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Obsidian Black or White Screen on Startup

Workaround available Windows, macOS, Linux Updated October 21, 2026

Quick answer

A blank black, white or garbled window is almost always a GPU rendering problem in Obsidian's Electron shell, often after a graphics driver update. Turning off hardware acceleration and updating the installer fixes most cases.

Most likely fix: Turn off hardware acceleration.

Symptoms

Obsidian opens to an empty black or white window, shows garbled colored lines, or goes white after waking the computer from sleep.

Why it happens

  • GPU hardware acceleration conflicts (often after AMD/NVIDIA driver updates)
  • Outdated installer missing the hardware acceleration setting
  • Corrupted app files from an old update
  • Display bugs after suspend/resume

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

  1. 1. Turn off hardware acceleration

    1. If the window renders at all, go to Settings > About (Advanced section) and turn off 'Hardware acceleration'
    2. Restart Obsidian

  2. 2. Update or roll back the GPU driver

    1. If the problem started right after a driver update, install the newest driver or roll back to the previous one

  3. 3. Reinstall the latest Obsidian installer

    1. Download the installer from obsidian.md and reinstall - your vaults are separate and won't be deleted

  4. 4. Restart or minimize/restore

    1. For white screens after sleep, minimizing and restoring or restarting Obsidian brings the window back

This guide also covers

  • obsidian black screen
  • obsidian white screen
  • obsidian blank screen on startup
  • obsidian hardware acceleration

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