OVMF - Guest has not initialized the display (yet).

[mail1118]

Hello,
I was trying to do GPU passthrough but I ran into a larger issue along the way. Whenever I try to use OVMF instead of SeaBIOS, I get the error "Guest has not initialized the display (yet)." It doesn't matter what settings I use or what guest I'm trying to use (I've tried both Ubuntu 18.04 and Windows 10). I've been searching through forums and guides trying everything but I still get the same error each time. I can take a VM with this error, change it to SeaBIOS, and it boots fine. I need to use OVMF though as I plan to do GPU passthrough, but I can't get the VM to boot even with nothing passed through. The start task completes successfully each time. I am using ProxMox VE 6.1-7. My processor is an Intel Core i7 4790.

 

[aaron]

Can you show us the full config of the VM?
On the CLI: qm config <vmid>

 

[kck17288]

I know that I'm not OP, but I am having the same exact problem that mail1118 is having and can't really find an answer anywhere, OVMF throws an error everytime, but the second I change it to SeaBIOS everything works flawlessly. I've tried this with multiple different configurations so far. I used a variation of guides that I found (including the proxmox HOWTOs) this config is from following here: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/b5xpua/the_ultimate_beginners_guide_to_gpu_passthrough/

args: -cpu 'host,+kvm_pv_unhalt,+kvm_pv_eoi,hv_vendor_id=NV43FIX,kvm=off'

balloon: 0

bios: ovmf

boot: dcn

bootdisk: scsi0

cores: 3

cpu: host,hidden=1,flags=+pcid

efidisk0: VM1:vm-100-disk-1,size=4M

ide2: local:iso/Win10_1909_English_x64.iso,media=cdrom

machine: q35

memory: 4096

name: WinGPU

net0: virtio=7E:B1:BB:D9:3C:CB,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1,link_down=1

numa: 0

ostype: win10

scsi0: VM1:vm-100-disk-0,cache=writeback,size=100G

scsihw: virtio-scsi-single

smbios1: uuid=a3c7d941-07e3-4b28-bf4f-182e54e1c3f3

sockets: 1

vmgenid: 27aea414-e458-4522-a1f9-eef102423170

CPU is an i7-3770

 

[mail1118]

Can you show us the full config of the VM?
On the CLI: qm config <vmid>

Sorry for the late reply. There is no specific configuration that is giving me an issue. Any VM setup with OVMF doesn't work. Here's the config for one of the VM's I tried though:

bios: ovmf
bootdisk: scsi0
cores: 1
efidisk0: HDD:vm-101-disk-1,size=4M
ide2: local:iso/ubuntu-18.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso,media=cdrom
machine: q35
memory: 8192
name: UbuntuGPU
net0: virtio=BE:50:37:8C:CE:20,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1
numa: 0
ostype: l26
scsi0: HDD:vm-101-disk-0,size=200G
scsihw: virtio-scsi-pci
smbios1: uuid=ef6c53a2-e4e5-4b46-866e-491dfda6c145
sockets: 1
vmgenid: bddd7239-3974-455e-ab7e-87c77f1c222b

If I leave everything else and change it to SeaBIOS, it boots fine.

 

[2Stoned]

I have exactly the same issue with a very similar VM config.

agent: 1
balloon: 8192
bios: ovmf
bootdisk: scsi0
cores: 12
cpu: host
efidisk0: VMstorage:vm-102-disk-1,size=1M
hostpci0: 0a:00,pcie=1
ide2: local:iso/ubuntu-20.04-desktop-amd64.iso,media=cdrom
machine: q35
memory: 60000
name: Ubuntu
net0: virtio=B2:5E:C6:CA:A0:A5,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1
numa: 1
ostype: l26
scsi0: VMstorage:vm-102-disk-0,cache=writeback,discard=on,size=32G,ssd=1
scsihw: virtio-scsi-pci
shares: 5000
smbios1: uuid=bd85f4fe-370e-4299-9ce2-a39f2f997fe9
sockets: 1
vmgenid: fdfa3441-a8f0-48f5-8063-2d633183ffa4

 

[aaron]

Sorry for the late reply. There is no specific configuration that is giving me an issue. Any VM setup with OVMF doesn't work. Here's the config for one of the VM's I tried though:

bios: ovmf
bootdisk: scsi0
cores: 1
efidisk0: HDD:vm-101-disk-1,size=4M
ide2: local:iso/ubuntu-18.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso,media=cdrom
machine: q35
memory: 8192
name: UbuntuGPU
net0: virtio=BE:50:37:8C:CE:20,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1
numa: 0
ostype: l26
scsi0: HDD:vm-101-disk-0,size=200G
scsihw: virtio-scsi-pci
smbios1: uuid=ef6c53a2-e4e5-4b46-866e-491dfda6c145
sockets: 1
vmgenid: bddd7239-3974-455e-ab7e-87c77f1c222b

If I leave everything else and change it to SeaBIOS, it boots fine.

Hmm interesting, I recreated that config and the live ISO of Ubuntu boots fine.

What version do you have installed? pveversion -v

 

[mail1118]

Hmm interesting, I recreated that config and the live ISO of Ubuntu boots fine.

What version do you have installed? pveversion -v

Hello, here is the output of that command.

proxmox-ve: 6.1-2 (running kernel: 5.3.18-2-pve)
pve-manager: 6.1-7 (running version: 6.1-7/13e58d5e)
pve-kernel-helper: 6.1-6
pve-kernel-5.3: 6.1-5
pve-kernel-5.3.18-2-pve: 5.3.18-2
ceph-fuse: 12.2.11+dfsg1-2.1+b1
corosync: 3.0.3-pve1
criu: 3.11-3
glusterfs-client: 5.5-3
ifupdown: 0.8.35+pve1
ksm-control-daemon: 1.3-1
libjs-extjs: 6.0.1-10
libknet1: 1.15-pve1
libpve-access-control: 6.0-6
libpve-apiclient-perl: 3.0-3
libpve-common-perl: 6.0-13
libpve-guest-common-perl: 3.0-3
libpve-http-server-perl: 3.0-4
libpve-storage-perl: 6.1-5
libqb0: 1.0.5-1
libspice-server1: 0.14.2-4~pve6+1
lvm2: 2.03.02-pve4
lxc-pve: 3.2.1-1
lxcfs: 3.0.3-pve60
novnc-pve: 1.1.0-1
proxmox-mini-journalreader: 1.1-1
proxmox-widget-toolkit: 2.1-3
pve-cluster: 6.1-4
pve-container: 3.0-21
pve-docs: 6.1-6
pve-edk2-firmware: 2.20200229-1
pve-firewall: 4.0-10
pve-firmware: 3.0-6
pve-ha-manager: 3.0-8
pve-i18n: 2.0-4
pve-qemu-kvm: 4.1.1-3
pve-xtermjs: 4.3.0-1
qemu-server: 6.1-6
smartmontools: 7.1-pve2
spiceterm: 3.1-1
vncterm: 1.6-1
zfsutils-linux: 0.8.3-pve1

 

[Veeh]

Did you deploy the OS with the ovmf bios ?
I had similar issue with dual bios laptop (legacy and uefi)
The OS will boot with the bios used during the initial install.
If you switched later on to the other bios, you couldn't find the boot up partition.

If you installed your VM with seabios by default, i'm pretty sure the OS won't boot up if you switch bios after.

 

[mail1118]

Did you deploy the OS with the ovmf bios ?
I had similar issue with dual bios laptop (legacy and uefi)
The OS will boot with the bios used during the initial install.
If you switched later on to the other bios, you couldn't find the boot up partition.

If you installed your VM with seabios by default, i'm pretty sure the OS won't boot up if you switch bios after.

I can't get it to boot the installation ISO with OVMF. I used the example of SeaBIOS to isolate the issue to OVMF. I didn't install the OS under SeaBIOS though.

 

[mail1118]

I still haven't found a solution to this issue. Has anyone else made any progress?

 

[kck17288]

I ended up forcing my motherboard to UEFI and deleting everything that so much as hinted towards a legacy boot option (GPT on all hard drives), and resintalling proxmox and it works now. I have two windows VM's using GPU passthrough just fine now.

 

[mail1118]

I ended up forcing my motherboard to UEFI and deleting everything that so much as hinted towards a legacy boot option (GPT on all hard drives), and resintalling proxmox and it works now. I have two windows VM's using GPU passthrough just fine now.

Alright thanks! I'll have to try that.

 

[rushandrush]

Hi @mail1118 did that resolve your issue? I'm asking because I'm facing the same issue. Thanks.

 

[mail1118]

Hi @mail1118 did that resolve your issue? I'm asking because I'm facing the same issue. Thanks.

It did. It will depend on which motherboard you have, but I went into the UEFI firmware settings and disabled settings related to legacy boot and set it to only use UEFI. I then completely erased every partition on the drives I had connected and reinstalled ProxMox. OVMF worked right away after I did that, and I was able to get GPU passthrough working as well.

 

[rushandrush]

It did. It will depend on which motherboard you have, but I went into the UEFI firmware settings and disabled settings related to legacy boot and set it to only use UEFI. I then completely erased every partition on the drives I had connected and reinstalled ProxMox. OVMF worked right away after I did that, and I was able to get GPU passthrough working as well.

Thanks for your reply, @mail1118

 

[Pedulla]

This is a little old, but I ran into it looking for a solution as well.
Active server (pve 6.4-13), not an option to reformat and start over.
I just needed to change the machine type to q35.

 

[ayozeve]

Esto es un poco antiguo, pero también lo encontré buscando una solución.
Servidor activo (pve 6.4-13), no es una opción para reformatear y empezar de nuevo.
Solo necesitaba cambiar el tipo de máquina a q35.

You are great!!! I was angry with the same same problem. Thanks a lot!!

 

[Konyi]

This is a little old, but I ran into it looking for a solution as well.
Active server (pve 6.4-13), not an option to reformat and start over.
I just needed to change the machine type to q35.

Thanks a lot!! That works for me.