Guest has not initialized display (yet)

[zappa]

I am trying to use SPICE on a windows 11 vm, but when ever I go over 128 MB of memory I get the following error: "Guest has not initialized display (yet)"
I would like at least 256 or 512 MB so that I can watch YouTube videos and have the audio be in sync with the video.

How can I fix this?

The machine I am running Proxmox VE on is an AMD 3950x, 16GB ram, RTX3060. (So I dont think that is the problem?)

 

[fiona]

Hi,
there is a bug report for this: https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/show_bug.cgi?id=3726

Changing machine type to i400fx seems to help, but Windows is very sensible to such things, so I'd first make a backup or snapshot before trying it out.

 

[zappa]

Hi,
there is a bug report for this: https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/show_bug.cgi?id=3726

Changing machine type to i400fx seems to help, but Windows is very sensible to such things, so I'd first make a backup or snapshot before trying it out.

Just tried that, but still the same issue, as soon as I go over 128 MB Video memory I get the "Guest has not initialized display (yet)" error message.

 

[zappa]

Is it at all possible to go over 128 MB or ram with SPICE?

I am surprised that more people dont want this, this is really something that should be fixed ASAP.

 

[fiona]

Just tried that, but still the same issue, as soon as I go over 128 MB Video memory I get the "Guest has not initialized display (yet)" error message.

From a quick test, it seems switching to i440fx only helps when SeaBIOS is used, but not with OVMF.

 

[zappa]

From a quick test, it seems switching to i440fx only helps when SeaBIOS is used, but not with OVMF.

Okay, so just to confirm, I need SeaBIOS and i440fx in order to be able to use more then 128 MB or GPU memory?

Are there any disadvantages of changing to SeaBIOS or i440fx when running Windows 11 pro? Performance hits or otherwise?

 

[zappa]

Okay, so just to confirm, I need SeaBIOS and i440fx in order to be able to use more then 128 MB or GPU memory?

Are there any disadvantages of changing to SeaBIOS or i440fx when running Windows 11 pro? Performance hits or otherwise?

I tried creating a new VM with SeaBIOS, i440fx and installing Win11 Pro, changing to SPICE 256mb, again, guest has not initialized display (yet)

So that didnt work.

 

[zappa]

I tried creating a new VM with SeaBIOS, i440fx and installing Win11 Pro, changing to SPICE 256mb, again, guest has not initialized display (yet)

So that didnt work.

Any other ideas? Or do we just wait for the bug to be fixed?

 

[fiona]

Any other ideas? Or do we just wait for the bug to be fixed?

There is a similar issue with memory hotplug. If you are using that, you can try disabling it. Unfortunately, AFAIK nobody had time yet to look into the issue more closely.

 

[Moonwalk1059]

just to chime in on this:

i have the exact same issue. i need a dual monitor setup and thats worse in that sense as i can only use 64MB per "monitor" (2 * 64 = 128) and that makes it rather slow.

if it helps, this is my vm config:

balloon: 0
bios: ovmf
boot: order=sata0;ide2;net0
cores: 8
cpu: host
efidisk0: local-lvm:vm-100-disk-0,efitype=4m,pre-enrolled-keys=1,size=4M
ide2: local:iso/virtio-win-0.1.229.iso,media=cdrom,size=522284K
machine: pc-i440fx-7.2
memory: 24576
meta: creation-qemu=7.2.0,ctime=1687097175
name: charts
net0: virtio=<snip>,bridge=vmbr0
numa: 0
onboot: 1
ostype: win11
sata0: local-lvm:vm-100-disk-1,size=256G
scsihw: virtio-scsi-single
smbios1: uuid=<snip>
sockets: 1
tpmstate0: local-lvm:vm-100-disk-2,size=4M,version=v2.0
vga: qxl2,memory=64
vmgenid: <snip>

it doesnt matter what i choose for machine type or bios or machine version, the result is always the same:

as soon as i add another MB to the vga memory it freezes at Guest has not initialized display (yet)

any help is very much appreciated.

 

[fiona]

Hi,

just to chime in on this:

i have the exact same issue. i need a dual monitor setup and thats worse in that sense as i can only use 64MB per "monitor" (2 * 64 = 128) and that makes it rather slow.

if it helps, this is my vm config:

balloon: 0
bios: ovmf
boot: order=sata0;ide2;net0
cores: 8
cpu: host
efidisk0: local-lvm:vm-100-disk-0,efitype=4m,pre-enrolled-keys=1,size=4M
ide2: local:iso/virtio-win-0.1.229.iso,media=cdrom,size=522284K
machine: pc-i440fx-7.2
memory: 24576
meta: creation-qemu=7.2.0,ctime=1687097175
name: charts
net0: virtio=<snip>,bridge=vmbr0
numa: 0
onboot: 1
ostype: win11
sata0: local-lvm:vm-100-disk-1,size=256G
scsihw: virtio-scsi-single
smbios1: uuid=<snip>
sockets: 1
tpmstate0: local-lvm:vm-100-disk-2,size=4M,version=v2.0
vga: qxl2,memory=64
vmgenid: <snip>

it doesnt matter what i choose for machine type or bios or machine version, the result is always the same:

as soon as i add another MB to the vga memory it freezes at Guest has not initialized display (yet)

any help is very much appreciated.

maybe you have more luck with using VirGL GPU or VirtIO-GPU as the display: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-qm.html#qm_display

 

[Moonwalk1059]

maybe you have more luck with using VirGL GPU or VirtIO-GPU as the display: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-qm.html#qm_display

Hi Fiona,

thank you for this. i tried those but couldnt find a setting to add a 2nd monitor to any of the two. did i miss something?

thanks!

 

[fiona]

Hi Fiona,

thank you for this. i tried those but couldnt find a setting to add a 2nd monitor to any of the two. did i miss something?

thanks!

Oh, sorry, I missed that. There is a max_outputs property for virtio-vga too, like for qxl, but it's not exposed in Proxmox VE yet.

Feel free to open a feature request on our bugtracker: https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/

If you'd like to try it directly (feedback if the below change would already be enough is welcome), you can use (with the ID of your VM instead of 123):

qm showcmd 123 --pretty > start-vm.sh

change the option

--- a/start-vm.sh
+++ b/start-vm.sh
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
   -device 'vmgenid,guid=1cd86c7c-2ab2-4e10-a2be-59ad8668f516' \
   -device 'piix3-usb-uhci,id=uhci,bus=pci.0,addr=0x1.0x2' \
   -device 'usb-tablet,id=tablet,bus=uhci.0,port=1' \
-  -device 'virtio-vga,id=vga,bus=pci.0,addr=0x2' \
+  -device 'virtio-vga,id=vga,bus=pci.0,addr=0x2,max_outputs=2' \
   -device 'virtio-serial,id=spice,bus=pci.0,addr=0x9' \
   -chardev 'spicevmc,id=vdagent,name=vdagent' \
   -device 'virtserialport,chardev=vdagent,name=com.redhat.spice.0' \

and then run it directly with

chmod +x ./start-vm.sh
./start-vm.sh

Of course the command in the start-vm.sh script will not get updated by changes to the VM configuration and starting the VM via UI or qm will not see the max_outputs change.

 

[Moonwalk1059]

thank you, @fiona , this looks very promising. will check it out and report back!

 

[Kav91]

Hi @fiona , that solution also gets limited by having a 512MB memory max so you can't get that good performance out of it anyway.
There is another thread and issue here about the limit -> https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/v...-cannot-set-vram-greater-than-512-mib.120716/ .

Would be nice to bump that limit and expose the additional output option or fix the spice issue.

 

[Moonwalk1059]

Oh, sorry, I missed that. There is a max_outputs property for virtio-vga too, like for qxl, but it's not exposed in Proxmox VE yet.

Feel free to open a feature request on our bugtracker: https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/

If you'd like to try it directly (feedback if the below change would already be enough is welcome), you can use (with the ID of your VM instead of 123):

qm showcmd 123 --pretty > start-vm.sh

change the option

--- a/start-vm.sh
+++ b/start-vm.sh
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
   -device 'vmgenid,guid=1cd86c7c-2ab2-4e10-a2be-59ad8668f516' \
   -device 'piix3-usb-uhci,id=uhci,bus=pci.0,addr=0x1.0x2' \
   -device 'usb-tablet,id=tablet,bus=uhci.0,port=1' \
-  -device 'virtio-vga,id=vga,bus=pci.0,addr=0x2' \
+  -device 'virtio-vga,id=vga,bus=pci.0,addr=0x2,max_outputs=2' \
   -device 'virtio-serial,id=spice,bus=pci.0,addr=0x9' \
   -chardev 'spicevmc,id=vdagent,name=vdagent' \
   -device 'virtserialport,chardev=vdagent,name=com.redhat.spice.0' \

and then run it directly with

chmod +x ./start-vm.sh
./start-vm.sh

Of course the command in the start-vm.sh script will not get updated by changes to the VM configuration and starting the VM via UI or qm will not see the max_outputs change.

hi @fiona . its only been 1.5 years and now i was finally looking at this. i tried your suggestion but am facing this error:

root@proxmox:~# ./start-vm-eikon-multimonitor.sh
kvm: -chardev socket,id=tpmchar,path=/var/run/qemu-server/102.swtpm: Failed to connect to '/var/run/qemu-server/102.swtpm': No such file or directory

any hint what i might do wrong?


edit:

root@proxmox:~# pveversion
pve-manager/8.2.7/3e0176e6bb2ade3b (running kernel: 6.5.13-1-pve)

 

[fiona]

hi @fiona . its only been 1.5 years and now i was finally looking at this. i tried your suggestion but am facing this error:

root@proxmox:~# ./start-vm-eikon-multimonitor.sh
kvm: -chardev socket,id=tpmchar,path=/var/run/qemu-server/102.swtpm: Failed to connect to '/var/run/qemu-server/102.swtpm': No such file or directory

any hint what i might do wrong?


edit:

root@proxmox:~# pveversion
pve-manager/8.2.7/3e0176e6bb2ade3b (running kernel: 6.5.13-1-pve)

If you are using TPM, then it's not as easy to start the VM outside of the Proxmox VE stack, because the TPM device would need to be made available too manually.

 

[Moonwalk1059]

ok. do you happen to know what i need to do?

at the end of the day, i just want to have multimonitor working. spice is unusable with its 128mb limitation.

thank you Fiona

 

[fiona]

ok. do you happen to know what i need to do?

at the end of the day, i just want to have multimonitor working. spice is unusable with its 128mb limitation.

You can open a feature request on the bug tracker: https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/ (after checking there are no duplicates). Shouldn't be too difficult to add. Once somebody is working on it and patches are ready, testing is highly appreciated too.