Game crashes on startup with ShaderCompileException for OIT pipelines on AMD Radeon 530 (OpenGL 3.3)

Issue Report

Project: Minecraft: Java Edition

Issue Type: Bug

Summary:
Game crashes on startup with ShaderCompileException for OIT pipelines on AMD Radeon 530 (OpenGL 3.3)

Description:

Minecraft 26.3 Snapshot 5 crashes immediately during the initial resource reload on startup. The crash occurs on a system with an AMD Radeon 530 graphics card running OpenGL 3.3. The error originates from the new shader compilation system introduced in this snapshot, where shaders are now compiled by ShaderC when using OpenGL.

All Order-Independent Transparency (OIT) pipeline shaders fail to link with INVALID_OPERATION errors. The game cannot recover and crashes before reaching the main menu. This appears to be a compatibility issue between the new ShaderC-based shader compilation pipeline and older AMD OpenGL drivers/hardware.

Affected Version: 26.3 Snapshot 5 (26.3-snapshot-5)

Platform: Windows 10 (64-bit) with AMD Radeon(TM) 530 graphics

How to Reproduce:

1. Launch Minecraft Java Edition 26.3 Snapshot 5 using any launcher (PCL2, official launcher, etc.)

2. Wait for the game to initialize and start loading resources

3. Observe that the game crashes before reaching the main menu

Reproducibility: 100% — occurs on every launch attempt.

Observed Result:

The game crashes with the following error:

text

java.lang.RuntimeException: Failed to load required shader programs:
 - minecraft:pipeline/oit_accumulate_debug_points
 - minecraft:pipeline/oit_accumulate_text_see_through
 - minecraft:pipeline/oit_transmittance_text_background_see_through
 ... (all OIT pipeline shaders fail)
Caused by: com.mojang.renderpearl.util.ShaderCompileException: Error encountered when linking program...
Vertex link error: INVALID_OPERATION.
unexpected error.
fragment link error: INVALID_OPERATION.
unexpected error.

The crash report confirms the error occurs during shader linking in the rendering pipeline (ShaderManager.apply → PipelineCache.get → GlProgram.link), during the initial resource reload.

Crash Report: crash-2026-07-24_11.49.26-client.txt

Expected Result:

The game should successfully compile all shader programs and load to the main menu, as occurs on other hardware configurations with this snapshot.

System Details:

• Minecraft Version: 26.3 Snapshot 5 (26.3-snapshot-5)

• Operating System: Windows 10 (amd64) version 10.0

• Java Version: 25.0.1 (Microsoft OpenJDK 64-Bit)

• Graphics Card: AMD Radeon(TM) 530

• Graphics Drivers: 3.3.13521 Core Profile Forward-Compatible Context 24.20.11016.11001

• Graphics Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.

• OpenGL Version: 3.3

• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U CPU @ 2.50GHz (4 logical cores)

• Memory: 4GB DDR4 (3.5GB allocated to Minecraft)

• Launcher: PCL (PlainCraftLauncher) 2.13.0.1

Additional Context:

• The error affects all OIT (Order-Independent Transparency) pipeline shaders, suggesting a systemic issue with the ShaderC compilation pipeline on this hardware/driver combination

• The same hardware runs previous Minecraft versions (1.21.x, etc.) without this issue

• The INVALID_OPERATION error during shader linking typically indicates the shader uses OpenGL features not supported by the current driver

• Other AMD Radeon users may be affected by similar issues