To display 3D content in real-time, Sketchfab relies on WebGL, which is a standard rendering library in most modern browsers. You can check if your browser is compatible on https://get.webgl.org/
For more technical details about WebGL on your machine, visit WebGL Report.
Desktop
Sketchfab is compatible with all modern browsers, including:
- Mozilla Firefox
- Google Chrome
- Opera
- Safari
- Edge
- Any other Chromium-based browser
Go to Safari → Preferences → Advanced and check Show Develop menu in menu bar. Go to Develop → Enable WebGL.
Mobile
- iOS 8+
- Android 4.0+
Troubleshooting
WebGL
On older browsers or devices with WebGL disabled, models are displayed with an image-based fallback that gives a 360° turntable view of the model.
If you run into problems, make sure your graphics driver and browser are up-to-date. If that doesn’t help, try one of the other browsers listed above. https://get.webgl.org/ is a good place to start troubleshooting.
Sometimes, your browser may disable WebGL based on your GPU. If you are using a compatible browser, but you see an incompatible warning or the viewer performs very badly, try forcing the browser to use your GPU:
Chrome
-
- Go to System Settings ( chrome://settings/ → Advanced → System ) and make sure Use hardware acceleration when available is enabled.
- Go to chrome://flags/#ignore-gpu-blacklist and enable the Override software rendering list flag.
If you go to WebGL Report and see "SwiftShader" listed as the renderer, the steps above should solve the problem.
Firefox
Type about:config into the address bar and enable webgl.force-enabled.
Touch Screens / Tablets
Sometimes, navigating a model may not work on a touch screen or tablet device. This is especially common on certain Windows 10 devices. In Chrome, for example, visit chrome://flags/#touch-events and enable the "Touch Events API" flag.
Scripts and Cookies
In order to load correctly, the viewer needs to run various JavaScript scripts. It also needs access to browser cookies for various purposes such as respecting Sound volume and Restricted Content settings. If script execution or cookies are blocked by browser settings, plugins, sandboxing the Sketchfab iframe, or other methods, the viewer will not load. If you must sandbox the iframe for some reason, you must also lift several restrictions to make sure all viewer features work as expected:
- allow-scripts (needed to load the frame whatsoever)
- allow-same-origin (needed to allow the frame to communicate with our servers)
- allow-popups (needed for links within the frame to work)
- allow-forms (needed if the model is password-protected so that you can enter the password)
You will want your iframe HTML code to look something like this (note the sandbox attribute).
<iframe sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-forms" frameborder="0" width="xxx" height="xxx" src="https://sketchfab.com/models/xxxxxxxx/embed"></iframe>
You can also remove the sandbox attribute completely if possible.
<iframe frameborder="0" width="xxx" height="xxx" src="https://sketchfab.com/models/xxxxxxxx/embed"></iframe>
WordPress Users
Sketchfab must be added as 'Trusted oEmbed Provider', otherwise WordPress will automatically add sandbox restrictions to Sketchfab iframes.
Adding the following line to a plugin or functions.php in the theme directory solves that:
wp_oembed_add_provider( '#https?://sketchfab\.com/.*#i', 'https://www.sketchfab.com/oembed', true );
It is also added by the JetPack plugin and the Sketchfab oEmbed plugin.
Comments
166 comments
Hi, on Chrome I get an error when viewing this model: https://sketchfab.com/models/86a7f98951f047ff848510537de4a677
On Internet Explorer the model won't load.
The error is: 3D/WebGL context error: Your browser seems to have hit its 3D capability limit. The page needs to be reloaded to fix this.
If the problems persists, you can try to close other tabs with 3D/WebGL or restart your browser entirely.
However, in Edge the model seems to work fine. Is there something I can do to make the model work in Chrome as well? Do I need to decimate the model more..
@wnslw - Hmm, weird. Can you go to http://chrome://flags/#ignore-gpu-blacklist and enabled the "Override software rendering list" flag?
I'm having serious issues getting ANYTHING to load on some earlier android devices like an S4 running 4.4.4. I'm getting the WebGL error with sketchfab even on test models of 167 faces.
I know it's not my browser because A) the webGL tests all check out and B) I've tried 4 different browsers and C) Marmoset viewer is loading just fine on the same device.
This is going to be a problem for me as it now means my client will have to re-direct their mobile site to static content instead of the sketchfab model.
OK, there is something really wrong. I can't even load a cube- a six sided cube, no textures etc. on the S4 with Sketchfab. Again...other webGL apps are working fine.
I also answered on the forum ( https://forum.sketchfab.com/t/sketchfab-web-gl-failing-on-some-android-devices/13685 ). I think it's related to Android 4, so maybe this article needs to be updated. Can you upgrade to 6 or 7?
Fixed it! I checked on Edge and everything was fine so it was Chrome, so I did all these steps:
Glad you got it working!
I just want to post a short addentum here: On Chrome, for unsupported configurations (such as my RX480 on Ubuntu 17.04 with amdgpu), you can actually toggle a pair of Chrome flags to force hardware rendering on, so you won't have to deal with massive slowdowns on models.
Step 1: Go to http://chrome://flags
Step 2: Enable the "Override software rendering list"
Step 3: Hit Ctrl+F, this will bring up a find line. Type "3D software rasterizer" here.
Step 4: Disable it.
Step 5: Restart chrome.
Step 6: Enjoy lag-free Sketchfab on your non-Windows platform.
@CheetahPixie Nice, thanks!
I don't know if this is the correct place to mention this or not but on this model:
https://sketchfab.com/models/a4bf4a90cde848c59b5d3c85e24c6943
A second after loading it stops looking correct and goes all glitchy. I could take a screen shot of it if needed.
Using latest NVidia drivers, Windows 7 and GTX1070 card so hardly obscure old video card...
@geogan Hmm, what browser? Do you see the same thing in other browsers?
@James In Firefox latest versions 55+. I didn't try other browsers. I'll try this evening.
@James Strange, but there doesn't appear to be any glitching today. Don't know - maybe its because I am using the latest beta 56.xxx of Firefox now instead of release 55 version.
Hmm ok, thanks!
Error on IE11. In tested version console have profile and profileEnd function but they don't have the bind method and the script fails there.
IE 11 v 11.0.960.18638
verioni aggiornamento: 11.0.41 (KB4014661)
File: viewer-81b2a50fa8cc6e3a30c9.js, riga: 1, colonna: 17050
SCRIPT438: L'oggetto non supporta la proprietà o il metodo 'bind'
L'oggetto non supporta la proprietà o il metodo 'bind'
s.profile=(o.a.console.profile||function(){}).bind(o.a.console)
The next instruction is for profileEnd, I tested the the console.profileEnd.bind end it's undefined too.
Browsing the 3d from your official site all 3d works so I think it's just that error that terminate the script excecution and don't go any further and the 3d never start.
@lysz210 - This is on model pages? I could not reproduce this on IE 11 v 11.64.xxxx. Can you make sure IE is up-to-date? What operating system are you using?
Hi,
I'm running chrome, latest version, with a GeForce GTX 950, running the latest drivers (388.31 at the time of writing this), and the WebGL is working correctly as I can see the cube on the test page. Despite this, I'm still getting incompatibility notices and basic 360 pics when trying to view models. It makes assessing assets on the Unity asset store a lot harder :)
I'm running Windows 10, up to date, if that's important.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!
@James, I checked again and it's something related to the debug mode, if I open with devTools opened the viewer freeze in the point where I show in my last comment.
If the devTools are closed there isn't any error, I was implementing the viewer on a website and I always have devTools opened. If devTools are open now freeze all the sketchfab viewer, Now that I know this, it's not a problem for the website because it's unlikely that a user will ever open the devTools.
In my IE version of devTools typeof(console.profile) === 'object', console.profile.bind === undefined, console.profile.toString() == function profile() { [native code] }
I don't tryed but I think instead of using bind a proxy function can be created to do the same task s.profile = o.a.console.profile ? function (profileName) { return o.a.console.profile(profileName); } : (function () {}).bind(o.a.console). This should do the same as s.profile=(o.a.console.profile||function(){}).bind(o.a.console).
sorry it's unrelated but I would like to unsubcribe from this thread and I don't find the button/link
@takeko you can click "Unfollow" at the bottom of the article, above the comments, and you can manage all article subscriptions here: https://help.sketchfab.com/hc/en-us/subscriptions
thanks a lot, I was looking at the bottom of the page ~
@espiongerbil
Have you tried enabling the two flags?
chrome://flags/#ignore-gpu-blacklist
chrome://flags/#enable-webgl-draft-extensions
@lysz210 Thanks for the details! I'll pass that on to our developers.
@James
Hi. Yeah, I enabled both those flags and it still doesn't work.
Hmm ok. Can you please post a screenshot of this report? http://webglreport.com/
Does it work in other browsers?
@James
Screenshot here: https://imgur.com/a/hluxJ
Mildly confused as to why it says the platform is Win32? I'm not amazingly technical when it comes to computers so maybe I'm misunderstanding it but I'm definitely running 64bit Windows.
Thanks. Does it work in other browsers? Can you make sure your graphics card drivers are up to date?
A-ha, yes! It works in Internet Explorer. Sorry, I managed to get distracted yesterday and forgot to try it. It'd be nice if it worked in Chrome, but this works so that's good enough for now. Thanks!
Hmm, maybe it will be fixed in the next version of Chrome :\
Really odd. It worked for me in the past and it worked for me a week or so ago, but periodically, the 3d viewer doesn't seem to work.
Even though I enabled the GPU blacklist thing, no success.
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