[captainkrypto]

Hey all,

I've recently done a clean install of Snow Leopard using Netbook Installer .8.2 on my Mini 10v. I am having a very strange problem that google has failed to help me with. In iPhoto 09 when I click on a thumbnail to edit a picture nothing happens... just nothing. A similar thing happens when I try to open an image in Preview except I just get a gray window where the image should be. I've tried several pictures from various sources and varying sizes with the same results. I checked the console window and get the same error for both iPhoto and Preview. Here is the error from the console:

...
9/23/09 1:02:50 PM    Preview[211]    invalid pixel format
9/23/09 1:02:50 PM    Preview[211]    invalid context
...

These errors are repeated in the Console window many times (100's).

I am at a loss as far as where to even start trouble shooting this.

• Is anyone else experiencing this?
• Is this an issue with the video drivers? Screen resolution?
• Is there something I should re-install? (short of OSX)

I've have already tried fixing permissions and re-installing the 10v extensions.

Thanks for any input you can provide.

[captainkrypto]

To follow up on my own question, I had a few ideas about the problem. I was thinking that maybe it has to do with the graphics driver. I wanted to try a few things, but had some more questions. Perhaps someone can help with these questions:

• Is there a way to re-install the graphics driver? I'm thinking that perhaps something may be corrupted or "out of whack".

• How can I change the color depth from 32-bit to 16 or 24 bit? I know I should at least get better video performance with this change, but I was hoping that it might also fix the "invalid pixel format" problem as well.

• Is there another "version" of the gma 950 driver that I could install?

I am not even sure that the graphics drivers are the issue, but I figure its a place to start troubleshooting...

Thanks for any suggestions!

[captainkrypto]

I'm still researching this and have yet to find a solution.

I did find this relevant post on the apple site where they were able to fix a problem very similar to mine with the following:

pressing the command, option, O, F keys during restart - I typed:
reset-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all

Through further research, I understand that Hackintoshes do not use NVRAM, nor PRAM.

Can someone verify that this is true?

Is there something that I can do that would be equivalent to the solution above?

[Bear Hunter]

I have to assume that this is not normal since no one has chimed in. Have you tried a clean reinstall?

[captainkrypto]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I guess no one on this board is running into this problem, so it sounds like it might be something I did/installed that is causing it. I started the posting on here because I thought it might be specific to the non-apple hardware that we are all using.

As far as re-installing, I was trying to avoid that since I just recently did a clean install and spent some time setting everything up "just so". I was hoping I could find a solution, or it would just fix itself in the next update...

Suggestions, or even theories on what might be the cause are still welcome

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree, but 'invalid pixel format' sounds like it would be graphics related

[captainkrypto]

I figured I would post back for posterity sake because I was able to solve this issue. It turns out that the issue was in fact related to the graphics drivers. For some reason, hardware acceleration was disabled (or corrupted, or somehow mucked up in general). Snow Leopard does not tell you if hardware acceleration (QE/CI) is enabled in the System Profiler, but if you suspect that you have issues related to hardware acceleration you can quickly check by typing the following into a command window:

glxinfo | grep 'direct rendering'

and if all is well, you should see:

direct rendering: yes

If you see 'no' or nothing at all, then your hardware acceleration is most likely disabled or broken.

I didn't know how to enable hardware acceleration or fix the graphics drivers, so I just went with the quick and dirty method of a system re-install. I didn't format the disk so everything as far as installed programs and settings was left pretty much intact.

My Snow Leopard install is now humming along quite nicely

I hope this helps someone else.

[nathug]

Hi there,

I'm having the same problem after upgrading to SL using the new Netbook Installer. After typing in your code I get the following. What am I going to do?

nathan-hughess-vostro-a90-2:~ nathanhughes$ glxinfo | grep 'direct rendering'
Sun Oct 18 13:41:48 nathan-hughess-vostro-a90-2.local glxinfo[738] <Error>: unknown error code: invalid pixel format
Sun Oct 18 13:41:48 nathan-hughess-vostro-a90-2.local glxinfo[738] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
X Error of failed request: GLXBadContext
Major opcode of failed request: 0 ()
Serial number of failed request: 16
Current serial number in output stream: 16
nathan-hughess-vostro-a90-2:~ nathanhughes$

[DMBryant]

I think another easy check to see if graphics acceleration is enabled or not is to look at the menu bar and check if it is translucent or not. If it's not then I dont think the graphics drivers are installed properly. I had this problem with running NBI 0.8.3 the first time. I just re-ran NBI until the menu bar was translucent again

[nathug]

Originally Posted by DMBryant

I think another easy check to see if graphics acceleration is enabled or not is to look at the menu bar and check if it is translucent or not. If it's not then I dont think the graphics drivers are installed properly. I had this problem with running NBI 0.8.3 the first time. I just re-ran NBI until the menu bar was translucent again

Worked great, many thanks

Nate

[SolMunition]

I've been having the same problem - so from the looks of it, I'm gonna have to re-install Snow Leopard? Grrr.,.,but it has to be done...