Zimaos gui not loading completly after restart (no apps, no system info, licence not applyed)

cvita · February 14, 2026, 7:25pm

Hi,

I have trouble running ZIMAOS and need help.

I have reinstalled it many times during the last month and it almost always gets in a loop after restart.
Sometimes it takes around 20-30 minutes to get out of the loop, usually a reinstall is needed - it is very frustrating.
At first I thought Docker containers are the problem but on the latest install I have no docker container apps installed and it still hangs.

It is custom computer, my configuration is:

- Jonsbo N3 Case 
- Be quiet 450Watt SFX power supply
- Biostar A68N-2100K MiniITX MBO with E1-6010 onBoard, 2xDDR3 slots, 2xSATA 
- 2 x 8GB  1600 MHz DDR3 RAM moduls
- INSPUR 9211-8i 6Gbps HBA LSI card for 8 sata HDDS (it is loaded during boot and HDDs are recognised)
- I have 10 HDDS: 
	- 128GB SSD (system disk, it is connected on MBO, it shows 110GB as available so it is not disk full problem)
	- 500GB 2.5" HDD - btrfs formated (for docker apps, it is connected on MBO)
	- 3 x 8TB 3.5" HDDs - ntfs formatted
	- 3 x 4TB 3.5" HDDs - ntfs formatted
	- 2 x 1TB 3.5" HDDs - ntfs formatted

Right now I have ZimaOS+v1.5.4, I updated from 1.5.3 - I had the same problem with it and I hoped the update would help but that didn’t happen…

I don’t have a WiFi card and don’t need one.
Plan is to put additional USB3 LAN card and it would be great if ZIMAOS had lan aggregation option

I don’t have a graphic card (only the one integrated on the CPU).

Everything is recognised during initial installation of ZIMAOS.
Problems start when I restart it.
ZIMAOS boots up and gui is visible after 2 minutes (2 min is kind of slow but OK to me, this is a weak computer).
Problem is it is not completely loaded:

I can’t see any apps,
I can’t see system info
plus version is not active - it is showing that it is community version

When I run systemctl I get the following:
…
Feb 14 19:07:40 ZimaOS systemd[1]: Starting zimaos Main Service…
Feb 14 19:07:40 ZimaOS zimaos[14687]: 2026-02-14T19:07:40.658+0100 error error initializing NVML {“func”: “service.NewGPUService”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/service/gpu.go”, “line”: 22, “result”: “Driver Not Loaded”}
Feb 14 19:07:41 ZimaOS zimaos[14687]: 2026-02-14T19:07:41.896+0100 info joined {“func”: “izerotier.CheckNetwork”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/pkg/izerotier/zthelp.go”, “line”: 74, “joined”: true, “networkId”: “9f6b7003f9fb3076”, “address”: “”, “ip”: “10.147.17.1”}
Feb 14 19:07:48 ZimaOS zimaos[14687]: 2026-02-14T19:07:48.762+0100 error connect wifi failed {“func”: “core.Seventh”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/route/core/init.go”, “line”: 196, “error”: “failed to connect to wifi: exit status 1, output: Error: No Wi-Fi device found.\n”}
Feb 14 19:07:48 ZimaOS zimaos[14687]: 2026-02-14T19:07:48.816+0100 info DeviceInfo Changed {“func”: “core.DectectDeviceChange”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/route/core/init.go”, “line”: 242}
Feb 14 19:07:51 ZimaOS zimaos[14687]: 2026-02-14T19:07:51.592+0100 info Port updated {“func”: “core.DectectPortChange”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/route/core/init.go”, “line”: 214, “new_port”: 80}
Feb 14 19:07:55 ZimaOS systemd[1]: zimaos.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Feb 14 19:07:55 ZimaOS systemd[1]: zimaos.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
Feb 14 19:07:55 ZimaOS systemd[1]: Failed to start zimaos Main Service.
Feb 14 19:07:55 ZimaOS systemd[1]: zimaos.service: Consumed 9.980s CPU time, 43.1M memory peak.
Feb 14 19:08:00 ZimaOS systemd[1]: zimaos.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 43.
Feb 14 19:08:00 ZimaOS systemd[1]: Starting zimaos Main Service…
Feb 14 19:08:01 ZimaOS zimaos[14979]: 2026-02-14T19:08:01.225+0100 error error initializing NVML {“func”: “service.NewGPUService”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/service/gpu.go”, “line”: 22, “result”: “Driver Not Loaded”}
Feb 14 19:08:07 ZimaOS zimaos[14979]: 2026-02-14T19:08:07.619+0100 info joined {“func”: “izerotier.CheckNetwork”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/pkg/izerotier/zthelp.go”, “line”: 74, “joined”: true, “networkId”: “9f6b7003f9fb3076”, “address”: “”, “ip”: “10.147.17.1”}
Feb 14 19:08:10 ZimaOS zimaos[14979]: 2026-02-14T19:08:10.427+0100 error connect wifi failed {“func”: “core.Seventh”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/route/core/init.go”, “line”: 196, “error”: “failed to connect to wifi: exit status 1, output: Error: No Wi-Fi device found.\n”}
Feb 14 19:08:10 ZimaOS zimaos[14979]: 2026-02-14T19:08:10.521+0100 info DeviceInfo Changed {“func”: “core.DectectDeviceChange”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/route/core/init.go”, “line”: 242}
Feb 14 19:08:13 ZimaOS zimaos[14979]: 2026-02-14T19:08:13.252+0100 info Port updated {“func”: “core.DectectPortChange”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/route/core/init.go”, “line”: 214, “new_port”: 80}
Feb 14 19:08:16 ZimaOS systemd[1]: zimaos.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Feb 14 19:08:16 ZimaOS systemd[1]: zimaos.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
Feb 14 19:08:16 ZimaOS systemd[1]: Failed to start zimaos Main Service.
Feb 14 19:08:16 ZimaOS systemd[1]: zimaos.service: Consumed 10.678s CPU time, 41.9M memory peak.
Feb 14 19:08:21 ZimaOS systemd[1]: zimaos.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 44.
Feb 14 19:08:21 ZimaOS systemd[1]: Starting zimaos Main Service…
Feb 14 19:08:21 ZimaOS zimaos[15272]: 2026-02-14T19:08:21.712+0100 error error initializing NVML {“func”: “service.NewGPUService”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/service/gpu.go”, “line”: 22, “result”: “Driver Not Loaded”}
Feb 14 19:08:22 ZimaOS zimaos[15272]: 2026-02-14T19:08:22.938+0100 info joined {“func”: “izerotier.CheckNetwork”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/pkg/izerotier/zthelp.go”, “line”: 74, “joined”: true, “networkId”: “9f6b7003f9fb3076”, “address”: “”, “ip”: “10.147.17.1”}
Feb 14 19:08:30 ZimaOS zimaos[15272]: 2026-02-14T19:08:30.145+0100 error connect wifi failed {“func”: “core.Seventh”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/route/core/init.go”, “line”: 196, “error”: “failed to connect to wifi: exit status 1, output: Error: No Wi-Fi device found.\n”}
Feb 14 19:08:30 ZimaOS zimaos[15272]: 2026-02-14T19:08:30.257+0100 info DeviceInfo Changed {“func”: “core.DectectDeviceChange”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/route/core/init.go”, “line”: 242}
Feb 14 19:08:32 ZimaOS zimaos[15272]: 2026-02-14T19:08:32.988+0100 info Port updated {“func”: “core.DectectPortChange”, “file”: “/home/runner/work/ZimaOS-Main/ZimaOS-Main/route/core/init.go”, “line”: 214, “new_port”: 80}
Feb 14 19:08:36 ZimaOS systemd[1]: zimaos.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Feb 14 19:08:36 ZimaOS systemd[1]: zimaos.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
Feb 14 19:08:36 ZimaOS systemd[1]: Failed to start zimaos Main Service.
Feb 14 19:08:36 ZimaOS systemd[1]: zimaos.service: Consumed 9.973s CPU time, 44.5M memory peak.
…
and it goes on and on…

So from it I can see that it is trying to initialize the Nvidia GPU and WiFi card and it is continuously restarting…

Is it restarting because of it or is there another reason?
This loop can last for 15-20 minutes and then sometimes it manages to load the rest of the GUI and recognises the licence and sometimes I need to reinstall everything.

Why is this happening?

Are NVIDIA and WIFI errors the problem or is it something else?

Why is ZIMAOS trying to load hardware my system doesn’t have?
This loading of NVIDIA and WIFI happens during first boot to and it doesn’t represent a problem then, problems start from next restart…

Does anyone have a solution for this? Can I disable ZIMAOS from trying to load NVIDIA and WIFI during boot?

I really like ZIMAOS and I would like to use it but this is frustrating, I’m afraid to restart my server…

gelbuilding · February 15, 2026, 12:19am

From your logs, the NVIDIA and Wi-Fi errors are not the cause. Those messages are normal on systems without an NVIDIA GPU or Wi-Fi card. They are logged, but they should not crash the system.

The real issue is this line:

zimaos.service: Main process exited, status=1/FAILURE

The backend service is crashing and systemd keeps restarting it. That’s why the GUI loads partially but:

No apps are shown
No system info appears
The Plus license is not active

The frontend loads, but the backend is stuck in a restart loop.

Given your setup (LSI HBA + 10 disks, most of them NTFS), the most likely cause is storage detection timing out during boot. ZimaOS scans and mounts all disks on startup. If one disk is slow to respond or mount, the backend can exit and restart repeatedly. That would also explain why sometimes it loads after 15–30 minutes.

To isolate this:

Power down.
Disconnect all NTFS drives (leave only the system SSD connected).
Boot again.

If the GUI loads fully and stays stable, then the issue is storage detection — not GPU or Wi-Fi.

If that’s confirmed, reconnect the drives gradually to identify which disk (or the HBA scan delay) is triggering the crash.

If possible, also share:

journalctl -u zimaos.service -b -n 200 --no-pager

That will show exactly what is causing the backend to exit.

You’re on the right track, this is almost certainly storage-related, not missing hardware.