~$ idl<br />IDL Version 8.5.1, Mac OS X (darwin x86_64 m64).
(c) 2015, Exelis Visual Information Solutions, Inc., a subsidiary of Harris
Corporation.

IDL> xloadct
Error: attempt to add non-widget child "dsm" to parent "idl" which supports
only widgets

sudo mv /opt/X11/lib/libXt.6.dylib{,.bak}
sudo cp /opt/X11/lib{/flat_namespace,}/libXt.6.dylib

29 Responses to “Problems with XQuartz 2.7.11 on macOS”

1. Marc P says:
   November 22nd, 2016 at 6:23 pm

   Thank you very much! Your solution worked for me as well.

   For me, the error occurred when using a CW_FORM, and the message was “Error: Unresolved inheritance operation”.

2. Bernie says:
   December 1st, 2016 at 10:35 am

   Thank you. This worked for me as well. I blindly (knowingly) to 2.7.11 and IDL8.4/.5 would not launch.

3. Alfred says:
   December 8th, 2016 at 10:18 am

   See also:

   http://www.harrisgeospatial.com/Support/HelpArticlesDetail/TabId/219/ArtMID/900/ArticleID/14944/XQuartz-2710-is-Not-Compatible-with-ENVI-531-and-IDL-851.aspx

   Slightly different solution to the same issue.

4. Mark says:
   December 22nd, 2016 at 11:36 am

   I had this problem when launching xdvi. Your solution works well! Thank you so much!!

5. Fabiano Morelli says:
   February 9th, 2017 at 9:26 am

   Hello all,
   I use that two commands and may envi 4.8 return to work.
   thanks

6. Xavier says:
   February 21st, 2017 at 12:17 pm

   Thanks, those commands worked just fine!

7. Philo says:
   March 13th, 2017 at 9:44 am

   Hello. I am new to MAC OS. So if someone can tell me where I should type in both commands (xterm or terminal), I will be really appreciative.
   Thanks.

8. Michael Galloy says:
   March 13th, 2017 at 12:54 pm

   Any local terminal should fine just fine. The easiest is the Terminal application.

9. Philo says:
   March 16th, 2017 at 4:22 am

   Thank you Michael Galloy. Just another silly question: what’s the version of your IDL and MACOS Sierra? I upgraded my MAC to the os version 10.12.2, can I install idl on my OS? If so, Which version of IDL is the lowest requirement? Thanks!

10. Michael Galloy says:
    March 16th, 2017 at 10:45 am

    I’m on the latest version 10.12.3, but probably was on 10.12.2 when I first did this command. My IDL was 8.5.1. I don’t know the IDL versions that are supported on 10.12.2. How far are you looking to go back? I would guess that IDL 8+ should be fine. If you have problems with graphical installer, try the Unix-Mac installer. Often the installer will be the limiting factor and, once installed, IDL will work fine.

11. YC says:
    March 17th, 2017 at 2:17 pm

    Thanks! That fixed one of my problems.

    Does anyone have an idea on how to speed up the X11 response? I had the same widget running on a Linux and OS X Mavericks. It worked fine. But after upgrading to macOS Sierra, the only way I can make the widget to have a satisfactory response rate is to set the color output to 256, which breaks the colors.

12. MB says:
    March 22nd, 2017 at 1:32 pm

    Thank you Michael, this just saved my life.. or at least my observing proposal!

13. Frank Varosi says:
    April 14th, 2017 at 1:55 am

    Thanks for finding the simple fix to run idl with xquartz, but how did you find it out ?

14. Michael Galloy says:
    April 14th, 2017 at 10:37 am

    @Frank: Another Mac user at NCAR/HAO ran into this problem and our IT person found this solution, I believe other X11 applications were having this same problem.

15. Matthew Cordes says:
    April 19th, 2017 at 11:25 am

    Thank you so much!

16. Siddhartha P Sarma says:
    April 24th, 2017 at 8:54 am

    Thank you very, very much.

17. oops. says:
    April 24th, 2017 at 12:03 pm

    This created a different, worse issue for me as now IDL will not load at all.

    dyld: Library not loaded: /opt/X11/lib/libXt.6.dylib
    Referenced from: /Applications/exelis/idl85/bin/bin.darwin.x86_64/libidl.8.5.dylib
    Reason: no suitable image found.  Did find:
      /opt/X11/lib/libXt.6.dylib: open() failed with errno=13
    Abort
    

18. Michael Galloy says:
    April 24th, 2017 at 3:28 pm

    If you need to back out of this, do:

    sudo mv /opt/X11/lib/libXt.6.dylib{.bak,}
    

19. Amelia says:
    June 22nd, 2017 at 4:00 am

    Hi Michael,
    This was a great fix for me (Sierra 10.12.5) IDL 8.2.

    Thanks for posting!

20. Bugday says:
    July 4th, 2017 at 6:59 am

    Hey guys, I have got a problem with XQuartz 2.7.11 and Sierra (latest).

    If I ssh -X to a server via terminal, I can launch xeyes (but without animation of the iris) but I can not launch any other x-app or generally no application with ./”appname”. Help is appreciated!

21. Chris says:
    August 25th, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    I just wanted to confirm that this fix also works for XOP 2.4 (ESRF/APS X-ray program that uses IDL for calculations). Same error was produced on launch in XOP window, and this allows the program to be run. Copy/paste of above commands into Terminal fixes things. Thanks Michael.

22. George N White III says:
    February 9th, 2018 at 9:10 am

    Replacing the default libXt.6.dylib with the flat namespace version may cause problems in other applications that use X11. A less risky workaround is to copy the flat namespace version of the library to <IDL dir>/bin/bin.darwin.x86_64 where it will be used by IDL.

23. Alan says:
    March 5th, 2018 at 9:08 am

    Hello There.
    I am a neophyte with Mac.
    Have a Mac Air.(High Sierra-10.13.3)
    I was trying run graphical programs remotely from a Linux server, using
    XQuartz.
    I m getting an error – Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM warning: Max heap size too large for Compressed Oops.

    I also tried using the -X argument.

    How do I solve it? What’s Missing here?
    Any suggestions.

24. Michael Galloy says:
    March 5th, 2018 at 10:35 am

    I haven’t had that error. I would try posting on the new IDL newsgroup.

25. Alan says:
    March 5th, 2018 at 1:09 pm

    Thank you, @Michael.I appreciate it.Waiting for your response.

26. Michael Galloy says:
    March 6th, 2018 at 9:19 am

    To clarify: I don’t have experience with that error. I recommend that you post in the new IDL newsgroup.

27. Florence Colleoni says:
    July 9th, 2018 at 4:07 am

    This also worked for me on High Sierra 10.13.5! Thank you!

28. RocketScientist says:
    September 3rd, 2018 at 9:29 am

    Brilliant!! Thank you

29. Mateus Angelo says:
    June 4th, 2020 at 6:04 pm

    In my case, the message “Error: Unresolved inheritance operation” appeared when I tried to run the ascii_template(‘file.dat’) command. Then I downgraded to Xquartz 2.7.9 version

    Thank you very very much!