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ranidspace

Member

Registered: 2026-01-18

Posts: 2

Unable to launch vulkan from terminal, incorrect VK_ICD_FILENAMES

I am on a computer with only one GPU, which is a Radeon, however I used to have a Nvidia card, which I suspect is the issue.
Launching vkcube, I get:

VkEnumerateInstanceExtensionProperties failed to find the VK_KHR_surface instance extension.

This indicates that no compatible Vulkan installable client driver (ICD) is present or that the system is not configured to present to the screen.

and vulkaninfo gives

ERROR: [Loader Message] Code 0 : loader_get_json: Failed to open JSON file /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.json
ERROR: [Loader Message] Code 0 : vkCreateInstance: Found no drivers!
Cannot create Vulkan instance.
This problem is often caused by a faulty installation of the Vulkan driver or attempting to use a GPU that does not support Vulkan.
ERROR at /usr/src/debug/vulkan-tools/Vulkan-Tools/vulkaninfo/./vulkaninfo.h:573:vkCreateInstance failed with ERROR_INCOMPATIBLE_DRIVER

I found out that the VK_ICD_FILENAMES environment variable is set to a file which doesn't exist

/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.json

The following runs perfectly fine

VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json vkcube

Oddly, running Blender with vulkan from an application launcher (rofi) works fine, but blender from the terminal doesn't, including launching the same .desktop file with gtk-launch.

Other than linux-firmware-nvidia which I can't get rid of, I don't have any nvidia packages, and searching for vulkan gives

lib32-vulkan-icd-loader 1.4.335.0-1
lib32-vulkan-mesa-implicit-layers 1:25.3.3-5
lib32-vulkan-radeon 1:25.3.3-5
vulkan-headers 1:1.4.335.0-2
vulkan-icd-loader 1.4.335.0-1.1
vulkan-mesa-implicit-layers 1:25.3.3-5
vulkan-radeon 1:25.3.3-5
vulkan-tools 1.4.335.0-1.1

It doesn't appear to be any options in my shell, and running it without any configuration gives the same result. What could the issue be?

Last edited by ranidspace (2026-01-18 03:15:11)

ranidspace

Member

Registered: 2026-01-18

Posts: 2

Re: Unable to launch vulkan from terminal, incorrect VK_ICD_FILENAMES

I might be cooked. It was in my zshrc. removed the line and it works fine. I don't even know why I even set that in the first place.