SDL2 opens no window without giving any errors on VMWare

[masoudr]

I'm trying to test a simple SDL2 application. The app runs without any errors. However, no window shows up. I'm using Ubuntu18.04 on a VMWare machine. I also tried to compile SDL from the source but got the same result. The problem might be related to using the virtual machine. Here is a simple application from docs (I just added SDL_GetNumDisplayModes to make sure the display mode is OK- returns 1) The version is 2.28, and I've already enabled 3D graphics on my VM.

// Using SDL and standard IO
#include <SDL2/SDL.h>
#include <stdio.h>

// Screen dimension constants
const int SCREEN_WIDTH = 640;
const int SCREEN_HEIGHT = 480;

int main(int argc, char *args[])
{

    // The window we'll be rendering to
    SDL_Window *window = NULL;

    // The surface contained by the window
    SDL_Surface *screenSurface = NULL;

    // Initialize SDL
    if (SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) < 0)
    {
        printf("SDL could not initialize! SDL_Error: %s\n", SDL_GetError());
    }
    else
    {
        int res = SDL_GetNumDisplayModes(0);
        printf("SDL_GetNumDisplayModes: %d\r\n", res);
        // Create window
        window = SDL_CreateWindow("SDL Tutorial", SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED, SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED, SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT, SDL_WINDOW_SHOWN);
        if (window == NULL)
        {
            printf("Window could not be created! SDL_Error: %s\n", SDL_GetError());
        }
        else
        {
            // Get window surface
            screenSurface = SDL_GetWindowSurface(window);

            // Fill the surface white
            SDL_FillRect(screenSurface, NULL, SDL_MapRGB(screenSurface->format, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF));

            // Update the surface
            SDL_UpdateWindowSurface(window);

            // Hack to get window to stay up
            SDL_Event e;
            bool quit = false;
            while (quit == false)
            {
                while (SDL_PollEvent(&e))
                {
                    if (e.type == SDL_QUIT)
                    {
                        quit = true;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

    // Destroy window
    SDL_DestroyWindow(window);

    // Quit SDL subsystems
    SDL_Quit();

    return 0;
}

[LiquidityC]

There is nothing wrong with your code so we have to assume it's got something to do with the host machine.

Both SDL_FillRect and SDL_UpdateWindowSurface return int indicating success or fail (0 if everything is fine). Perhaps check those values and see if you get any valuable feedback? Maybe throw in an SDL_ShowWindow(window) for good measure? (not sure if anything external can impact the initial state of windows).

Besides that I mostly work with SDL_Renderer these days so my SDL_Surface knowledge is not the freshest.

[masoudr]

@LiquidityC Thanks for the answer. Both SDL_FillRect and SDL_UpdateWindowSurface return 0, which is fine. I also tried the SDL_Surface with an example from here, but I got into the same problem. I think the issue is with compilation or some misconfiguration of the library. I can't see any output from the code. This is very strange and I've tested in on other VMs and got the exact same behavior.

[LiquidityC]

I you're app isn't event printing: "SDL_GetNumDisplayModes: %d"... then there must be something going wrong a lot earlier in the process.

[masoudr]

@LiquidityC I don't get your point. Actually, it is not my app, and I just took it from an example in the docs. BTW, I'm pursuing the issue because I'm using the PJSIP library, and it uses SDL to show the output window, so it didn't show any output window, and I realized it is a problem with SDL.

[LiquidityC]

Is anything being printed in the console when you run the code? I see there's a printf line. Is that printing?

[flibitijibibo]

What happens if you move UpdateWindowSurface to the inside of the loop, after polling events?

[masoudr]

@LiquidityC yes the program runs just fine without any errors, and I get SDL_GetNumDisplayModes: 1 in the output. @flibitijibibo I moved the SDL_FillRect and SDL_UpdateWindowSurface inside the loop and got the same result.

[LiquidityC]

I'm no expert in VMWare. Since nothing is obviously breaking you'll have to investigate further and see if you can figure out what the issue could be I guess. Perhaps your window doesn't get any dimensions etc.

If you run this code you should get some more info:

#include "SDL_video.h"
#include <stdio.h>
#include <SDL.h>
#include <stdbool.h>

int main(void)
{
    if (SDL_InitSubSystem(SDL_INIT_EVERYTHING) < 0)
        SDL_Log("SDL fails to initialize! %s\n", SDL_GetError());

    int num_drivers = SDL_GetNumVideoDrivers();
    printf("Number of drivers: %d\n", num_drivers);
    for (int i = 0; i < num_drivers; i++)
        printf("Driver name: %s\n", SDL_GetVideoDriver(i));

    int num_displays = SDL_GetNumVideoDisplays();
    printf("Number of displays: %d\n", num_displays);
    for (int d = 0; d < num_displays; d++) {
        int num_modes = SDL_GetNumDisplayModes(d);
        printf("Display %d, modes: %d", d, num_modes);
        for (int m = 0; m < num_modes; m++) {
            SDL_DisplayMode mode;
            SDL_GetDisplayMode(d, m, &mode);
            printf("\tMode(%d) format: %d, %dx%d %dHz\n", m, mode.format, mode.w, mode.h, mode.refresh_rate);
        }
    }

    SDL_Window *window = SDL_CreateWindow("SDL Tutorial", SDL_WINDOWPOS_CENTERED, SDL_WINDOWPOS_CENTERED, 640, 480, SDL_WINDOW_SHOWN);
    if (!window) {
        printf("Failed to create window: %s\n", SDL_GetError());
    }

    int w, h;
    SDL_GetWindowSize(window, &w, &h);
    printf("Window dimensions: %dx%d\n", w, h);

    bool quit = false;
    SDL_Event e;
    while (!quit) {
        while (SDL_PollEvent(&e)) {
            if (e.type == SDL_QUIT) {
                quit = true;
            }
        }
    }

    SDL_DestroyWindow(window);

    return 0;
}

[masoudr]

@LiquidityC Thanks, I ran the code and here is the output. It seems fine.

Number of drivers: 3
Driver name: offscreen
Driver name: dummy
Driver name: evdev
Number of displays: 1
Display 0, modes: 1 Mode(0) format: 0, 0x0 0Hz
Window dimensions: 640x480

[LiquidityC]

I don't think it seems fine.

None of the listed drivers looks like a viable graphics driver and the only display doesn't provide a pixel format, dimension or a refresh rate.

I'd guess this is because of vmware. Perhaps there is an alternate virtualization method you could try for your sdl development? Virtual box?

[icculus]

This is often because SDL was built incorrectly, so it failed to build the X11 (or Wayland) backend.

Make sure the appropriate development packages are installed or SDL won't include support for those targets!

[masoudr]

@LiquidityC I will give VirtualBox a try. @icculus Can you be more specific about how I should build it? I just followed the default configuration without specifying any details. I also installed all the dependencies mentioned for Ubuntu 18.04. Is there any test command for the build process so I can make sure it's built properly?

[slouken]

Can you attach the output of configure or cmake so we can see what happened during configuration?

[LiquidityC]

Oh. I didn't realize this was locally built. I thought it was the lib that ships in apt.

[masoudr]

@slouken Here is the output of configure command: BTW, I'm using the SDL2 branch:

git clone https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL.git -b SDL2

~/Desktop/SDL/SDL/build$ ../configure 
checking build system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking how to print strings... printf
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking for suffix of executables... 
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to enable C11 features... none needed
checking for a sed that does not truncate output... /bin/sed
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /bin/grep
checking for egrep... /bin/grep -E
checking for fgrep... /bin/grep -F
checking for ld used by gcc... /usr/bin/ld
checking if the linker (/usr/bin/ld) is GNU ld... yes
checking for BSD- or MS-compatible name lister (nm)... /usr/bin/nm -B
checking the name lister (/usr/bin/nm -B) interface... BSD nm
checking whether ln -s works... yes
checking the maximum length of command line arguments... 1572864
checking how to convert x86_64-pc-linux-gnu file names to x86_64-pc-linux-gnu format... func_convert_file_noop
checking how to convert x86_64-pc-linux-gnu file names to toolchain format... func_convert_file_noop
checking for /usr/bin/ld option to reload object files... -r
checking for objdump... objdump
checking how to recognize dependent libraries... pass_all
checking for dlltool... no
checking how to associate runtime and link libraries... printf %s\n
checking for ar... ar
checking for archiver @FILE support... @
checking for strip... strip
checking for ranlib... ranlib
checking for gawk... gawk
checking command to parse /usr/bin/nm -B output from gcc object... ok
checking for sysroot... no
checking for a working dd... /bin/dd
checking how to truncate binary pipes... /bin/dd bs=4096 count=1
checking for mt... mt
checking if mt is a manifest tool... no
checking for stdio.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking for dlfcn.h... yes
checking for objdir... .libs
checking if gcc supports -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions... no
checking for gcc option to produce PIC... -fPIC -DPIC
checking if gcc PIC flag -fPIC -DPIC works... yes
checking if gcc static flag -static works... yes
checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... yes
checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... (cached) yes
checking whether the gcc linker (/usr/bin/ld -m elf_x86_64) supports shared libraries... yes
checking whether -lc should be explicitly linked in... no
checking dynamic linker characteristics... GNU/Linux ld.so
checking how to hardcode library paths into programs... immediate
checking whether stripping libraries is possible... yes
checking if libtool supports shared libraries... yes
checking whether to build shared libraries... yes
checking whether to build static libraries... yes
checking for windres... no
checking for gawk... (cached) gawk
checking for gcc... (cached) gcc
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C... (cached) yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... (cached) yes
checking for gcc option to enable C11 features... (cached) none needed
checking for g++... g++
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C++... yes
checking whether g++ accepts -g... yes
checking for g++ option to enable C++11 features... none needed
checking how to run the C++ preprocessor... g++ -E
checking for ld used by g++... /usr/bin/ld -m elf_x86_64
checking if the linker (/usr/bin/ld -m elf_x86_64) is GNU ld... yes
checking whether the g++ linker (/usr/bin/ld -m elf_x86_64) supports shared libraries... yes
checking for g++ option to produce PIC... -fPIC -DPIC
checking if g++ PIC flag -fPIC -DPIC works... yes
checking if g++ static flag -static works... yes
checking if g++ supports -c -o file.o... yes
checking if g++ supports -c -o file.o... (cached) yes
checking whether the g++ linker (/usr/bin/ld -m elf_x86_64) supports shared libraries... yes
checking dynamic linker characteristics... (cached) GNU/Linux ld.so
checking how to hardcode library paths into programs... immediate
checking for egrep... (cached) /bin/grep -E
checking for fgrep... (cached) /bin/grep -F
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking pkg-config is at least version 0.9.0... yes
checking for gsort... no
checking for sort... sort
checking for special C compiler options needed for large files... no
checking for _FILE_OFFSET_BITS value needed for large files... no
checking for an ANSI C-conforming const... yes
checking for inline... inline
checking for working volatile... yes
checking for GCC -MMD -MT option... yes
checking for linker option --no-undefined... yes
checking for linker option --dynamicbase... no
checking for linker option --nxcompat... no
checking for linker option --high-entropy-va... no
checking for sys/types.h... (cached) yes
checking for stdio.h... (cached) yes
checking for stdlib.h... (cached) yes
checking for stddef.h... yes
checking for stdarg.h... yes
checking for malloc.h... yes
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checking for string.h... (cached) yes
checking for strings.h... (cached) yes
checking for wchar.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... (cached) yes
checking for stdint.h... (cached) yes
checking for limits.h... yes
checking for ctype.h... yes
checking for math.h... yes
checking for float.h... yes
checking for iconv.h... yes
checking for signal.h... yes
checking for linux/input.h... yes
checking for size_t... yes
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking for M_PI in math.h... yes
checking for working alloca.h... yes
checking for alloca... yes
checking for mprotect... yes
checking for malloc... yes
checking for calloc... yes
checking for realloc... yes
checking for free... yes
checking for getenv... yes
checking for setenv... yes
checking for putenv... yes
checking for unsetenv... yes
checking for bsearch... yes
checking for qsort... yes
checking for abs... yes
checking for bcopy... yes
checking for memset... yes
checking for memcmp... yes
checking for memcpy... yes
checking for memmove... yes
checking for wcslen... yes
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checking for nanosleep... yes
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checking for sysctlbyname... no
checking for getauxval... yes
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checking for poll... yes
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checking for cos... yes
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checking for exp... yes
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checking for fabs... yes
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checking for floor... yes
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checking for log... yes
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checking for pow... yes
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checking for scalbn... yes
checking for scalbnf... yes
checking for sin... yes
checking for sinf... yes
checking for sqrt... yes
checking for sqrtf... yes
checking for tan... yes
checking for tanf... yes
checking for iconv_open in -liconv... no
checking for iconv... yes
checking for struct sigaction.sa_sigaction... yes
checking for libunwind.h... no
checking for GCC builtin atomic operations... yes
checking for GCC -mmmx option... yes
checking for GCC -m3dnow option... yes
checking for GCC -msse option... yes
checking for GCC -msse2 option... yes
checking for GCC -msse3 option... yes
checking for immintrin.h... yes
checking for Altivec with GCC altivec.h and -maltivec option... no
checking for Altivec with GCC -maltivec option... no
checking for Altivec with GCC altivec.h and -faltivec option... no
checking for Altivec with GCC -faltivec option... no
checking for GCC -mlsx option... no
checking for lsxintrin.h... no
checking for GCC -mlasx option... no
checking for lasxintrin.h... no
checking for GCC -Wall option... yes
checking for necessary GCC -Wno-multichar option... no
checking for GCC -fno-strict-aliasing option... yes
checking for GCC -fvisibility=hidden option... yes
checking for GCC -Wdeclaration-after-statement option... yes
checking for dlfcn.h... (cached) yes
checking for dlopen in -lc... no
checking for dlopen in -ldl... yes
checking for dlopen... yes
checking for O_CLOEXEC... yes
checking for OSS audio support... yes
checking for ALSA CFLAGS... 
checking for ALSA LDFLAGS...  -lasound -lm -ldl -lpthread
checking for libasound headers version >= 1.0.11... found.
checking for snd_ctl_open in -lasound... yes
-- dynamic libasound -> libasound.so.2
checking for libpipewire-0.3 >= 0.3.20... no
checking for libpulse-simple >= 0.9... yes
-- dynamic libpulse-simple -> libpulse-simple.so.0
checking for jack >= 0.125... yes
-- dynamic libjack -> libjack.so.0
checking for artsc-config... no
checking for esound >= 0.2.8... no
checking for esd-config... no
checking for ESD - version >= 0.2.8... no
checking for audio/audiolib.h... yes
checking for AuOpenServer in -laudio... yes
checking for NAS audio support... yes
-- dynamic libaudio -> libaudio.so.2
checking for sndio... no
checking for samplerate.h... yes
-- dynamic libsamplerate -> libsamplerate.so.0
checking for bcm_host brcmegl... no
checking for Raspberry Pi 2/3... no
checking for X... libraries , headers 
checking for gethostbyname... yes
checking for connect... yes
checking for remove... yes
checking for shmat... yes
checking for IceConnectionNumber in -lICE... yes
checking for X11/extensions/Xext.h... yes
-- dynamic libX11 -> libX11.so.6
-- dynamic libX11ext -> libXext.so.6
checking for XGenericEvent... yes
checking for XkbKeycodeToKeysym in -lX11... yes
checking for X11/Xcursor/Xcursor.h... yes
-- dynamic libXcursor -> libXcursor.so.1
checking for X11/extensions/Xdbe.h... yes
checking for X11/extensions/XInput2.h... yes
-- dynamic libXi -> libXi.so.6
checking for xinput2 multitouch... yes
checking for X11/extensions/Xfixes.h... yes
-- dynamic libXfixes -> libXfixes.so.3
-- dynamic libXrandr -> libXrandr.so.2
checking for X11/extensions/scrnsaver.h... yes
-- dynamic libXss -> libXss.so.1
checking for X11/extensions/shape.h... yes
checking for EGL support... yes
checking for libdrm >= 1.4.82... yes
checking for gbm >= 11.1.0... yes
checking for kmsdrm dynamic loading support... yes
-- dynamic libdrm -> libdrm.so.2
-- dynamic libgbm -> libgbm.so.1
checking for GLX support... yes
checking for OpenGL headers... yes
checking for OpenGL ES v1 headers... no
checking for OpenGL ES v2 headers... yes
checking for Wayland support... no
checking for Linux 2.4 unified input interface... yes
checking for libudev.h... yes
-- dynamic udev -> libudev.so.1
checking for dbus-1... yes
checking for dbus/dbus.h... yes
checking for sys/inotify.h... yes
checking for inotify_init... yes
checking for inotify_init1... yes
checking for ibus-1.0... yes
checking for ibus-1.0/ibus.h... yes
checking for fcitx support... yes
checking for Linux kd.h... yes
checking for hidapi joystick support... yes
checking for pthreads... yes
checking for recursive mutexes... yes
checking for pthread semaphores... yes
checking for sem_timedwait... yes
checking for pthread_np.h... no
checking for pthread_setname_np... yes
checking for pthread_set_name_np... no
checking for clock_gettime in -lrt... yes
checking for linux/version.h... yes
checking for Vivante VDK API... no
checking for Vivante FB API... no
checking whether to install sdl2-config... yes
checking for linker option --enable-new-dtags... yes
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating sdl2-config
config.status: creating sdl2-config.cmake
config.status: creating sdl2-config-version.cmake
config.status: creating SDL2.spec
config.status: creating sdl2.pc
config.status: creating include/SDL_config.h
config.status: executing libtool commands
config.status: executing sdl2_config commands
config.status: executing summary commands
SDL2 Configure Summary:
Building Shared Libraries
Building Static Libraries
Enabled modules : atomic audio video render events joystick haptic hidapi sensor power filesystem threads timers file misc locale loadso cpuinfo assembly
Assembly Math   : mmx 3dnow sse sse2 sse3
Audio drivers   : disk dummy oss alsa(dynamic) pulse(dynamic) jack(dynamic) nas(dynamic)
Video drivers   : dummy offscreen x11(dynamic) kmsdrm(dynamic) opengl opengl_es2 vulkan
X11 libraries   : xcursor xdbe xinput2 xinput2_multitouch xfixes xrandr xscrnsaver xshape
Input drivers   : linuxev linuxkd
Enable virtual joystick APIs : YES
Using libsamplerate : YES
Using libudev       : YES
Using dbus          : YES
Using ime           : YES
Using ibus          : YES
Using fcitx         : YES

[LiquidityC]

This is probably the issue then as @icculus mentioned:

checking for Wayland support... no

Ubuntu 18.04 should default to Wayland, you can confirm with echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE.

I think it's the package libwayland-dev you need. You can check if it's installed with dpkg -l | grep libwayland-dev and install it with sudo apt install libwayland-dev

Edit: As a clarification as to why you didn't get any errors I'm guessing is because SDL chose the offscreen renderer as your default. So your window is rendering but inside a buffer and never actually to a real display. I'm not very knowledgeable with this particular renderer.

[masoudr]

@LiquidityC I have the libwayland-dev, and I don't know why the configuration doesn't pick it up.

rahimi@ubuntu:~/Desktop/SDL/SDL/build$ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
x11
rahimi@ubuntu:~/Desktop/SDL/SDL/build$ dpkg -l | grep libwayland-dev
ii  libwayland-dev:amd64                       1.16.0-1ubuntu1.1~18.04.4                       amd64        wayland compositor infrastructure - development files
rahimi@ubuntu:~/Desktop/SDL/SDL/build$ sudo apt install libwayland-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
libwayland-dev is already the newest version (1.16.0-1ubuntu1.1~18.04.4).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

[Kontrabant]

Wayland has other dependencies as well: libxkbcommon-dev and libegl1-mesa-dev. I see EGL support in that log, so the latter is there, is xkbcommon installed?

[masoudr]

@Kontrabant yes, both of them are already installed.

rahimi@ubuntu:~/Desktop/SDL/SDL/build$ sudo apt install -y libxkbcommon-dev libegl1-mesa-dev
[sudo] password for rahimi: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
libegl1-mesa-dev is already the newest version (20.0.8-0ubuntu1~18.04.1).
libxkbcommon-dev is already the newest version (0.8.2-1~ubuntu18.04.1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

[Kontrabant]

Ah, I see now. Ubuntu 18.04 ships libwayland 1.16, while SDL wants 1.18 at minimum, so that’s why it’s failing.

[masoudr]

@Kontrabant Thanks. I updated to Ubuntu 20 along with libwayland and the problem got solved. P.S. The latest version doesn't work on Ubuntu 18.04, so the documentation should be updated or maybe explicitly specify to upgrade libwayland to 1.18.