Was really keen to test the newly released Google Antigravity under Ubuntu on my iMac 11.1, but got an error I couldn’t shake:
“Antigravity server crashed unexpectedly. Please restart to fully restore AI features.”
Couldn’t quite find the solution, I thought it might be able to fix it via an update, as there was a notice in the IDE that and update was available.
apt update and apt upgrade didnt give me new versions to I decided to dig a little.
I checked apt policy antigravity and it seems I have the latest, but i see from the changelog that this repo is pretty far behind. Latest as of now is 1.11.3 but probably only available for osx/windows?
antigravity:
Installed: 1.0.0-1763466940
Candidate: 1.0.0-1763466940
Version table:
*** 1.0.0-1763466940 500
500 https://us-central1-apt.pkg.dev/projects/antigravity-auto-updater-dev antigravity-debian/main amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
–
I read a tip that the bug was related to choosing to import settings from vs code at bootup.
did apt remove antigravity and reinstalled using apt install antigravity, but noticed that the settings for the app must be stored somewhere, wasnt asked to choose importing from vs code the second time, but had the same bug.
Tried creating a new profile to be able to Start fresh (not import vs code settings)
File > New window with profile
then create a new profile.
Then File > New window with profile again with the new profile
This gives me a new fresh window that asks for setup info again, this time choosing Start fresh, instead of import from vs code.
did apt remove antigravity and reinstalled using apt install antigravity, but noticed that the settings for the app must be stored somewhere, wasnt asked to choose importing from vs code the second time, but had the same bug.
Found out what was wrong by chance:
Clicked my account icon and saw the option to Download Diagnostics, and that gave the answer
{
"isRemote": false,
"systemInfo": {
"operatingSystem": "linux",
"timestamp": "2025-11-19T11:15:02.770Z"
},
"extensionLogs": [
"2025-11-19 12:13:21.995 [info] FATAL ERROR: This binary was compiled with aes enabled, but this feature is not available on this processor (go/sigill-fail-fast).",
"2025-11-19 12:13:23.307 [info] (Antigravity) 2025-11-19 12:13:23.306 [INFO]: Language server killed with signal SIGILL",
"2025-11-19 12:13:23.308 [info] (Antigravity) 2025-11-19 12:13:23.307 [ERROR]: Failed to start language server: Error: Language server exited before sending start data",
"2025-11-19 12:13:23.310 [info] (Antigravity) 2025-11-19 12:13:23.309 [ERROR]: LS startLanguageServer error: Language server exited before sending start data"
],
"mainThreadLogs": {
"artifacts": []
},
"recentTrajectories": []
}
My vintage iMac 11,1 model uses processors from the older Lynnfield or Clarkdale generations (e.g., Core i5-750). These processors do not support the AES-NI instruction set.
This confirms that the error I encountered is due to a fundamental hardware limitation of my iMac’s processor.
Update 22. nov 2025:
Google suggests trying this to fix AES:
Linux: Crashes on Launch
Cause: Missing AES-NI instruction set on older CPUs (Pre-2013).
Solution 1: Check Hardware
Run grep -o aes /proc/cpuinfo. If empty, your hardware is not supported.
Solution 2: Update Graphics Drivers
Run sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall or install specific NVIDIA/AMD drivers.
Solution 3: Disable GPU Acceleration
Launch with antigravity --disable-gpu.grep -o aes /proc/cpuinfo was empty, still tried the other two suggestions, but still getting the same error
Oh well. Back to VS Code.