Now older versions of qemu-kvm didn't throw this error say if you just had "-video cirrus" when starting qemu-kvm. But newer versions do care.
And this probably only applies to you if you are running from bash/terminal with remote kvm images.
What you need to do is remove the "-video" part and just add -vnc :5
eg. this would fix the error:
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -boot order=cd,once=dc -m 1024 -drive file=/tmp/kvmuser786.img,if=virtio -vnc :5 -usbdevice tablet -net nic,macaddr=DE:AD:BE:EF:37:76 -net tap,ifname=tap0,script=no,downscript=no
eg. here is the command with the error:
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -video cirrus -boot order=cd,once=dc -m 1024 -drive file=/root/kvmuser786/kvmuser786.img,if=virtio -usbdevice tablet -net nic,macaddr=DE:AD:BE:EF:37:76 -net tap,ifname=tap0,script=no,downscript=no
So the key is to remove the "-video cirrus" and then add the -vnc :5 (where 5 would be port 5905).
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