Same problems here. Very frustrating. My Linux system was working great under the previous driver version, but after the update I couldn’t even log in except in recovery mode. I’ve since recovered somewhat, but my external monitor still doesn’t work and graphics performance on my notebook’s built-in screen is terrible.
Some details, from bug report submitted to OpenSuSE:
Following software updates pushed out yesterday, I cannot log in except in recovery mode. I suspect problems with the nvidia driver.
Symptoms: Can’t get past login splash screen. No login text box is displayed. Cursor and mouse function normally, and I can log in via text console. I think the X server is failing to start.
This is just a preliminary report to make sure someone is aware of the problem. I am happy to investigate further, but I don’t want to spend hours if you already know about the problem.
Here are the software updates yesterday that broke my system:
x11-video-nvidiaG03-340.46-30.1.x86_64 Thu 16 Oct 2014 08:54:44 AM EDT
nvidia-computeG03-340.46-30.1.x86_64 Thu 16 Oct 2014 08:54:40 AM EDT
nvidia-glG03-340.46-30.1.x86_64 Thu 16 Oct 2014 08:54:38 AM EDT
nvidia-uvm-gfxG03-kmp-desktop-340.46_k3.7.10_1.1-30.1.x86_64 Thu 16 Oct 2014 08:54:15 AM EDT
nvidia-gfxG03-kmp-desktop-340.46_k3.7.10_1.1-30.1.x86_64 Thu 16 Oct 2014 08:52:55 AM EDT
It could be a hardware problem or otherwise unrelated to the software updates, but the timing is too suspicious for that.
I’m assuming I don’t need to manually re-install the nvidia driver? If so, it would be good to warn users that they won’t be able to log in following the software update ;-)
More info on my system and the hardware:
lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 [Quadro K2000M] (rev a1)
uname -a
Linux enigma.steve-wickert.net 3.7.10-1.40-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jul 10 11:22:12 UTC 2014 (9b06319) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Lenovo ThinkPad W530
Thanks!
SW
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I wonder if the problem is related to my monitor configuration. My ThinkPad W530’s display is 1920x1080, but I also have a docking station with a 1920x1200 display attached. I use the notebook both with and without the docking station and external monitor. It has always autodetected the connected monitors and configured itself properly for either one or two displays. I use Xinerama when there are two displays available, but I normally don’t have to change any configuration manually when switching between one and two displays, since it’s autodetected.
Yesterday morning I was NOT using the external monitor during the software updates. Just as a side note, when shutting down I always first log out of my session, get back to the login screen, and shut down from there. I’m paranoid about losing my session (open windows and so on) or corrupting my desktop settings if the system doesn’t shut down cleanly, and I figure it’s safer to log out first and then shut down. Anyway, when I logged out and got back to the login splash screen, I noticed that the fonts and so on looked different, don’t know if that’s significant.
Next time I booted up (immediately following the driver updates), I was connected to the docking station and external monitor. The external monitor never displayed anything, though it was online and powered up.
In /var/log/Xorg.0.log, I notice this:
13.980] (II) NVIDIA(0): Virtual screen size determined to be 3840 x 1080
I was NOT using the docking station or external monitor when this log was produced.
Maybe the X server is presenting the login text box on part of its virtual display that doesn’t correspond to any physical display? Don’t know how the settings would have been corrupted or why the autodetection of connected monitors doesn’t work anymore.
SW
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Update: This seems to be a problem with the new nvidia proprietary driver, and not exactly a problem with OpenSuSE. Still, a software update did break my perfectly good system to the point I couldn’t log in except in recovery mode, and it’s still broken though I was able to recover partially.
Perhaps the OpenSuSE team should think about reverting to the previous nvidia driver until the new one is ready for primetime?
Current status is my external monitor on the docking station is not working at all, and graphics performance on the built-in display is noticeably worse (slower and choppier) than before. I’ve poked around my settings but it’s possible I missed something that I had configured differently when I initially set it up.
The problem that prevented logins was (as I suspected) that the driver update somehow got the external display as the primary device, even though the driver isn’t able to drive it anymore and it’s not even connected most of the time. I had set up Xinerama and the configuration with two displays is retained whether the second display is connected or not. So after the update, the primary screen where login info, the taskbar, and everything else is displayed got mapped to a device that the driver is no longer able to drive, even when it’s connected.
I could log in in recovery mode, using another video driver, but I couldn’t run nvidia’s configuration utility because it only runs if the nvidia driver is running. So I temporarily configured autologin for myself without a password, to get past the non-displayed login screen under the nvidia driver. Then I was able to run the nvidia config tool and set the primary display back to the built-in screen.
But as I said above, the driver is still not able to drive the external display at all. And my observed graphics performance on the built-in display is noticeably worse than it used to be. My system worked great with the old driver! :-)
SW
nvidia-bug-report.log.gz (202 KB)