Errors were encountered while processing DKMS

Gaming and Visualization Technologies General Topics and Other SDKs Drivers - Linux, Windows, MacOS
14

I had the same problem on Ubuntu 24.x LTS while trying to install NVIDIA 550 drivers and couldn’t fix it somehow.

I was getting the error below all the time when trying to purge and autoremove:

Setting up nvidia-dkms-545 (545.29.06-0ubuntuo~gpuz4.04.1) ... update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated) 
INFO: Enable nvidia 
DEBUG: Parsing /usr/share/ubuntu-drivers-common/quirks/dell_latitude 
DEBUG:Parsing /usr/share/ubuntu-drivers-common/quirks/put-your_quirks_here 
DEBUG: Parsing /usr/share/ubuntu-drivers-common/quirks/lenovo_thinkpad 
Removing old nvidia-545.29.06 DKMS files... 
Deleting module nvidia-545.29.06 completely from the DKMS tree. 
Loading new nvidia-545.29.06 DKMS files... 
Building for 6.8.0-31-generic 
Building for architecture x86_64 
Building initial module for 6.8.0-31-generic 
ERROR: Cannot create report: [Errno 17] File exists: '/var/crash/nvidia-kernel-source-545.0.crash' 
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 6.8.0-31-generic (x86_64) 
Consult /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/545.29.06/build/make. log for more information. dpkg: error processing package nvidia-dkms-545 (--configure): 
installed nvidia-dkms-545 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 10• opkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of nvidia-driver-545: nvidia-driver-545 depends on nvidia-dkms-545 (<= 545.29.06-11; however: 
Package nvidia-dkms-545 is not configured yet. nvidia-driver-545 depends on nvidia-dkms-545 (>= 545.29.06); however: 
Package nvidia-dkms-545 is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing package nvidia-driver-545 (--configure): 
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured 
No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure. 
Processing trigge 
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd, img-6,8,0-31-generic 
Errors were encountered while processing: 
nvidia-dkms-545
E: Sub-process /us/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

So steps I have followed are like these:

  • First of all, I wiped “/var/lib/dkms/nvidia” folder just like @Metalbot indicated in his post.

And then,

  • Purged anything related to nvidia drivers:
sudo apt-get purge 'nvidia-*'
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get autoclean
  • Removed residual configuration files
sudo dpkg --purge $(dpkg -l | grep nvidia | awk '{print $2}')

There were bunch of leftovers from old drivers, like 510/535/545. So I got rid of them by the codes above.

  • Installed/Re-Installed build-essential and other dependencies
sudo apt-get install build-essential dkms
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
  • Installed the drivers I’ve been trying to
sudo apt-get install nvidia-driver-550
  • Rebuilt the initramfs image
sudo update-initramfs -u
  • And rebooted
sudo reboot

and I got it working without any problems afterwards.

Edit:
I’ve done all of that in recovery mode of Ubuntu, from shell with no graphical interface to avoid any gpu usage by nvidia drivers.

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