A1111 in Windows being a nightmare to install and run

[sebarious70]

I first discovered the world of Stable Diffusion and A1111 about a year ago. But until now, I had only used it in my Mac Studio and a Macbook Pro that I had at work. I had found a tutorial somewhere on all the steps to install it, and it worked great from the very start.

But yesterday I received a card for my old PC, an Nvidia RTX 3060 with 12 GB of VRAM that I bought just to be able to render stuff in Blender and A1111 while I work on my Mac on other things. Unfortunately it's been in a nightmare. I spent hours last night and today trying to get this to work and nothing.

First, I followed the steps here: https://stable-diffusion-art.com/install-windows/

Well, that didn't work and I can't remember what it was because I'm so exhausted. But I deleted that whole folder, because I found the instructions in this very website and account: https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui/wiki/Install-and-Run-on-NVidia-GPUs

I said, great, this has to work. But no. Well, it did work, a couple of times. I can't remember how, but it launched and I was able to generate a few things. But now it's back to error land:

(Note that I replace my username for "username" for privacy reasons)

Requirement already satisfied: networkx in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from torch==2.1.2) (3.3)
Requirement already satisfied: jinja2 in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from torch==2.1.2) (3.1.4)
Requirement already satisfied: fsspec in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from torch==2.1.2) (2024.6.0)
Requirement already satisfied: numpy in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from torchvision==0.16.2) (1.26.4)
Requirement already satisfied: requests in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from torchvision==0.16.2) (2.32.3)
Requirement already satisfied: pillow!=8.3.*,>=5.3.0 in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from torchvision==0.16.2) (10.3.0)
Requirement already satisfied: MarkupSafe>=2.0 in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from jinja2->torch==2.1.2) (2.1.5)
Requirement already satisfied: charset-normalizer<4,>=2 in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from requests->torchvision==0.16.2) (3.3.2)
Requirement already satisfied: idna<4,>=2.5 in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from requests->torchvision==0.16.2) (3.7)
Requirement already satisfied: urllib3<3,>=1.21.1 in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from requests->torchvision==0.16.2) (2.2.1)
Requirement already satisfied: certifi>=2017.4.17 in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from requests->torchvision==0.16.2) (2024.6.2)
Requirement already satisfied: mpmath<1.4.0,>=1.1.0 in c:\users\username\sd.webui\system\python\lib\site-packages (from sympy->torch==2.1.2) (1.3.0)
Couldn't determine assets's hash: 6f7db241d2f8ba7457bac5ca9753331f0c266917, attempting autofix...
Fetching all contents for assets
fatal: detected dubious ownership in repository at 'C:/Users/username/sd.webui/webui/repositories/stable-diffusion-webui-assets'
'C:/Users/username/sd.webui/webui/repositories/stable-diffusion-webui-assets' is owned by:
        'S-1-5-32-544'
but the current user is:
        'S-1-5-21-310126585-2887837817-2311243737-1001'
To add an exception for this directory, call:

        git config --global --add safe.directory C:/Users/username/sd.webui/webui/repositories/stable-diffusion-webui-assets
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\username\sd.webui\webui\launch.py", line 48, in <module>
    main()
  File "C:\Users\username\sd.webui\webui\launch.py", line 39, in main
    prepare_environment()
  File "C:\Users\username\sd.webui\webui\modules\launch_utils.py", line 410, in prepare_environment
    git_clone(assets_repo, repo_dir('stable-diffusion-webui-assets'), "ass	ets", assets_commit_hash)
  File "C:\Users\username\sd.webui\webui\modules\launch_utils.py", line 177, in git_clone
    current_hash = run_git(dir, name, 'rev-parse HEAD', None, f"Couldn't determine {name}'s hash: {commithash}", live=False).strip()
  File "C:\Users\username\sd.webui\webui\modules\launch_utils.py", line 165, in run_git
    git_fix_workspace(dir, name)
  File "C:\Users\username\sd.webui\webui\modules\launch_utils.py", line 152, in git_fix_workspace
    run(f'"{git}" -C "{dir}" fetch --refetch --no-auto-gc', f"Fetching all contents for {name}", f"Couldn't fetch {name}", live=True)
  File "C:\Users\username\sd.webui\webui\modules\launch_utils.py", line 115, in run
    raise RuntimeError("\n".join(error_bits))
RuntimeError: Couldn't fetch assets.
Command: "git" -C "C:\Users\username\sd.webui\webui\repositories\stable-diffusion-webui-assets" fetch --refetch --no-auto-gc
Error code: 128
Press any key to continue . . .

So basically, I'm getting ready to go back to step 1 in the link above, but it someone could give me a hand I would really appreciate it. Also, when I was able to run it a couple of times, I'm not sure if it was using my Nvidia GPU or not, because I saw this line at the end:

Weights loaded in 20.4s (send model to cpu: 1.1s, calculate hash: 15.2s, apply weights to model: 2.8s, move model to device: 1.2s).

I mean, why does it say "send model to cpu" instead of "send model to gpu"?

[freecoderwaifu]

Install Git (defaults should be enough)
https://git-scm.com/download/win

Install Python 3.10.11 (make sure you enable Add PATH or a similarly named option)
https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-31011/

Make a folder in a drive with enough space (just make sure not to make it in a location that needs special permissions like ProgramFiles.)

Open CMD or Terminal there.

Type
git clone https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui/

Open that now created stable-diffusion-webui folder.

Optional:
Open webui-user.bat in Notepad and add --xformers to COMMANDLINE_ARGS= like this and save the changes.

set COMMANDLINE_ARGS= --xformers

Launch webui-user.bat, just double click it.

Wait for it to download everything.

That's it.

[sebarious70]

I'm sorry, I thought I had replied to this back when you posted it. I think I started, but probably my ADHD kicked in and then I closed the browser without finishing.

So by the time I read your reply, I had already tried method 2 in the Github link, but when I read your reply, I also added the --xformers to the bat file and I can see that it loads fine. Now I'm able to make it work, but I'm wondering if it's using the GPU much, or even the CPU, because when A1111 is generating something, even something heavy, the only thing I see go up is the VRAM in the Windows Task Manager. The GPU usage stays at around 4%, and the CPU usage about as much. It is however pretty fast I would say, almost as fast as my Mac Studio Ultra M1, but I would think that anything like this would make the GPU usage go up to 100%.

But then I started rendering with Blender, and it made me question if Task Manager is that accurate, because it was showing the same thing under Blender and rendering something pretty heavy in Cycles (for those not familiar with Blender, Cycles is the raytracing engine, so it's much more demanding even with the GPU).

What do you guys see in Task Manager when generating anything in A1111? Does it go up to 100%

[freecoderwaifu]

If it takes a couple of seconds, it's using GPU. CPU mode takes several minutes. GPU usage usually goes up with resolution, 512x512 shouldn't use that much GPU, even hires fix to 2x (1024x1024) isn't that intensive, especially if only doing single image vs batches.

VRAM usage is what tends to be maxed much faster than GPU processing, but again depends on resolution, generation settings, batches, additional extensions and other settings.

OK I LIED MY BAD. Instead of going by I what remembered when posting this, I actually tested it. Those two big spikes are 2x highres fix generations from 512x680 to 1024x1360 with SD 1.5. So yeah, it does max out at least on my 3080 12GB.

CPU doesn't really get used as much, though a decent CPU still matters in general, if anything to avoid potential bottlenecks. That's more for gaming, but even for SD it could have a more quantifiable impact.

[hahn23]

Hi,

the SID from your errormessage "S-1-5-32-544" shows clearly that that folder was created as administrator and now you are trying to access this folder with an user cmd or powershell. That's all. Pay attention, that you clone the github repo with an USER cmd or ps. after that it will work.

And by the way in modern days it is an quite bad idea to be logged on with an user that is in the local administrator group.... Best to create an additional admin only user and just use that to approve the uac request you get when you are logged on with your normal non admin user ;)

[sebarious70]

Thanks for the tip, however that doesn't show anymore because I totally wiped that folder to start over with method 2.

And by the way in modern days it is an quite bad idea to be logged on with an user that is in the local administrator group.... Best to create an additional admin only user and just use that to approve the uac request you get when you are logged on with your normal non admin user ;)

You mean like when you have a crippled account and you get the dialog to type the admin login and password? No way I'm doing that. But I have nothing private or logins and passwords in the PC anyway. So if they get in, they couldn't get anything important, and if they wipe the drive, at worst they can get a few things, nothing major.

[hahn23]

You removed your username from the logs because "(Note that I replace my username for "username" for privacy reasons)" and than it is too much to type in an password? Well, Good luck than in the future...

Anyway, what actualy my goal was (which would made this whole thing an best user experience), that you have to understand, that all python stuff and with that also the A1111 webui stuff is completely USER-based. Python is not meant to be run as admin or with an user that has admin rights.

Thats why I just can give you that tipp to be logged on as normal user and use an other lokal admin for the uac request. Because everyone is a bit lazy from nature, I can also give you an hint how it is not so bad.

You can log on with the local admin account, create an pin for logon (maybe 1234 its up to you). So when back on your user account you just have to choose "pin" and type the pin you created. That is in my oppinion the best match between usebility and security ;)

[sebarious70]

You removed your username from the logs because "(Note that I replace my username for "username" for privacy reasons)" and than it is too much to type in an password? Well, Good luck than in the future...

I don't understand your comparison at all. You're comparing the 10 seconds it takes me to do a simple find and replace in Textedit with having to type a user and a password that is a lot of alphanumeric characters that don't make any sense at all, and doing it every time I want to install anything. And admin rights don't have anything to do with A1111 in any way because I don't get the UAC prompt at all when running it.

So what's your point exactly?

[brknsoul]

open cmd, run;
git config --global --add safe.directory *
close cmd.

run webui-user.bat like normal.

[sebarious70]

What would that be for?

[brknsoul]

That fixes "fatal: detected dubious ownership" errors.

[kalle07]

yes this happend if you installed it with CMD as admin and now you start only CMD

a hint for you 12GB Vram
https://github.com/lllyasviel/stable-diffusion-webui-forge