Generic Solution when install gets FrameBuffer Mode Fails

MrPete

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Aug 6, 2021
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I was installing VE 7.2 on my brand new host box... first ran into black screen after install begins -- see separate thread on that.

Then, install failed, with the X server conking out before anything graphical happened. Here's the generic solution:

1) Hit ctrl-alt-F2 to see the error screen from the install (and ctrl-alt-F1 to get back to the console ;) )

My particular error was: Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices

2) (Most likely your video device is not being properly handled) Here's how to find it and force generic VGA support..

# lspci| grep -i vga

This should show the vga compatible display device. If not, just look at lspci. (If you see no device, look elsewhere for help. This thread won't do it.) For me, my nVidia card is 01:00.0


(NOTE for newbies: Linux/Unix cares about upper/lower case in filenames etc! Type everything exactly as shown.)

3) Create a driver description file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
Like this: (I called mine driver-nvidia.conf)

Code:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver "fbdev"
    BusID "pci0:01:0:0:"
EndSection

4) Then restart X
# xinit -- -dpi 96 >/dev/tty2 2>&1

A couple of blinks and the first install script was on my screen! (EULA accept box)
 
Last edited:
I was installing VE 7.2 on my brand new host box... first ran into black screen after install begins -- see separate thread on that.

Then, install failed, with the X server conking out before anything graphical happened. Here's the generic solution:

* hit ctrl-alt-F2 to see errors from the install (and ctrl-alt-F1 to get back to the console ;) )
* most likely your video device is not being properly handled.... here's how to find it and force generic VGA support..

# lspci| grep -i vga

This should show the vga compatible display device. If not, just look at lspci. (If you see no device, look elsewhere for help. This thread won't do it.)
For me, my nVidia card is 01:00.0

My particular error was: Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices

Create a driver description file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
Like this: (I called mine driver-nvidia.conf)

Code:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver "fbdev"
    BusID "pci0:01:0:0:"
EndSection

Then restart X
# xinit -- -dpi 96 >/dev/tty2 2>&1

A couple of blinks and the first install script was on screen! (EULA accept box)
Created an account just to thank you for this post! Very helpful.
 
Thank you for the solution.

I encountered another problem after the installation. Though I can boot into pve and the web interface works, the screen is fully black.
Press 'e' at advanced option and change quiet to nomodeset can show the screen.
So I suspect I need to create the driver again, but there's no xorg.conf.d folder under X11 folder. I created the folder and created the nvidia_driver.conf again. But the black screen still persists afterwards.
Could you help advise how may I fix this? Else I can only run PvE headless with Nvidia graphics card.
 
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Thank you for the solution.

I encountered another problem after the installation. Though I can boot into pve and the web interface works, the screen is fully black.
Press 'e' at advanced option and change quiet to nomodeset can show the screen.
So I suspect I need to create the driver again, but there's no xorg.conf.d folder under X11 folder. I created the folder and created the nvidia_driver.conf again. But the black screen still persists afterwards.
Could you help advise how may I fix this? Else I can only run PvE headless with Nvidia graphics card.
Maybe not what you're looking for, but I just added the nomodeset as default (edited /etc/default/grub and ran update-grub).
 
I was installing VE 7.2 on my brand new host box... first ran into black screen after install begins -- see separate thread on that.

Then, install failed, with the X server conking out before anything graphical happened. Here's the generic solution:

* hit ctrl-alt-F2 to see errors from the install (and ctrl-alt-F1 to get back to the console ;) )
* most likely your video device is not being properly handled.... here's how to find it and force generic VGA support..

# lspci| grep -i vga

This should show the vga compatible display device. If not, just look at lspci. (If you see no device, look elsewhere for help. This thread won't do it.)
For me, my nVidia card is 01:00.0

My particular error was: Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices

Create a driver description file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
Like this: (I called mine driver-nvidia.conf)

Code:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver "fbdev"
    BusID "pci0:01:0:0:"
EndSection

Then restart X
# xinit -- -dpi 96 >/dev/tty2 2>&1

A couple of blinks and the first install script was on screen! (EULA accept box)
This worked! I really appreciate the post...thank you!!
 
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Create a driver description file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
Like this: (I called mine driver-nvidia.conf)

Code:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver "fbdev"
    BusID "pci0:01:0:0:"
EndSection
Thank you so much for this solution. It helped me a lot today to install Proxmox 7.3-3.
Thank you very much! :)
 
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Reactions: Softlution
I was installing VE 7.2 on my brand new host box... first ran into black screen after install begins -- see separate thread on that.

Then, install failed, with the X server conking out before anything graphical happened. Here's the generic solution:

* hit ctrl-alt-F2 to see errors from the install (and ctrl-alt-F1 to get back to the console ;) )
* most likely your video device is not being properly handled.... here's how to find it and force generic VGA support..

# lspci| grep -i vga

This should show the vga compatible display device. If not, just look at lspci. (If you see no device, look elsewhere for help. This thread won't do it.)
For me, my nVidia card is 01:00.0

My particular error was: Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices

Create a driver description file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
Like this: (I called mine driver-nvidia.conf)

Code:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver "fbdev"
    BusID "pci0:01:0:0:"
EndSection

Then restart X
# xinit -- -dpi 96 >/dev/tty2 2>&1

A couple of blinks and the first install script was on screen! (EULA accept box)
Thanks dude ! this work with VE 7.3.1
 
  • Like
Reactions: Softlution
I was installing VE 7.2 on my brand new host box... first ran into black screen after install begins -- see separate thread on that.

Then, install failed, with the X server conking out before anything graphical happened. Here's the generic solution:

* hit ctrl-alt-F2 to see errors from the install (and ctrl-alt-F1 to get back to the console ;) )
* most likely your video device is not being properly handled.... here's how to find it and force generic VGA support..

# lspci| grep -i vga

This should show the vga compatible display device. If not, just look at lspci. (If you see no device, look elsewhere for help. This thread won't do it.)
For me, my nVidia card is 01:00.0

My particular error was: Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices

Create a driver description file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
Like this: (I called mine driver-nvidia.conf)

Code:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver "fbdev"
    BusID "pci0:01:0:0:"
EndSection

Then restart X
# xinit -- -dpi 96 >/dev/tty2 2>&1

A couple of blinks and the first install script was on screen! (EULA accept box)
Thank you so much. I made a new account just to say this.

I'm new to the Proxmox community, virtualization, and Linux beyond simple cli. I was struggling to find a solution to my problem until I came across this post, and it just goes to show that the community here is as special as what I was told (joined off of a recommendation).

For anyone without a dedicated GPU struggling with this error (init boot failed at installation wizard launch due to framebuffer mode error), this was the same solution I used for my i5 13600k iGPU. Just make sure to run the # lspci| grep -i vga to get the correct value for BusID (also don't forget to format correctly for the literal value).
 
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I was installing VE 7.2 on my brand new host box... first ran into black screen after install begins -- see separate thread on that.

Then, install failed, with the X server conking out before anything graphical happened. Here's the generic solution:

* hit ctrl-alt-F2 to see errors from the install (and ctrl-alt-F1 to get back to the console ;) )
* most likely your video device is not being properly handled.... here's how to find it and force generic VGA support..

# lspci| grep -i vga

This should show the vga compatible display device. If not, just look at lspci. (If you see no device, look elsewhere for help. This thread won't do it.)
For me, my nVidia card is 01:00.0

My particular error was: Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices

Create a driver description file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
Like this: (I called mine driver-nvidia.conf)

Code:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver "fbdev"
    BusID "pci0:01:0:0:"
EndSection

Then restart X
# xinit -- -dpi 96 >/dev/tty2 2>&1

A couple of blinks and the first install script was on screen! (EULA accept box)
I actually built a box to put proxmox on... I couldn't believe the irony of having a hypervisor installation fail because X wouldn't launch. This post saved the day -- much appreciated.
 
I was installing VE 7.2 on my brand new host box... first ran into black screen after install begins -- see separate thread on that.

Then, install failed, with the X server conking out before anything graphical happened. Here's the generic solution:

* hit ctrl-alt-F2 to see errors from the install (and ctrl-alt-F1 to get back to the console ;) )
* most likely your video device is not being properly handled.... here's how to find it and force generic VGA support..

# lspci| grep -i vga

This should show the vga compatible display device. If not, just look at lspci. (If you see no device, look elsewhere for help. This thread won't do it.)
For me, my nVidia card is 01:00.0

My particular error was: Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs for all framebuffer devices

Create a driver description file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
Like this: (I called mine driver-nvidia.conf)

Code:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver "fbdev"
    BusID "pci0:01:0:0:"
EndSection

Then restart X
# xinit -- -dpi 96 >/dev/tty2 2>&1

A couple of blinks and the first install script was on screen! (EULA accept box)
Hi, I'm having the same problem and this looks like the solution I need but I can't find the directory where to create the .conf file, I'm using windows 11 with i9 13900k processor and gforce rtx 4k series, do i create it from proxmox setup or do i need to do it from within windows, sorry for my lack of knowledge at the cmd prompt. thanks
 
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Reactions: Softlution
Create a driver description file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
Like this: (I called mine driver-nvidia.conf)

Code:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver "fbdev"
    BusID "pci0:01:0:0:"
EndSection

Then restart X
# xinit -- -dpi 96 >/dev/tty2 2>&1
Thanks for that solution. It does result in GUI and installation completes. However, once it does and informes it will reboot in few seconds, the GUI drops to command line. After that, ctrl+D reboots the machine, but the disk chosen for installation remains not bootable (I tried, ZFS, BTRFS and ETX4). So the end result is Proxmox still cannot be installed.
 
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Thanks a lot for your solution, and the details! I just want to add some detailed instructions, and provide another example of bus IDs, so maybe my example helps out someone:

I am using the brand new Hetzner EX 101 which includes a Intel® Core™ i9-13900, and tried to install Proxmox https://enterprise.proxmox.com/iso/proxmox-ve_7.3-1.iso (boot from USB) via a HTML KVM Client.

I got the same error message.

I had to enter lspci manually, because somehow couldn't grep VGA, so this is my VGA bus ID:

2.png

So in my case: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corportation Device a780 (rev 44)

Then I edited an existing X11 conf file like that: vi /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-quirks.conf and added the following text (remember: press i for switching to text mode in vi):

Code:
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver "fbdev"
    BusID "pci0:00:0:2:"
EndSection

(Adapt the BusID to your needs!)

After switching to command mode via ESC and saving the file with :wq, I ran xinit and the Proxmox setup started as usual. After the installation, enter exit to let the system reboot (apparently stuck in this shell it doesn't boot automatically).
 

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Hi, I'm having the same problem and this looks like the solution I need but I can't find the directory where to create the .conf file, I'm using windows 11 with i9 13900k processor and gforce rtx 4k series, do i create it from proxmox setup or do i need to do it from within windows, sorry for my lack of knowledge at the cmd prompt. thanks
You do it from the text mode shell prompt in the proxmox installer. If you don't have a "# " shell prompt, press Ctrl-C a couple of times. If you still can't get one:

Linux support multiple virtual terminals, basically independent screens that can all be doing different things. You switch between them with ctrl-alt-F#, where # is the number of the virtual terminal you want. In the proxmox installer, VT1 is the installer output, VT2 is the output of the X graphics server (so ctrl+alt+function key F2 will switch you to the error output of the graphics screen), ctrl-alt-F3 is another shell, etc.

Try ctrl-alt-F3 to get a shell. In there you can "cd" to the directory /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and edit the 10-quirks.conf file with the "vi" editor.
 
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You do it from the text mode shell prompt in the proxmox installer. If you don't have a "# " shell prompt, press Ctrl-C a couple of times. If you still can't get one:

Linux support multiple virtual terminals, basically independent screens that can all be doing different things. You switch between them with ctrl-alt-F#, where # is the number of the virtual terminal you want. In the proxmox installer, VT1 is the installer output, VT2 is the output of the X graphics server (so ctrl+alt+function key F2 will switch you to the error output of the graphics screen), ctrl-alt-F3 is another shell, etc.

Try ctrl-alt-F3 to get a shell. In there you can "cd" to the directory /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and edit the 10-quirks.conf file with the "vi" editor.
thank you for explaining in detail I got it up and running now, I'm just having trouble passing thru my GPU GeForce 4070 ti to the VM I created since I only have one computer
 
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Good evening all,

I am also having issues with the installation on my new BeeLink Mini S with the N100 processor. I have tried this method several times and I continue to get to a white quarter screen with root@proxmox:/# and my cursor. Things do not seem to be progressing in the same manner as yours has. Not sure what I am missing.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Mark
 
Good evening all,

I am also having issues with the installation on my new BeeLink Mini S with the N100 processor. I have tried this method several times and I continue to get to a white quarter screen with root@proxmox:/# and my cursor. Things do not seem to be progressing in the same manner as yours has. Not sure what I am missing.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Mark
I do have also a N100, a Beelink EQ12, for me worked the openingspost advice
(with nano i made the file "driver-intel.conf" with pci0:00:02:0 (the result from lspci) in my case)
 

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