Xvfb failed start error

Question

I have Ubuntu 11.04 I am trying to install Xvfb and CutyCapt in order to take a snapshot of webpage I followed a instruction https://github.com/jaequery/cutycapt-installer-script-on-ubuntu/blob/master/install and I executed last line and it gives me an error

xvfb-run: error:Xvfb failed to start

Any solution for that? Thank you in advance

Jennine

xvfb-run hides error messages by default... give it a -e /dev/stdout to see what the problem is. – Boisleduc

I am getting Server is already active for display 99 If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X99-lock and start again. – Jennine

Did you remove the temporary file as the message recommended? What was the result? – Kr

If you want to run multiple processes at the same time, then it is best not to remove the lock file, but use -a option, as described in answers below. This will get the next free server number. – Dismast

Answer 1

I was getting this error "xvfb-run: error: Xvfb failed to start" on Ubuntu 14.04, where previously my script had run without problems on Ubuntu 12.04.

My scripts were running calling xvfb-run multiple times, but I was seeing fails due to the error "Server is already active for display 99"

It seemed that the Xvfb wasn't ending when the xvfb-run command returned.

My solution was to use "xvfb-run -a [mycommand]" so xvfb uses another display if 99 is in use.

Auriol

This answer pointed me to the solution. In my case, a previous run of xvfb-run was hung so I found the pid using "ps aux | grep xvfb" and killed the process. – Tbar

-a also worked for me using with wkhtmltopdf :) xvfb-run -a /usr/bin/wkhtmltopdf – Namangan

Answer 2

Had the same issue, solved it by running this instead:

xvfb-run --auto-servernum --server-num=1 [your script]

--auto-servernum : Try to get a free server number, starting at 99, or the argument to --server-num

Heartworm

Is there difference between this and -a? – Clinkstone

Both are the same. Use either -a or --auto-server-num – Dismast

Answer 3

Run xvfb-run -e /dev/stdout [mycommand] as @wumpus suggested.

I received the server lock message:

Fatal server error:
Could not create server lock file: /tmp/.X99-lock

xvfb-run: 

error: Xvfb failed to start

Using sudo resolved the issue for me:

sudo xvfb-run -e /dev/stdout [mycommand]

Speculation

Answer 4

Found the problem There is hanging process in system with name

Xvfb

I killed it and work fine. I newer found it earlier beacuse I used to try to find process with 'xvfb' name

Fetor

Yep! A simple pkill Xvfb before tunning the command will do! – Burney

Answer 5

I came across this error when running a bash script on Mac OS. Opening XQuartz before running the script solved my problem.

Esemplastic