Skip to content
Draw My Tree
Start free

Troubleshooting

Fixes for common problems. If yours isn't covered here, contact us at contact@drawmytree.com and we'll help.

The tree feels slow or laggy

The interactive tree is drawn on your computer's graphics hardware. That is usually fast, but one setup can slow it down: laptops with two graphics chips, a power-saving integrated GPU and a faster dedicated one (common on machines with NVIDIA or AMD graphics).

Some browsers don't pick the fast chip on their own. Firefox in particular stays on the integrated GPU even when a page asks for the faster one, so the same tree can feel smooth in Chrome and sluggish in Firefox on the same laptop. You notice it most when panning and zooming a large tree.

To point your browser at the dedicated GPU on Windows:

  1. Open Settings → System → Display → Graphics.
  2. Choose Browse, and add your browser's program (for example firefox.exe, usually in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox).
  3. Select it, choose Options, pick High performance, and save.
  4. Fully close and reopen the browser.

Chrome and Edge usually select the fast GPU automatically, so this mainly helps Firefox. On macOS the system handles GPU switching for you, so there's nothing to change.

If the tree is still slow, check two more things:

  • Hardware acceleration should be on in your browser's settings. With it off, the browser draws the tree in software, which feels heavy, or the tree shows the WebGL notice below.
  • Graphics drivers that are badly out of date can force that same slow fallback; updating them often helps.

Very large trees take more work to draw. Zooming out automatically switches to simplified cards to keep things responsive, so if a full-detail view is heavy, zoom out a little.

The tree is blank or says "This device doesn't support WebGL"

The interactive tree needs WebGL, a standard graphics feature every current browser supports. The notice reads: "This device doesn't support WebGL, which the interactive family tree requires. Exports and data tools still work." It usually means hardware acceleration is turned off, your graphics drivers need an update, or the browser is out of date. Turning acceleration back on, updating drivers, or updating the browser resolves it.

Until then you can still save the tree from Export as an image or PDF, print it, and download your data. With no tree on screen, a picture always takes the whole tree, since there's no view to crop to with What's on screen.

Last updated October 27, 2026 by Prescott Bros LLC, the makers of Draw My Tree.