hint of a potential fix in chromium coming? unclear https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40124875

[Shane98c]

closed by https://github.com/carbonplan/maps/pull/126