InvokeAI Automated Installation#

Introduction#

The automated installer is a Python script that automates the steps needed to install and run InvokeAI on a stock computer running recent versions of Linux, MacOS or Windows. It will leave you with a version that runs a stable version of InvokeAI with the option to upgrade to experimental versions later.

Walk through#

Hardware Requirements: Make sure that your system meets the hardware requirements and has the appropriate GPU drivers installed. For a system with an NVIDIA card installed, you will need to install the CUDA driver, while AMD-based cards require the ROCm driver. In most cases, if you've already used the system for gaming or other graphics-intensive tasks, the appropriate drivers will already be installed. If unsure, check the GPU Driver Guide

Required Space

Installation requires roughly 18G of free disk space to load the libraries and recommended model weights files.

Regardless of your destination disk, your system drive (C:\ on Windows, / on macOS/Linux) requires at least 6GB of free disk space to download and cache python dependencies.

NOTE for Linux users: if your temporary directory is mounted as a tmpfs, ensure it has sufficient space.
Software Requirements: Check that your system has an up-to-date Python installed. To do this, open up a command-line window ("Terminal" on Linux and Macintosh, "Command" or "Powershell" on Windows) and type python --version. If Python is installed, it will print out the version number. If it is version 3.9.* or 3.10.*, you meet requirements. We do not recommend using Python 3.11 or higher, as not all the libraries that InvokeAI depends on work properly with this version.

What to do if you have an unsupported version

Go to Python Downloads and download the appropriate installer package for your platform. We recommend Version 3.10.9, which has been extensively tested with InvokeAI.

Please select your platform in the section below for platform-specific setup requirements.
WindowsLinuxMac
During the Python configuration process, look out for a checkbox to add Python to your PATH and select it. If the install script complains that it can't find python, then open the Python installer again and choose "Modify" existing installation.

Installation requires an up to date version of the Microsoft Visual C libraries. Please install the 2015-2022 libraries available here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-US/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170

Please double-click on the file WinLongPathsEnabled.reg and accept the dialog box that asks you if you wish to modify your registry. This activates long filename support on your system and will prevent mysterious errors during installation.
To install an appropriate version of Python on Ubuntu 22.04 and higher, run the following:
sudo apt update sudo apt install -y python3 python3-pip python3-venv sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/local/bin/python python /usr/bin/python3.10 3
On Ubuntu 20.04, the process is slightly different:
sudo apt update sudo apt install -y software-properties-common sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:deadsnakes/ppa sudo apt install python3.10 python3-pip python3.10-venv sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/local/bin/python python /usr/bin/python3.10 3
Both python and python3 commands are now pointing at Python3.10. You can still access older versions of Python by calling python2, python3.8, etc.

Linux systems require a couple of additional graphics libraries to be installed for proper functioning of python3-opencv. Please run the following:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y libglib2.0-0 libgl1-mesa-glx
After installing Python, you may need to run the following command from the Terminal in order to install the Web certificates needed to download model data from https sites. If you see lots of CERTIFICATE ERRORS during the last part of the install, this is the problem, and you can fix it with this command:
`/Applications/Python\ 3.10/Install\ Certificates.command`
You may need to install the Xcode command line tools. These are a set of tools that are needed to run certain applications in a Terminal, including InvokeAI. This package is provided directly by Apple. To install, open a terminal window and run xcode-select --install. You will get a macOS system popup guiding you through the install. If you already have them installed, you will instead see some output in the Terminal advising you that the tools are already installed. More information can be found at FreeCode Camp
Download the Installer: The InvokeAI installer is distributed as a ZIP files. Go to the latest release, and look for a file named:
- InvokeAI-installer-v2.X.X.zip
where "2.X.X" is the latest released version. The file is located at the very bottom of the release page, under Assets.
Unpack the installer: Unpack the zip file into a convenient directory. This will create a new directory named "InvokeAI-Installer". When unpacked, the directory will look like this:
Launch the installer script from the desktop: If you are using a desktop GUI, double-click the installer file appropriate for your platform. It will be named install.bat on Windows systems and install.sh on Linux and Macintosh systems. Be aware that your system's file browser may suppress the display of the file extension.

On Windows systems if you get an "Untrusted Publisher" warning. Click on "More Info" and then select "Run Anyway." You trust us, right?
[Alternative] Launch the installer script from the command line: Alternatively, from the command line, run the shell script or .bat file:
```
C:\Documents\Linco> cd InvokeAI-Installer
C:\Documents\Linco\invokeAI> .\install.bat
```
Select the location to install InvokeAI: The script will ask you to choose where to install InvokeAI. Select a directory with at least 18G of free space for a full install. InvokeAI and all its support files will be installed into a new directory named invokeai located at the location you specify.
- The default is to install the invokeai directory in your home directory, usually C:\Users\YourName\invokeai on Windows systems, /home/YourName/invokeai on Linux systems, and /Users/YourName/invokeai on Macintoshes, where "YourName" is your login name.
-If you have previously installed InvokeAI, you will be asked to confirm whether you want to reinstall into this directory. You may choose to reinstall, in which case your version will be upgraded, or choose a different directory.
- The script uses tab autocompletion to suggest directory path completions. Type part of the path (e.g. "C:\Users") and press Tab repeatedly to suggest completions.
Select your GPU: The installer will autodetect your platform and will request you to confirm the type of GPU your graphics card has. On Linux systems, you will have the choice of CUDA (NVidia cards), ROCm (AMD cards), or CPU (no graphics acceleration). On Windows, you'll have the choice of CUDA vs CPU, and on Macs you'll be offered CPU only. When you select CPU on M1 or M2 Macintoshes, you will get MPS-based graphics acceleration without installing additional drivers. If you are unsure what GPU you are using, you can ask the installer to guess.
Watch it go!: Sit back and let the install script work. It will install the third-party libraries needed by InvokeAI and the application itself.

Be aware that some of the library download and install steps take a long time. In particular, the pytorch package is quite large and often appears to get "stuck" at 99.9%. Have patience and the installation step will eventually resume. However, there are occasions when the library install does legitimately get stuck. If you have been waiting for more than ten minutes and nothing is happening, you can interrupt the script with ^C. You may restart it and it will pick up where it left off.
Post-install Configuration: After installation completes, the installer will launch the configuration form, which will guide you through the first-time process of adjusting some of InvokeAI's startup settings. To move around this form use ctrl-N for <N>ext and ctrl-P for <P>revious, or use <tab> and shift-<tab> to move forward and back. Once you are in a multi-checkbox field use the up and down cursor keys to select the item you want, and <space> to toggle it on and off. Within a directory field, pressing <tab> will provide autocomplete options.

Generally the defaults are fine, and you can come back to this screen at any time to tweak your system. Here are the options you can adjust:
- Output directory for images This is the path to a directory in which InvokeAI will store all its generated images.
- NSFW checker If checked, InvokeAI will test images for potential sexual content and blur them out if found. Note that the NSFW checker consumes an additional 0.6 GB of VRAM on top of the 2-3 GB of VRAM used by most image models. If you have a low VRAM GPU (4-6 GB), you can reduce out of memory errors by disabling the checker.
- HuggingFace Access Token InvokeAI has the ability to download embedded styles and subjects from the HuggingFace Concept Library on-demand. However, some of the concept library files are password protected. To make download smoother, you can set up an account at huggingface.co, obtain an access token, and paste it into this field. Note that you paste to this screen using ctrl-shift-V
- Free GPU memory after each generation This is useful for low-memory machines and helps minimize the amount of GPU VRAM used by InvokeAI.
- Enable xformers support if available If the xformers library was successfully installed, this will activate it to reduce memory consumption and increase rendering speed noticeably. Note that xformers has the side effect of generating slightly different images even when presented with the same seed and other settings.
- Force CPU to be used on GPU systems This will use the (slow) CPU rather than the accelerated GPU. This can be used to generate images on systems that don't have a compatible GPU.
- Precision This controls whether to use float32 or float16 arithmetic. float16 uses less memory but is also slightly less accurate. Ordinarily the right arithmetic is picked automatically ("auto"), but you may have to use float32 to get images on certain systems and graphics cards. The "autocast" option is deprecated and shouldn't be used unless you are asked to by a member of the team.
- Number of models to cache in CPU memory This allows you to keep models in memory and switch rapidly among them rather than having them load from disk each time. This slider controls how many models to keep loaded at once. Each model will use 2-4 GB of RAM, so use this cautiously
- Directory containing embedding/textual inversion files This is the directory in which you can place custom embedding files (.pt or .bin). During startup, this directory will be scanned and InvokeAI will print out the text terms that are available to trigger the embeddings.
At the bottom of the screen you will see a checkbox for accepting the CreativeML Responsible AI License. You need to accept the license in order to download Stable Diffusion models from the next screen.

You can come back to the startup options form as many times as you like. From the invoke.sh or invoke.bat launcher, select option (6) to relaunch this script. On the command line, it is named invokeai-configure.
Downloading Models: After you press [NEXT] on the screen, you will be taken to another screen that prompts you to download a series of starter models. The ones we recommend are preselected for you, but you are encouraged to use the checkboxes to pick and choose. You will probably wish to download autoencoder-840000 for use with models that were trained with an older version of the Stability VAE.

Below the preselected list of starter models is a large text field which you can use to specify a series of models to import. You can specify models in a variety of formats, each separated by a space or newline. The formats accepted are:
- The path to a .ckpt or .safetensors file. On most systems, you can drag a file from the file browser to the textfield to automatically paste the path. Be sure to remove extraneous quotation marks and other things that come along for the ride.
- The path to a directory containing a combination of .ckpt and .safetensors files. The directory will be scanned from top to bottom (including subfolders) and any file that can be imported will be.
- A URL pointing to a .ckpt or .safetensors file. You can cut and paste directly from a web page, or simply drag the link from the web page or navigation bar. (You can also use ctrl-shift-V to paste into this field) The file will be downloaded and installed.
- The HuggingFace repository ID (repo_id) for a diffusers model. These IDs have the format author_name/model_name, as in andite/anything-v4.0
- The path to a local directory containing a diffusers model. These directories always have the file model_index.json at their top level.
Select a directory for models to import You may select a local directory for autoimporting at startup time. If you select this option, the directory you choose will be scanned for new .ckpt/.safetensors files each time InvokeAI starts up, and any new files will be automatically imported and made available for your use.

Convert imported models into diffusers When legacy checkpoint files are imported, you may select to use them unmodified (the default) or to convert them into diffusers models. The latter load much faster and have slightly better rendering performance, but not all checkpoint files can be converted. Note that Stable Diffusion Version 2.X files are only supported in diffusers format and will be converted regardless.

You can come back to the model install form as many times as you like. From the invoke.sh or invoke.bat launcher, select option (5) to relaunch this script. On the command line, it is named invokeai-model-install.
Running InvokeAI for the first time: The script will now exit and you'll be ready to generate some images. Look for the directory invokeai installed in the location you chose at the beginning of the install session. Look for a shell script named invoke.sh (Linux/Mac) or invoke.bat (Windows). Launch the script by double-clicking it or typing its name at the command-line:
```
C:\Documents\Linco> cd invokeai
C:\Documents\Linco\invokeAI> invoke.bat
```
- The invoke.bat (invoke.sh) script will give you the choice of starting (1) the command-line interface, (2) the web GUI, (3) textual inversion training, and (4) model merging.
- By default, the script will launch the web interface. When you do this, you'll see a series of startup messages ending with instructions to point your browser at http://localhost:9090. Click on this link to open up a browser and start exploring InvokeAI's features.
InvokeAI Options: You can launch InvokeAI with several different command-line arguments that customize its behavior. For example, you can change the location of the image output directory, or select your favorite sampler. See the Command-Line Interface for a full list of the options.
- To set defaults that will take effect every time you launch InvokeAI, use a text editor (e.g. Notepad) to exit the file invokeai\invokeai.init. It contains a variety of examples that you can follow to add and modify launch options.
- The launcher script also offers you an option labeled "open the developer console". If you choose this option, you will be dropped into a command-line interface in which you can run python commands directly, access developer tools, and launch InvokeAI with customized options.
Do not move or remove the invokeai directory

The invokeai directory contains the invokeai application, its configuration files, the model weight files, and outputs of image generation. Once InvokeAI is installed, do not move or remove this directory."

Troubleshooting#

Package dependency conflicts#

If you have previously installed InvokeAI or another Stable Diffusion package, the installer may occasionally pick up outdated libraries and either the installer or invoke will fail with complaints about library conflicts. In this case, run the invoke.sh/invoke.bat command and enter the Developer's Console by picking option (5). This will take you to a command-line prompt.

Then give this command:

pip install InvokeAI --force-reinstall

This should fix the issues.

InvokeAI runs extremely slowly on Linux or Windows systems#

The most frequent cause of this problem is when the installation process installed the CPU-only version of the torch machine-learning library, rather than a version that takes advantage of GPU acceleration. To confirm this issue, look at the InvokeAI startup messages. If you see a message saying ">> Using device CPU", then this is what happened.

To fix this problem, first determine whether you have an NVidia or an AMD GPU. The former uses the CUDA driver, and the latter uses ROCm (only available on Linux). Then run the invoke.sh/invoke.bat command and enter the Developer's Console by picking option (5). This will take you to a command-line prompt.

Then type the following commands:

NVIDIA SystemAMD System

pip install torch torchvision --force-reinstall --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu117
pip install xformers

pip install torch torchvision --force-reinstall --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/rocm5.4.2

Corrupted configuration file#

Everything seems to install ok, but invokeai complains of a corrupted configuration file and goes back into the configuration process (asking you to download models, etc), but this doesn't fix the problem.

This issue is often caused by a misconfigured configuration directive in the invokeai\invokeai.init initialization file that contains startup settings. The easiest way to fix the problem is to move the file out of the way and re-run invokeai-configure. Enter the developer's console (option 3 of the launcher script) and run this command:

invokeai-configure --root=.

Note the dot (.) after --root. It is part of the command.

If none of these maneuvers fixes the problem then please report the problem to the InvokeAI Issues section, or visit our Discord Server for interactive assistance.

Out of Memory Issues#

The models are large, VRAM is expensive, and you may find yourself faced with Out of Memory errors when generating images. Here are some tips to reduce the problem:

4 GB of VRAM

This should be adequate for 512x512 pixel images using Stable Diffusion 1.5 and derived models, provided that you disable the NSFW checker. To disable the filter, do one of the following:

Select option (6) "change InvokeAI startup options" from the launcher. This will bring up the console-based startup settings dialogue and allow you to unselect the "NSFW Checker" option.
Start the startup settings dialogue directly by running invokeai-configure --skip-sd-weights --skip-support-models from the command line.
Find the invokeai.init initialization file in the InvokeAI root directory, open it in a text editor, and change --nsfw_checker to --no-nsfw_checker

If you are on a CUDA system, you can realize significant memory savings by activating the xformers library as described above. The downside is xformers introduces non-deterministic behavior, such that images generated with exactly the same prompt and settings will be slightly different from each other. See above for more information.

6 GB of VRAM

This is a border case. Using the SD 1.5 series you should be able to generate images up to 640x640 with the NSFW checker enabled, and up to 1024x1024 with it disabled and xformers activated.

If you run into persistent memory issues there are a series of environment variables that you can set before launching InvokeAI that alter how the PyTorch machine learning library manages memory. See https://pytorch.org/docs/stable/notes/cuda.html#memory-management for a list of these tweaks.

12 GB of VRAM

This should be sufficient to generate larger images up to about 1280x1280. If you wish to push further, consider activating xformers.

Updating to newer versions#

This distribution is changing rapidly, and we add new features regularly. Releases are announced at http://github.com/invoke-ai/InvokeAI/releases, and at https://pypi.org/project/InvokeAI/ To update to the latest released version (recommended), follow these steps:

Start the invoke.sh/invoke.bat launch script from within the invokeai root directory.
Choose menu item (10) "Update InvokeAI".
This will launch a menu that gives you the option of:
Updating to the latest official release;
Updating to the bleeding-edge development version; or
Manually entering the tag or branch name of a version of InvokeAI you wish to try out.

Last update: March 26, 2023
Created: December 11, 2022