How to Fix Raspberry Pi's 'Cannot Currently Show the Desktop' Error
It’s a truly frustrating error you may encounter when you try to connect to your Raspberryi Pi remotely using VNC. After you’ve done you try getting remote access to the desktop environment, but VNC viewer (or some other client) gives you a black screen and with the message “Cannot currently show the desktop” on it.
Screen Resolution change
1. Launch raspi-config.
sudo raspi-config
2. Select Advanced Options-> Resolution.
3. Choose a resolution. We recommend at least 1280 x 720, but some users report that choosing the highest possible (usually 1920 x 1080) is what they needed to do.
You’ll need to reboot your Raspberry Pi for this change to take effect.
Install or Reinstall LXSession
One reason that Raspberry Pi might be giving you the “cannot show the desktop” error is that there’s a problem with your session manager or it’s just not installed.
To install LXsession, type:
sudo apt-get install lxsession
If LXSession is already installed, you should try reinstalling LXSession and the libgtk2.0-0 library:
sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgtk2.0-0
sudo apt-get install --reinstall lxsession
Boot to Desktop Mode
If your Raspberry Pi has LXDE, the desktop environment installed, but it’s set to boot to command prompt, you won’t be able to view the desktop via VNC. To change Raspberry PI’s boot mode:
sudo raspi-config
2. Select Boot Options->Desktop / ClI-> Desktop Autologin then hit Enter and select Finish to exit the software.
3. Reboot.
Clear Space in Root Partition
It’s always possible that your desktop isn’t available, because you’ve run out of disk space. The way to find out is to type the following at the command prompt:
df -h
You’ll see a list of partitions and their amount of free space. If your root partition has no or almost no free space, that could be the problem and you should consider uninstalling some stuff or moving to a larger microSD card.
