Main window is black when starting Spyder over ssh/X11

Issue Report Checklist

• Searched the issues page for similar reports
• Read the relevant sections of the Spyder Troubleshooting Guide and followed its advice
• Reproduced the issue after updating with conda update spyder (or pip, if not using Anaconda)
• [n/a] Could not reproduce inside jupyter qtconsole (if console-related)
• Tried basic troubleshooting (if a bug/error)
  • Restarted Spyder
  • Reset preferences with spyder --reset
  • Reinstalled the latest version of Anaconda
  • Tried the other applicable steps from the Troubleshooting Guide
• Completed the Problem Description, Steps to Reproduce and Version sections below

Problem Description

I’m attempting to use Spyder on a remote Linux server by SSH and X11 forwarding (Windows 10, PuTTY, VcXsrv).

Launch spyder (% spyder), splash screen appears, and spyder windows is black and unusable. Only windows title bar exists to close it.

and PuTTY terminal displays following:

% spyder
QQuickWidget: Failed to make context current
QQuickWidget::resizeEvent() no OpenGL context
QQuickWidget: Failed to make context current
QQuickWidget: Failed to make context current
QQuickWidget::resizeEvent() no OpenGL context
QQuickWidget: Failed to make context current
QQuickWidget: Attempted to render scene with no context
QQuickWidget: Attempted to render scene with no context
composeAndFlush: makeCurrent() failed

Believe issue is related to Qt/PyQt (5.9.4/5.9.2) versions. Since same 3.3.0 version of Spyder, but older Qt/PyQt (5.6.2/5.6) will work. More details below.

May be somewhat related to #7152 and #6968

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. conda create -n a52spy33 anaconda=5.2
2. conda activate a52spy33
3. conda install spyder=3.3.0
4. From Windows PC using PuTTY ssh to Linux host (VcXsrv for X11), and launch spyder (% spyder)
5. Splash screen appears, and spyder windows is black (only windows title bar exists)

Spyder 3.2.8 bundled with Anaconda 5.2 also has same problem

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

Splash screen appears, and then normal spyder app window. Instead, splash screen appears, and spyder app window is all black.

Versions

• Spyder version: 3.3.0
• Python version: 3.6.5
• Qt version: 5.9.4
• PyQt version: 5.9.2
• Operating System name/version: openSUSE Leap 42.3

Dependencies

(Able to provide from a local Linux login session, not over ssh/X11)

IPython >=4.0     :  6.4.0 (OK)
cython >=0.21     :  0.28.2 (OK)
jedi >=0.9.0      :  0.12.0 (OK)
matplotlib >=2.0.0:  2.2.2 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0   :  5.3.1 (OK)
numpy >=1.7       :  1.14.3 (OK)
pandas >=0.13.1   :  0.23.0 (OK)
psutil >=0.3      :  5.4.5 (OK)
pycodestyle >=2.3 :  2.4.0 (OK)
pyflakes >=0.6.0  :  1.6.0 (OK)
pygments >=2.0    :  2.2.0 (OK)
pylint >=0.25     :  1.8.4 (OK)
qtconsole >=4.2.0 :  4.3.1 (OK)
rope >=0.9.4      :  0.10.7 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6    :  1.7.4 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3     :  1.1.1 (OK)

Versions that worked

Installing spyder from conda-forge uses older Qt/PyQt versions that work: conda create -n spycf -c conda-forge spyder=3.3.0 python=3.6

• Spyder version: 3.3.0
• Python version: 3.6.5
• Qt version: 5.6.2
• PyQt version: 5.6
• Operating System name/version: openSUSE Leap 42.3

conda create -n spy328cf -c conda-forge spyder=3.2.8 python=3.6

• Spyder version: 3.2.8
• Python version: 3.6.5
• Qt version: 5.6.2
• PyQt version: 5.6
• Operating System name/version: openSUSE Leap 42.3

[ccordoba12]

Ok, thanks a lot for this pointer. We’ll try to use the same options in Spyder.

[ccordoba12]

These are great news! Thanks @bscipio for digging deep into this one.

I’ll prepare a new PR to fix this.