Unable to open Xschem or KLayout

[gfcwfzkm]

Describe the bug
Attempting to open Xschem or KLayout results in an error message in the terminal.

Launching start_x.sh returns the following text:

❯ ./start_x.sh
[INFO] Design directory auto-set to /home/gfcwfzkm/eda/designs.
[INFO] Auto detected Linux.
[INFO] Assuming Wayland Socket /run/user/1000/wayland-0.
[INFO] Wayland Socket exists, forwarding...
./start_x.sh: line 185: /tmp/.iic-osic-tools_xserver_uid_1000_xauthority: Is a directory
xauth:  /tmp/.iic-osic-tools_xserver_uid_1000_xauthority not writable, changes will be ignored
xauth:  /tmp/.iic-osic-tools_xserver_uid_1000_xauthority not writable, changes ignored
[INFO] /dev/dri detected, forwarding GPU for graphics acceleration.
[WARNING] Container iic-osic-tools_xserver_uid_1000 exists.
[HINT] It can also be restarted with "docker start iic-osic-tools_xserver_uid_1000" or removed with "docker rm iic-osic-tools_xserver_uid_1000" if required.

Press "s" to start, and "r" to remove: s
iic-osic-tools_xserver_uid_1000

..which opens up a new terminal window in the docker environment. Trying to open xschem gives the following messages:

/foss/designs > xschem
Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified


   X server connection failed, although DISPLAY shell variable is set.
   A possible reason is that the X server is not running or DISPLAY shell variable
   is incorrectly set.
   Starting Xschem in text only mode.

Using run time directory XSCHEM_SHAREDIR = /foss/tools/xschem/share/xschem
Sourcing /foss/tools/xschem/share/xschem/xschemrc init file
Sourcing /headless/.xschem/xschemrc init file
SG13G2_MODELS: /foss/pdks/ihp-sg13g2/libs.tech/ngspice/models
SG13G2_MODELS_XYCE: /foss/pdks/ihp-sg13g2/libs.tech/xyce/models
xschem [/foss/designs]

... and for KLayout:

/foss/designs > klayout
Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified

Info: Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found.
Fatal: This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

Available platform plugins are: eglfs, linuxfb, minimal, minimalegl, offscreen, vnc, wayland-egl, wayland, wayland-xcomposite-egl, wayland-xcomposite-glx, xcb.

Aborted (core dumped)
/foss/designs > 

Environment:

• OS: CachyOS (Arch-based Linux)
• WM: KWin (KDE) (Wayland)
• Operating mode: X11
• Version tag: Current release

Is this some sort of Wayland-related issue? I'd be happy for any help or pointers to the right direction, thank you!

[hpretl]

@gfcwfzkm Can you please do a

echo $IIC_OSIC_TOOLS_VERSION

and report the result?

Have you tried to update your startup scripts by doing a

git pull

and does it help?

[gfcwfzkm]

The result of that echo is 2025.11 and I attempted to perform a git pull, but it didn't pull any new changes.

Even something simple like creating a text file within the container in vi and saving+quiting it, results in the message

Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified

Trying to run the container using distrobox and executing xschem there does open the GUI without errors, but it seems like all the nessesary PDK variables are not set there. Opening an existing design in that distrobox environment results in a lot of missing symbols in xschem sadly.

I don't have podman installed, so I assume distrobox is using docker just like the start_x.sh script would, but I don't know what distrobox does different to enable the GUI.

[gfcwfzkm]

After digging around at the reported issues of other programs with a similar error message, I found an issue post from vscode.

or run xhost +local:docker in the host which is less secure IMO

Attempting this mentioned workaround from said post seem to do the trick here as well, as Xschem and KLayout open and behave as expected. Not sure if this could be integrated into the scripts here but it might be worth to note down in some FAQ or Troubleshooting section.