How to fix “The system is running in low-graphics mode” error?

Question

Note:

This is an attempt to create a canonical question that covers all instances of "low-graphics mode" error that occurs to a user, including but not limited to installation of wrong drivers, incorrect or invalid lightdm greeters, low disk space, incorrect installation of graphics card like ATI and Nvidia, incorrect configuration of xorg.conf file while setting up multiple monitors among others.

If you are experiencing the "low-graphics mode" error when trying to login but none of the following answers work for you, please do ask a new question and then update the answers of this canonical question as and when your new question gets answered.

---

When I try to boot into my computer, I am getting this error:

The system is running in low-graphics mode

Your screen, graphics cards, and input device settings could not be detected correctly. You will need to configure these yourself.

How do I fix the failsafe X mode and login into my computer?

---

Answer index:

• The greeter is invalid

Answer 1

I started seeing this error after upgrading to Ubuntu 17.10.

From a text console, I changed GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub to "nosplash nomodeset" so I could see the boot messages and ran sudo update-grub.

Upon reboot I saw that it was the "GNOME display manager" that had failed. Hey, wasn't I using LightDM? After running sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm to switch back from GDM3 to LightDM, it worked fine.

Answer 2

I face this error almost 100 times.

  **1.Go to tty mode (ctrl + alt + F1)**

   2. Login with the existing user credentials.
   3. Run the single command **(  sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade )**
   4. Reboot

Answer 3

When this happens there is often an error message indicating why it failed to start X.

Look in your /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old or /var/log/Xorg.0.log. The error (if there is one) will be at the tail end of the file. Another good place to look is the log files in /var/log/gdm/* (or /var/log/lightdm/* in oneiric and later).

Did you happen to manually install fglrx prior to noticing the problem? If it was not uninstalled properly it can cause weird random issues. Directions for purging fglrx are available at here.

Is your video card an AGP model? If so, a common issue with ati agp cards is having an incorrect AGPMode. Sometimes you can adjust this setting in your BIOS (which perhaps windows screwed with?) There is also a setting in /etc/X11/xorg.conf for adjusting it in X.

Answer 4

Which ubuntu version are you running? Did you installed graphics drivers before the problem or is it a post clean-os-install issue? Giving some more info would be helpful for us to help you.

If you messed with the graphic drivers before the problem came up, get to the login screen, press Ctrl+Alt+F1, login, then:

• sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*
• sudo apt-get autoremove
• sudo apt-get linux-source linux-headers-generic
• sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
• sudo nvidia-xconfig
• sudo shutdown -r now

Of course, if you have an ATI videocard you have to change the nvidia-* and nvidia-current for your ATI drivers package.

Answer 5

Install gdm from the default Ubuntu repositories. GDM provides the equivalent of a "login:" prompt for X displays: it asks for a login and starts X sessions.

During the installation of gdm you will be asked to select either gdm or lightdm as the default login display manager. Select gdm.

Answer 6

I got this error after upgrading from 14.04 to 15.10 (and then to 16.04). For some reason the /var/lib/lightdm directory was missing.

To fix the issue, first, create the directory:

sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/lightdm
sudo chown -R lightdm:lightdm /var/lib/lightdm
sudo chmod 0750 /var/lib/lightdm

Then create the .Xauthority file:

sudo touch /var/lib/lightdm/.Xauthority
sudo chown lightdm:lightdm /var/lib/lightdm/.Xauthority

More details:

Most of the solutions revolve around ATI or NVidia drivers, but I just have an Intel integrated graphics chip, so that wasn't the issue.

I discovered the actual problem by looking at the greeter log:

$ sudo cat /var/log/lightdm/x-0-greeter.log
Error writing X authority: Failed to open X authority /var/lib/lightdm/.Xauthority: No such file or directory

Indeed, the /var/lib/lightdm was absent. Just creating the empty directory (as recommended in another question's answer) resulted in the same error, but after creating the .Xauthority file, the system booted fine

Edit: Just found this question that has two answers: one recommending creating the directory, the other recommending creating the file. As I said, I needed to do both.

Answer 7

Different users solved their in different ways (since the causes of the problem were different for different people). I am describing what caused the problem in my desktop and how did I solve it.

WARNING: My method will work on your computer only if the cause of the problem is the same. Nevertheless read my reply to develop a general understanding.

Cause of the problem:

I made some changes to the file

/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

After I rebooted I encountered the 'system-is-running-in-low-graphics-mode' error. Clearly the changes made to the above 'lightdm.conf' file needed to be undone.

How did I solve it:

1. When the error message appears, press Ctrl+Alt+F1, then login using your ubuntu username and password.

2. Go to the directory /etc/lightdm/ (cd /etc/lightdm/). Open the above file in vim using vim lightdm.conf. Vim opens the file in the terminal itself.

3. Undo the changes that caused the problem. In my case I removed a line that I had added (which caused the problem). Save and quit vim. Following this step requires you to know how to use vim editor to edit files. If you are unfamiliar with vim watch tutorials on how to open a file, edit a file, save and quit a file in vim.

4. Reboot the computer. The problem is gone!

PS: I undid the change that caused the error. Your cause of error could be completely different from mine. So, blindly following my answer definitely won't help. On the other hand it may damage your computer.

Answer 8

This one worked for me using ubuntu 13.10, my ubuntu stopped working after installing opencv.

sudo apt-get purge nvidia-304 nvidia-current nvidia-libopencl1-304 nvidia-settings 

Just purge all the nvidia-* and restart

I am not a geek just a layman don't know the reason why it works.

Answer 9

For me this problem occurred after upgrading from "Ubuntu 12.04 LTS" plus TDE to "Ubuntu 14.04 LTS" plus TDE. TDE is the trinity desktop environment (trinitydesktop.org). The cause of the error was that

1. /etc/X11/default-display-manager pointed to lightdm although during the upgrade I told it to use tdm-trinity as default.
2. lightdm was broken (and I don't care why).

The fix was to run dpkg-reconfigure tdm-trinity and to choose tdm-trinity as my default. A few days later the problem came back and again /etc/X11/default-display-manager pointed to lightdm, don't know why.

Answer 10

I have the same problem (The system is running in low-graphics mode) when I reboot the system connected to an Oculus Rift (1080x1920 monitor). If I reboot the machine and connect a monitor of (1920x1080 resolution) it works ok.

The machine has Ubuntu 14.04 and Nvidia 970, driver 346 and kernel 3.15. With the default lightdm configuration (autologin activated).

The problem started suddenly, without making major changes in Ubuntu configuration.

I had the same issue in another machine with nvidia 970, same version of Ubuntu / different kernel. On this machine the problem happened when changing from autologin to login with user/pw in lightm and it was solved rebooting the machine with a 1920x1080 monitor connected and enabling autologin again.

Answer 11

I fixed this problem by removing /var/lib/lightdm/.Xauthority manually.

You can also try deleting the file ~/.Xauthority and rebooting.

Answer 12

Will try to answer the ones I can:

Assuming the answer by Jokerdino was already checked: The greeter is invalid

Issues with Nvidia or AMD/ATI graphics

This happens when a driver has a problem installing correctly (Most cases). For this do the following:

1. Boot PC leaving SHIFT pressed to make the GRUB Menu show.

   

2. Select Recovery Mode which will continue booting correctly until the Recovery Menu appeares.

3. Select from the recovery menu failsafeX.

   

4. In some cases failsafeX will load fine (You lucky dog), for others (Me) it will give an error along the lines of "The system is running in low-graphics mode" and will stay there forever. When this happens, press CTRL+ALT+F1 to go to the terminal. Type in your Username and Password.

   

5. Reinstall the drivers depending on your case:

   • Nvidia

     sudo apt-get install nvidia-current - More stable/tested version sudo apt-get install nvidia-current-updates - More up-to-date version

     For other cases see this answer for details and follow the links there to help you along the way.

   • AMD/ATI

     The simple way is to sudo apt-get install fglrx. If this does not work keep reading.

     Go to AMDs support site and download the driver you need. (If you have a newer card, you may want to download be the latest beta driver instead of the stable one. You would need to compare release dates and read through release notes to find out which driver version supports which chips.) Put the downloaded driver in some folder and rename it to "amd-gpu.run" to simplify name. Go to the folder where you downloaded the file and type chmod +x amd-gpu.run to give it Executable Permission. Now just simply run ./sh amd-gpu.run and follow the onscreen steps.

     After rebooting all problems should be solved. If you test 'Additional Drivers' with a problem like this it will finish downloading the package but then it will give an error. It also gives the same error if you use 'Software Center' and 'Synaptic'. The only way was to go to the failsafeX option and do the workaround about changing to the tty1 terminal and doing it via command line.

Note that if the problem occured after installing an unsupported driver from the amd site then you may have to first delete the driver you had installed. For this, run in the tty session (i.e) in the terminal screen you get after pressing CTRL+ALT+F1 :

sudo aticonfig --uninstall

(If this command didnt work then check this site . Look under the "Uninstalling the AMD Catalyst™ Proprietary Driver" heading.) After doing this, you may reboot with the command :

sudo shutdown -r now

Now you must get back access to the Unity desktop(Of course with the AMD driver uninstalled). Then you can get to this site which clearly helps in choosing the right AMD driver for your System specifications. Also read the release notes for the latest driver for your graphic card(Especially check if your system satisfies all the system requirements). Then after downloading your driver installer(the .zip file) get to this site and follow the instructions to install your driver. Your driver must be installed and it should work successfully.

I also need to add that I do not recommend downloading the Drivers from the Nvidia site since they:

 * Might create additional problems with Ubuntu
 * Are not updated automatically
 * Are not tested thoroughly in Ubuntu

Always use the nvidia-current package or the nvidia-current-updates one. These are tested and approved already for the Ubuntu version you are using and will give less errors and incompatibility bugs.

Issues with Intel graphics

For Intel it is recommended to do the following after doing all the steps mentioned above but before installing anything (When you are in the Terminal). You can choose Xorg-Edgers which is a PPA that brings many improvements, latest video drivers and more:

Warning: This PPA is very unstable for some things. So do it with that in mind.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa -y

After that sudo apt-get update and you should receive several updates. X-Swat currently does not have Intel drivers in the latest versions of Ubuntu.

---

Update log

UPDATE 1: Added this extensive answer to solve many of the problems that might end with the error mentioned here: How do I install the Nvidia drivers?

UPDATE 2: AMD is no longer releasing (stable) graphics drivers on a monthly basis and not all graphics chips are supported by their Linux drivers upon product release. At the time of this update the latest stable driver is almost 5 months older than the latest beta driver. You should look at the release notes to check if there is a driver that supports your graphics chip and the software versions you are using (X.org xserver or Mir).

---

Like always please test and give feedback so I can enhance my answer since others will be also reading it. The better it is, the more people it will help.

Answer 13

First, type the following commands:

$ lspci | grep -i VGA
$ lspci | grep -i amd

For me (HP pavilion 15n003tx, Saucy), the outputs were:

test@HP-Pavilion-15:/etc/X11$ lspci | grep -i VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
test@HP-Pavilion-15:/etc/X11$ lspci | grep -i amd
0a:00.0 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Sun XT [Radeon HD 8670A/8670M/8690M]

Since the AMD device doesn't come as output in the first command, even if you install amd drivers, you'll probably end up with the following error in /var/log/Xorg.0.log:

[    12.873] (II) fglrx(0): Invalid ATI BIOS from int10, the adapter is not VGA-enabled

Hence, I followed the steps:

test@HP-Pavilion-15:/etc/X11$ sudo apt-get purge fglrx*
test@HP-Pavilion-15:/etc/X11$ cp /etc/Xorg/xorg.conf.failsafe /etc/xorg.conf

The contents of xorg.conf.failsafe are:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Configured Video Device"
    Driver      "fbdev"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Default Screen"
    Monitor     "Configured Monitor"
    Device      "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Answer 14

Or, the most likely of the reasons with old PC's is:

Your graphic card just do not support unity.

Try Lubuntu/Xubuntu instead.

Unity requires: Any graphics card with OpenGL 1.4 support (All GPUs released today by either NVidia, AMD or Intel; GPUs released by NVidia and AMD over the last 5 years; GPUs released by Intel after the GMA 950). If you card don't meet this requirements, then is just that you can't use Unity (yet).

Answer 15

I had the same problem but this method works for me.

When you get The system is running low-graphics mode error,press ctrl+alt+F1 ,it will take you to the console.
Then it will asks for username and passwordto login,give that.Once you logged in to the console run the below command,

sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
sudo service lightdm restart

It will get you back to the GUI login.Why this problem occurs means,after you installed graphics drivers,it creates xorg.conf file in /etc/X11 folder.Which prevents the system from GUI login.

Answer 16

I had the “The system is running in low-graphics mode” error after trying to upgrade my Acer Aspire 4810T with Intel GM45 Express Chipset graphics from a 64bit 13.04 to a 64bit 13.10.

I had less than 2 gigabytes of free disk space when I started the upgrade. I faced first anomalies already before the reboot. The upgrade window showing the progress showed that everything has been downloaded and installed but it never closed. Couldn't close it even manually.

Then, after reboot, I got the “The system is running in low-graphics mode” error window.

I tried to solve the problem as proposed above by Luis Alvarado, user41938, community wiki, Azul Mascara and David M. Sousa.

My guess is that my problem was related to tiny disk space as hinted by Azul Mascara. But just freeing disk space and even allocating more by repartitioning didn't help.

After struggling more than enough with the problem I decided to download the 13.10 64bit and make a bootable USB stick with it. I booted the laptop with the USB stick and selected the installation on top of the old 13.10 (non-functioning) system that the installer recognized. This fixed my problem.

Answer 17

I just had to disable Internal Graphics Board on BIOS display.

Using ga-z87n/ga-h87n (GIGABYTE) motherboard.

Answer 18

It is not related to Nvidia drivers. Because by default Ubuntu uses non-Nvidia drivers even though you might have Nvidia GPUs. I have an Nvidia GPU too.

My Ubuntu used to boot fine until something happened which caused the same issue. After reading posts, reading logs and little bit trial and error, turns out the problem is related to lightdm GUI server.

I don't know solution to the problem but there is a quick work around in 3 steps. This will save you from reinstalling Ubuntu.

1. When the error shows up, hit Ctrl+Alt+F1. This will open the command line interface. Login as root.

2. Remove a particular X11 config file. This file is not really required.

   rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf.failsafe
   

   Somehow, the existence of the above X11 configuration file causes the OS to throw that error.

3. Restart lightdm GUI server.

   service lightdm restart
   

This will restart the lightdm GUI server and voila your desktop is back!

Answer 19

Let's assume, arrogantly, that it is a problem with your X display manager.

Enter the terminal (you can use a virtual console if you cannot use a graphical terminal window), the one you said that you have access to, and enter the following:

sudo apt-get install gdm

. . . and choose gdm.

Then type:

sudo service gdm restart

(Or ... start instead of restart.)

According to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1070150 this is a way to workaround a bug with lightdm.

Before typing that, you may need to first stop the other display manager that is running. This is usually LightDM:

sudo service lightdm stop

If you have trouble getting GDM to start, and this is an installed system rather than a live environment, then you can just reboot and it will start automatically because you configured it as the default display manager. (You should be able to shut down and restart normally. Otherwise, one way to reboot if the GUI is not working properly is to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete while on a virtual console.)

Answer 20

I fixed this problem by creating a new xorg.conf file (copying the text from xorg.conf.failsafe).

Details: https://askubuntu.com/a/296217/55223

Answer 21

Phenomenon: I first saw Booting without full network configuration message that never ended. After Action-1 below, I faced The system is running in low-graphics mode issue.

Action-1: Force to shutdown the machine (by keeping power button pressed as normal). Choose recovery boot.

Effective solution: Remove & install xserver-xorg, inspired by this thread.

---

Edit) after creating xorg.conf and had it read in xserver, I faced the same issue again. This time, in addition to re-install xserver-xorg, I had to create /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (I did so by copying the backup file I already made).

Answer 22

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 on a Toshiba Portege R100. I got this error after the first bootup after install. After downloading and updating the graphics driver (Trident Cyberblade), what worked for me was creating a driver-specific .conf file as described in this Arch-Linux wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Trident.

Answer 23

1. Press CTRL+ALT+F1 to open a terminal
2. log in
3. look at the end of your /var/log/Xorg.0.log

4. if the message error is Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs. then run the following commands:

   sudo apt-get install --reinstall lightdm
   sudo reboot

Answer 24

You have too many files on your computer, and have exhausted disk space

Try moving personal files off the computer onto a USB drive.

---

To check whether this is the issue:

1. Press Ctrl + Alt + F1
2. Type df -h
3. If you see that there is no space available on the root (/) then you need to free some space.

To free space you can:

1. sudo apt-get autoclean
2. Look for large directories with sudo du -sc /*/* |sort -g and delete unwanted content,

3. Clean your home directory using a combination of

   cd ~   
   du -sc * |sort -g
   rm myLargeFile
   

When this is done, restart: shutdown -r now

Answer 25

Your Memory may be bad.

If you experience Low graphics mode intermittently like I was.

1. Run a memory check to check for memory errors.

2. Buy New memory(Make sure it is the right type for your computer)

3. Run the memory test again, to make sure all is good.

The Low Graphics Mode error should now be gone.

Answer 26

This problem destroyed my morning. It turns out that if your root filesystem runs out of space then Ubuntu will boot into low graphics mode and it's hard to figure out why since the xorg log shows nothing wrong. To find out from the command line if you're low on space type

df -h

Sample output from my machine:

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6        18G   10G  6.6G  61% /
udev            3.9G  4.0K  3.9G   1% /dev
tmpfs           3.9G  108K  3.9G   1% /tmp
tmpfs           1.6G  1.2M  1.6G   1% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none            3.9G  1.3M  3.9G   1% /run/shm
none            100M   16K  100M   1% /run/user
/dev/sda4       317G   33G  285G  11% /media/data
/dev/sda1       197M   16M  182M   8% /boot/efi

If your / mount has a high Use% (90%+) then this could be your problem. In my case, ~/.xsession.errors had grown to fill most of my partition and caused me to fall into low-graphics mode. Found my answer for that in this Ubuntuforums thread:

rm ~/.xsession-errors
mkdir ~/.xsession-errors

Answer 27

Follow these commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -d install --reinstall gdm
sudo apt-get remove --purge gdm

(I ran this command above, but was told by the system to use # sudo apt-get autoremove instead, after the #sudo apt-get remove --purge gdm command.)

sudo apt-get install gdm

select GDM when prompted

sudo reboot

That fixed it for me :)

It took very long to start after the reboot, 10+ mins. But I got in eventually.

Answer 28

• If you have a problem with the restricted (closed source) driver , then try to remove it.

Open a terminal and give this command

gksudo software-properties-gtk 

Goto Additional drivers and remove the dirver. You have to mark the Using X.Org X server -- Nouveau.

Then Reboot.

• If you have not access at all to the Desktop Environment then use the Recovery Mode.

To remove the Nvidia current driver in Ubuntu 12.10

Select the Network and your root partition will mounted as Read-Write.

Select the Root

And then give these commands with order

apt-get remove --purge nvidia-current 
rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf 
apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
reboot

The last command will reboot your system and hopefully you will login normally in next reboot with the Open Source nouveau driver.

• If you have problem with the open source driver (nouveau) , in the same manner (from recovery mode) try to install the restricted (Nvidia) driver with these commands

When you reach the Root selection and after select root

To install nvidia-current driver.

 apt-get install linux-source 
 apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
 apt-get install nvidia-current 
 nvidia-xconfig 
 reboot

According to this answer : Ubuntu 12.10 Desktop does not show when I installed nvidia drivers! may need to install or reinstall the linux-headers to get the restricted Nvidia drivers work properly.

Answer 29

You need to install the kernel headers manually then reinstall nvidia for some reason then the nvidia drivers will work

Answer 30

Only for ATI graphics cards

When the message that "your system is running in low-graphics mode" appears:
Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to see the terminal one. Then login with your credentials, and then run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install fglrx    
sudo reboot

The same can be done from the recovery mode (after enabling networking), if your Ubuntu completly refuses to enter anything but recovery mode.