R help - Nov 2025 - rgl on MacOS Tahoe is not working

To all rgl users on MacOS:

I've had several reports that rgl's X11 windows don't work on MacOS 
Tahoe.  From a limited amount of research, this looks like something 
that will not be easily fixed.  It will require changes to Tahoe or 
XQuartz, and neither of those look likely at this time.

You can still use the WebGL display, where your scenes are displayed by 
running rglwidget().  This can be set to happen automatically by setting 
the options

   options(rgl.useNULL = TRUE, rgl.printRglwidget = TRUE)

The rglwidget() display is not quite as friendly as the X11 display, but 
it's the best you will get for now at least.  If you have a choice, I'd 
suggest avoiding the update to MacOS Tahoe.

Right now I'm trying to see if I can reinstall Sequoia...

Duncan Murdoch

Thanks for the heads up. I usually delay updating a bit unless I hear of a
particularly nasty threat in the wild.

? 
David
Sent from my iPhone
> On Nov 8, 2025, at 5:54?PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at
gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ?To all rgl users on MacOS:
> 
> I've had several reports that rgl's X11 windows don't work on
MacOS Tahoe.  From a limited amount of research, this looks like something that
will not be easily fixed.  It will require changes to Tahoe or XQuartz, and
neither of those look likely at this time.
> 
> You can still use the WebGL display, where your scenes are displayed by
running rglwidget().  This can be set to happen automatically by setting the
options
> 
>  options(rgl.useNULL = TRUE, rgl.printRglwidget = TRUE)
> 
> The rglwidget() display is not quite as friendly as the X11 display, but
it's the best you will get for now at least.  If you have a choice, I'd
suggest avoiding the update to MacOS Tahoe.
> 
> Right now I'm trying to see if I can reinstall Sequoia...
> 
> Duncan Murdoch
> 
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