--disable-gpu to the Obsidian shortcut Target field. This fixes a blank screen in 9 out of 10 cases.Obsidian opens but shows only a white or black screen? The cause is almost always GPU acceleration. Here are five fixes ordered from fastest to most thorough.
Obsidian is built on Electron (the same framework as VS Code and Slack). Electron uses GPU hardware acceleration to render the UI. On certain graphics cards, drivers, or display configurations this rendering pipeline fails silently — resulting in a completely blank white or black window.
The most common cause. Particularly affects older NVIDIA cards, Intel integrated graphics, and machines using display adapters over Remote Desktop.
Non-standard DPI scaling (125%, 150%, 175%) can break Electron's rendering pipeline on certain hardware combinations.
A damaged GPU shader cache from a previous session can prevent the renderer from initialising on next launch.
Fastest fix. Works for blank screen caused by GPU driver conflicts.
Windows: Right-click Obsidian shortcut → Properties → add --disable-gpu to the end of the Target field → OK → relaunch. macOS: open Terminal and run open -a Obsidian --args --disable-gpu. If this fixes the blank screen, keep the flag permanently.
Clears a corrupted rendering cache without uninstalling anything.
Windows: Press Win+R → type %appdata%\Obsidian → delete the GPUCache folder → relaunch Obsidian. macOS: delete ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/GPUCache.
Fixes blank screen caused by DPI scaling conflicts.
Windows: Right-click Desktop → Display Settings → Scale → set to 100% → sign out and back in → relaunch Obsidian. If it works, gradually increase scaling until you find the maximum that works.
Outdated GPU drivers are a less common but confirmed cause.
NVIDIA: open GeForce Experience → Drivers tab → Check for Updates. AMD: open AMD Software → update. Intel: use Device Manager → Display adapters → Update driver → Search automatically.
If all else fails, a clean reinstall replaces any corrupted app files.
Your vault and notes are stored separately and will not be affected. See our safe reinstall guide.