[SOLVED] Blank screen while installing

[Wandering Mist]

Hi all, first time using Proxmox and first time posting on these forums.

I'm trying to install Proxmox VE 8.1 on a newly-built system and every time I get a blank screen after selecting what kind of installer to use (graphical/terminal/etc)

My system specs are:

ASRock B760 Pro RS/D4 motherboard
Intel Core i5 12400
32GB DDR4@3200mhz
Samsung 970 EVO Plus nvme drive (250GB)

I've confirmed that the hardware all works because I successfully installed Windows 10 on it. My installation media also works fine because It works perfectly fine on my laptop.

I've tried using debug mode and there's nothing in the initial debug logs to suggest any errors, but as soon as I press Ctrl+D to continue the screen goes blank again.

Any ideas for how to troubleshoot this further?

EDIT: When selecting the graphical install, there is a bit of text on the screen, bunch of stuff I don't recognise that ends with the line:

waiting for /dev to be fully populated...

Then the screen immediately goes blank.

EDIT 2: Following some article on the subject I changed the boot menu to use "nomodeset" which got me a bit further. Now I get down to "trying to detect country...", then I get this line:
Warning: something wrong at /usr/share/perl5/proxmox/Install/RunEnv.pm line 302
Starting the installer GUI
Installation aborted - unable to continue

 

[cheiss]

Hi,

do have any graphics card installed? Or is it just the iGPU of the processor?

Samsung 970 EVO Plus nvme drive (250GB)

Also, just a word of advice: You won't have fun (very long) with this disk. This is a pretty average consumer SSDs, which will get degrade very fast and fail in a rather short time.

Following some article on the subject I changed the boot menu to use "nomodeset" which got me a bit further.

Seems the GPU drivers for processor are just a bit funky now. That's why we have the terminal UI and nomodeset option documented.

Anyway, seems in the end the country detection fails without any actual error. Is a network cable connected? If yes, could you physically disconnect it, try again and see if that fixes it? A few users had a similar problem in the past, which should be fixed with the 8.1-2 installer tho.

You can also try installing stock Debian 12 and then installing Proxmox VE on top of that, which is also possible.

 

[Wandering Mist]

Hi,

do have any graphics card installed? Or is it just the iGPU of the processor?


Also, just a word of advice: You won't have fun (very long) with this disk. This is a pretty average consumer SSDs, which will get degrade very fast and fail in a rather short time.


Seems the GPU drivers for processor are just a bit funky now. That's why we have the terminal UI and nomodeset option documented.

Anyway, seems in the end the country detection fails without any actual error. Is a network cable connected? If yes, could you physically disconnect it, try again and see if that fixes it? A few users had a similar problem in the past, which should be fixed with the 8.1-2 installer tho.

You can also try installing stock Debian 12 and then installing Proxmox VE on top of that, which is also possible.

Thanks for the reply. No, I don't have any graphics card installed.

Just tried doing the install whilst disconnected from internet, and ran into the same problem.

Going through the error logs (ctrl + alt + f2) I get the following:
fatal server error :
Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices

I have no idea what that means (sorry, I'm very new to all of this).

EDIT: I'm using the most up to date bios version, all default settings except for secure boot, which is disabled.

 

[cheiss]

Going through the error logs (ctrl + alt + f2) I get the following:
fatal server error :
Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices

Yeah, that really just means you need nomodeset due to some incompatibilities with the graphics driver.

Just tried doing the install whilst disconnected from internet, and ran into the same problem.

Did you also try again with nomodeset on the Terminal UI? Just to be sure.
(As per our guide here: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pv...ss_monospaced_nomodeset_span_kernel_parameter)

That should get you at least to the Terminal UI Installer, which performs the exact same as the graphical one. Unfortunately such things are rather hard to debug, as you probably can see.

There might be also some log files (depending on the installer stage) at /tmp/*.log. You can check for the on the interactive terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F3).

 

[Wandering Mist]

Yeah, that really just means you need nomodeset due to some incompatibilities with the graphics driver.


Did you also try again with nomodeset on the Terminal UI? Just to be sure.
(As per our guide here: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pv...ss_monospaced_nomodeset_span_kernel_parameter)

That should get you at least to the Terminal UI Installer, which performs the exact same as the graphical one. Unfortunately such things are rather hard to debug, as you probably can see.

There might be also some log files (depending on the installer stage) at /tmp/*.log. You can check for the on the interactive terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F3).

Ahh!

Ok, setting nomodeset in the terminal install got me to the installation. I've installed it now, but when I try to access the IP address I set up the connection times out. Is there a way to check the proxmox installation is set up correctly without the browser interface?

 

[cheiss]

Ok, setting nomodeset in the terminal install got me to the installation.

Great to hear it worked now!

Is there a way to check the proxmox installation is set up correctly without the browser interface?

Generally, a ping <ip-of-pve-node> is a good indicator whether all the basic networking works. Next you can also try SSH like ssh root@<ip-of-pve-node>, with the root password you set in the installer.

If the latter worked, can you post the output of ip a and systemctl status pveproxy?

Regarding the web interface, did you try to access https://<ip-of-pve-node>:8006? Please note the HTTPS protocol and the port 8006.
What browser/client did you try to use?

 

[Wandering Mist]

Great to hear it worked now!


Generally, a ping <ip-of-pve-node> is a good indicator whether all the basic networking works. Next you can also try SSH like ssh root@<ip-of-pve-node>, with the root password you set in the installer.

If the latter worked, can you post the output of ip a and systemctl status pveproxy?

Regarding the web interface, did you try to access https://<ip-of-pve-node>:8006? Please note the HTTPS protocol and the port 8006.
What browser/client did you try to use?

The IP address I chose was 10.0.0.215

doing the command
ping 10.0.0.215
Gets the request timed out 4 times in a row.

Doing the command
ssh root@10.0.0.215
returns the message "ssh: connect to host 10.0.0.215 port 22: Connection timed out"
The address I'm putting into the web browser (google chrome) is https://10.0.0.215:8006/ and this gets timed out too.

Both my server and PC I'm trying to ping from are connected via Ethernet to the same router.

EDIT: Realised that my router had given my server an IP address that was completely different to what I tried to set it to initially. Did a reinstall with updated IP address and everything seems to be working!

Going to mark this as solved, but thanks so much for helping a newbie out cheiss.