# VTK with Xvfb

**URL:** https://discourse.vtk.org/t/vtk-with-xvfb/15843
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** python
**Created:** [July 18, 2025, 8:11pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/vtk-with-xvfb/15843 "2025-07-18T20:11:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![bfosso](https://discourse.vtk.org/user_avatar/discourse.vtk.org/bfosso/32/10142_2.png) [@bfosso](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/bfosso)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2025, 8:11pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/vtk-with-xvfb/15843/1 "2025-07-18T20:11:18Z")

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Hi All,

I have been making figures with VTK in a Docker container via Xvfb for a while now with no complaints. However, I recently updated the container dependencies and found that things no longer work with vtk==9.5.0.

For instance, trying to capture the screen yields fails with the following message `XIO: fatal IO error 2 (No such file or directory) on X server ":1504187063" after 19 requests (19 known processed) with 0 events remaining.`

I have the same issue on 9.4.2. Going back to 9.4.1 resolves the issue.

I can provide more details as needed. I would like to know if anyone else has had this issue.

Thanks!  
-Brandon

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### Author: ![mwestphal](https://discourse.vtk.org/user_avatar/discourse.vtk.org/mwestphal/32/19_2.png) [@mwestphal](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2025, 8:23am UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/vtk-with-xvfb/15843/2 "2025-07-21T08:23:46Z")

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I’m using Xvfb + VTK without issues here.

FYI @jaswantp

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### Author: ![bfosso](https://discourse.vtk.org/user_avatar/discourse.vtk.org/bfosso/32/10142_2.png) [@bfosso](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/bfosso)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2025, 4:21pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/vtk-with-xvfb/15843/3 "2025-07-23T16:21:04Z")

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@mwestphal I appreciate the response. Are you using `vtk==9.5.0`?

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### Author: ![mwestphal](https://discourse.vtk.org/user_avatar/discourse.vtk.org/mwestphal/32/19_2.png) [@mwestphal](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2025, 4:22pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/vtk-with-xvfb/15843/4 "2025-07-23T16:22:30Z")

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Yes

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### Author: ![dgobbi](https://discourse.vtk.org/user_avatar/discourse.vtk.org/dgobbi/32/18_2.png) [@dgobbi](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/dgobbi)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2025, 4:56pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/vtk-with-xvfb/15843/5 "2025-07-23T16:56:49Z")

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I only know of one X11 change that occurred between 9.4.1 and 9.4.2, which is [!11985](https://gitlab.kitware.com/vtk/vtk/-/merge_requests/11985/diffs). Though I don’t see why it would cause any problems for Xvfb.

@bfosso, if you’re using Python, can you do a trace (e.g. python3 -m trace someprogram.py) to find out what VTK method is called immediately before the error occurs?