Startup

Blender

There are some common causes for problems when using Blender. If you cannot find a solution to your problem here, try asking the community for help.

If Blender crashes on startup there are a few things to check for:

• See if your computer meets the minimum requirements.
• Confirm that your graphics card is supported and that the drivers support at least OpenGL 2.1.
• Make sure you are using the correct Blender version (32 or 64 bit) for your architecture.

Known causes listed below.

Python

If you get an error on startup like:

Fatal Python error: Py_Initialize: unable to load the file system codec

you may have set your system’s PYTHONPATH environment variable.

In this case, Blender’s bundled Python will attempt to use the PYTHONPATH. If the Python version is different from the version used by Blender, this will crash Blender on startup.

To solve the problem, either clear the PYTHONPATH before starting Blender (can also be done with a launcher script), or set it to a compatible Python version.