pygame.error: video system not initialized [Solved]

# pygame.error: video system not initialized [Solved]

The "pygame.error: video system not initialized" most commonly occurs when you forget to call pygame.init() to initialize all imported PyGame modules or call pygame.quit() incorrectly.

To solve the error make sure your PyGame application is initialized and uninitialized correctly.

The first thing you should verify is that you've called the pygame.init() method at the top of your file.

Here is an example of a basic setup of a PyGame application from the docs.

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import pygame

# 👇️ Call pygame.init() here
pygame.init()
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((1280, 720))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
running = True

while running:
    # pygame.QUIT event runs when the user clicks X to close the window
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False

    # Fill the screen with a color
    screen.fill("purple")

    # YOUR GAME HERE

    # flip() the display to put your work on screen
    pygame.display.flip()

    clock.tick(60)

# 👇️ Uninitialize all `pygame` modules
pygame.quit()

Notice that we called the pygame.init() method at the top.

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pygame.init()

screen = pygame.display.set_mode((1280, 720))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
running = True

The method initializes all imported PyGame modules.

You can also initialize modules manually, however, calling pygame.init() is more convenient as it initializes all of your imported PyGame modules automatically.

Calling pygame.init() multiple times won't cause any issues as subsequent calls have no effect.

Therefore, make sure to call pygame.init() at the top as shown in the code sample.

Make sure to also call the pygame.display.set_mode() method after calling pygame.init().

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pygame.init()

screen = pygame.display.set_mode((1280, 720))

The pygame.display.set_mode() method creates a display surface of the specified size.

# Make sure to call pygame.quit() at the end, not inside a loop

Another common cause of the error is calling pygame.quit() before your code is done running, e.g. in a while loop.

The pygame.quit() method uninitializes all PyGame modules that have previously been initialized.

In other words, pygame.quit() reverses your call to the pygame.init() method.

When the Python interpreter shuts down, the pygame.quit() method is called automatically, however, you can also call the method in your code to terminate the PyGame resources and continue.

1. Make sure the pygame.quit() method is not called multiple times (e.g. in a while loop).
2. Make sure the method is called after your application loop.

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while running:
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False

    screen.fill("purple")

    pygame.display.flip()

    clock.tick(60)

# ✅ Call pygame.quit() here
pygame.quit()

Notice that the method should be called after the application loop.

You can also try to call the exit() function after calling pygame.quit() if the error persists.

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while running:
  # ...
  pass

pygame.quit()

exit()

You can also call the exit method on the sys module.

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import sys

while running:
  # ...
  pass

pygame.quit()

sys.exit()

The pygame.quit() method uninitializes all PyGame modules but it doesn't exit your program.

The sys.exit() method is used to exit the program.

# Using PyGame without opening a visible display

If you use PyGame without opening a visible display (e.g. for testing), try setting the SDL_VIDEODRIVER environment variable.

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import os

# 👇️ Set SDL_VIDEODRIVER environment variable
os.environ['SDL_VIDEODRIVER'] = 'dummy'

import pygame

pygame.init()
pygame.display.set_mode((1,1))

while 1:
    events = pygame.event.get()
    for e in events:
        pass

Setting the SDL_VIDEODRIVER environment variable to dummy makes it so the dummy video driver is used.

# Additional Resources

You can learn more about the related topics by checking out the following tutorials:

• ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pygame' in Python
• Getting Names and Values of an Enum in Python
• Expected str, bytes or os.PathLike object, not TextIOWrapper
• Get the path of the Root Project directory using Python
• OSError: [WinError 193] %1 is not a valid Win32 application