NVIDIA driver is not loaded. Ubuntu 18.10

Hey @generix !
I really dont mean to bother but I’ve seen you help so many people and I’ve been trying to get my second screen (a tv) to work since i switched over to Linux. Any help would be amazing!

PROBLEM:
Second display (JVC tv) works perfectly in bios and grub menu but turns black after Linux Mint loads, unlike some of the other people I can’t even see the cursor. The display IS detected and shows up in display configuration and xrandr, I can also move applications and the mouse to it but CANNOT see at all.

I’m on an Asus ROG gl552vw laptop :
-Intel© Core™ i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz × 4
-Nvidia Geforce GTX 960m
-16gb RAM

  • Running Linux Mint 20
  • Kerner version: 5.4.0-37-generic

I read the discussion and made sure i had

  • Secure Boot disabled
  • Running on kernel higher than 5.3
  • /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia.conf doesn’t exist
  • tried different versions of the nvidia drivers
  • Although the report says “ERROR: The installation was canceled due to the availability or presence of an alternate driver installation.” I couldn’t find any, I tried using apt purge nvidia* and rebooting (which would use default drivers) and still same thing.

I attached my bug report, I am new to Linux, sorry for the incovenience.nvidia-bug-report.log (457.7 KB)

There’s no nvidia driver installed and nouveau is loaded. Please run
sudo apt install nvidia-driver-440 nvidia-prime
sudo prime-select nvidia
and reboot. Afterwards, please post the output of
dkms status

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Looks good now,
glxinfo |grep vendor
should return “nvidia corporation”, please check.

1 Like

@generix I’m editing this reply since new users have a limit of 3 replies for topic.

I can’t find Gnome’s control center in Linux Mint, I believe that Display Settings will do the trick. I tried to switch between resolutions, refresh rates, and various configurations but nothing seems to work, also, the display is set as “active”.

I guess this is what I get for buying a laptop, in windows I used to download Intel graphics driver for my laptop from
ROG GL552VW - Support but for some reason they decided not to upload drivers for Linux.

Either way, do you have any other ideas on how to fix the problem?
I really don’t want to use Windows but if the problem persists I’m afraid I’ll have no choice until I buy a new computer.

Sincere apologies for bothering,
and thank you so much

The hdmi is connected to the intel igpu anyway, so the nvidia gpu/driver can’t do anything about it. At least it works now.
The tv is detected but not added for unknown reasons, please check if you can enable it in gnome’s control center.
Edit: please also try different resolutions/refresh rates.

1 Like

@generix Hello, I have a error NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

I have attached nvidia-bug-report.

nvidia-bug-report.log (732.4 KB)

There was only an outdated, incompatible driver from repo installed. Please do a system upgrade and install the current driver:
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install nvidia-driver-440
If existent, please delete /etc/X11/xorg.conf

thanks,it works. after sudo apt install nvidia-driver-440,
and delete /etc/X11/xorg.conf

I tried following all of the advice in this thread but no luck.
Please help.
nvidia-bug-report.log (1.6 MB)

The only suspect to my eyes is that I am trying this on a Surface Book 3 with linux-surface kernel (based on 5.7)

Yes, the currently by Ubuntu provided nvidia driver doesn’t compile with kernel 5.7. You would either need to patch the 440 driver
https://gitlab.com/snippets/1965550
or wait for the 450 driver to be provided by Ubuntu or use the .run installer (not recommended).
Furthermore, the kernel you installed was compiled with gcc 9.3 but the 18.04 system compiler is 7.5 which means problems ahead. Rather install Ubuntu 20.04 (which has gcc 9.3), install the kernel, fully update system, then install the 440 driver and patch it manually (not difficult). Or wait for the 450 driver to show up in Ubuntu repo.

1 Like

nvidia-bug-report.log (639.9 KB) @generix, I am trying to install the nvidia driver, I have Ubuntu 18.04, Samsung Expert X50.
I installed this
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install nvidia-driver-440
I deleted the /etc/X11/xorg.conf but after reboot, the nvidia-smi cant comunicate with the nvidia driver:
nvidia-smi
NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

Thanks

EDIT: I solved this problem. I checked that mimimum requirements (file:///usr/share/doc/nvidia-driver-440/html/minimumrequirements.html) were not met. The glibc was not available. I installed with
sudo apt install glibc-source

After, I reinstalled the nvidia-driver-440 and worked.

nvidia-smi
Sat Jul 4 10:45:34 2020
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 440.100 Driver Version: 440.100 CUDA Version: 10.2 |
|-------------------------------±---------------------±---------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
| 0 GeForce MX110 Off | 00000000:01:00.0 Off | N/A |
| N/A 58C P0 N/A / N/A | 269MiB / 2004MiB | 73% Default |
±------------------------------±---------------------±---------------------+

±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: GPU Memory |
| GPU PID Type Process name Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 3591 G /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg 87MiB |
| 0 3914 G /usr/bin/gnome-shell 66MiB |
| 0 4646 G …AAAAAAAAAAAACAAAAAAAAAA= --shared-files 111MiB |
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

@generix

Hey, I encountered the same problem.

lspci -v | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

lspci -v | grep 3D
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107M [GeForce GTX 860M] (rev a2)

nvidia-smi
NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

nvidia-settings
ERROR: NVIDIA driver is not loaded
ERROR: Unable to load info from any available system

Installed the driver ubuntu recommended.
Disabled the secure boot.
Re-installed the driver for several times.

But it seems still not work.
nvidia-bug-report.log (487.1 KB)

Hey there I’m running Ubuntu 18.04.4 on my laptop with NVDIA GEFORCE 940MX.

rahunn3@acer-ubuntu:~$ nvidia-smi
Wed Jul  8 20:24:56 2020       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 440.100      Driver Version: 440.100      CUDA Version: 10.2     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce 940MX       Off  | 00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   48C    P8    N/A /  N/A |      0MiB /  2004MiB |      0%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                           
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |
|  GPU       PID   Type   Process name                             Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

When I type nvidia-setting I get the following:

rahunn3@acer-ubuntu:~$ nvidia-settings

ERROR: Unable to load info from any available system

With sudo nvidia prime-select nvidia

rahunn3@acer-ubuntu:~$ sudo prime-select nvidia
Info: the nvidia profile is already set

Nvidia X Server Setting is installed but it doesn’t open when I click it.

I’ve uploaded the log filenvidia-bug-report.log (752.5 KB)

I have tried so many things on this thread, but not getting any traction. Apologies, but I am using Ubuntu 20.04. The same issue was happening on 18.10 and I used it as motivation to upgrade.

Basic symptoms:

$ dkms status
nvidia, 440.100, 5.7.9-050709-generic, x86_64: installed

and

$ prime-select query
nvidia

trying nvidia-smi yields a similar error to those reported above:

NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

I can’t find any obvious issues based on what is described above in terms of the different blacklist scenarios.

$ grep -r nvidia /etc/modprobe.d/* /lib/modprobe.d/*
/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf:blacklist nvidiafb

and I don’t see an xorg.conf file (though I do see a reference to one).

$ grep -r xorg.conf /etc/X11/* /lib/X11/*
/lib/X11/xedit/lisp/xedit.lsp:    ("\\<(XF86Config|xorg.conf)[^/]*"

So the upshot is that I don’t understand what is going on here, and I as far as I can tell the driver is supposed to work on the Linux 5.7 kernel. And as far as I can tell this problem started immediately after a recent upgrade on Ubuntu 18.10, but can’t nail down the cause there using the Googlebot just yet.

Appreciate any advice I can get. Thanks.

nvidia-bug-report.log.gz (89.5 KB)

I experienced this problem after a kernel update to 5.4.0-42 via apt (on Ubuntu 20.04 Focal in my case). The Nvidia driver loaded on my old kernel (5.4.0-40), but not my new one.

The fix turned out to be that apt didn’t automatically install headers for the new kernel, so downstream parts of the kernel upgrade process didn’t recompile the Nvidia module for the new kernel.

Doing sudo apt install linux-headers-5.4.0-42-generic fixed everything. The hooks for installing the headers automatically recompiled the Nvidia kernel module (amazing!), and everything worked right on a reboot to the new kernel.

Also posted this info here: 20.04 Focal - Nvidia driver no longer loading with kernel 5.4.0-42 - Ask Ubuntu

1 Like

Having similar problems on Ubuntu 18.04
I have tried:

  1. uninstalling then reinstalling nvidia drivers
  2. disabling secure boot
  3. deleting blacklist-nvidia.conf (well, not that exact file but something v similar - it had nvidia, blacklist, and .conf in the name iirc)
  4. installing linux-headers-5.4.0-42 (already had them)
  5. probably some other stuff I’ve forgotten

None of these appear to have worked for me. In software updates settings it appears I have nvidia-driver-435
Here’s the nvidia-bug-report.
nvidia-bug-report.log.gz (204.2 KB)

1 Like

Experiencing a similar problem. Have tried

sudo apt-get --purge -y remove ‘cuda*’
sudo apt-get --purge -y remove ‘nvidia*’
sudo reboot

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-440

nvidia-bug-report.log.gz (90.8 KB)

Hello,
I have the same problem, I have Ubuntu 20.04.

$ nvidia-settings
ERROR: NVIDIA driver is not loaded
ERROR: Unable to load info from any available system

$ nvidia-smi
NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

My graphic card is an NVIDIA GM108M [GeForce 840M]

The driver: nvidia-driver-450 (recommended)

I’ve tried everything I’ve read in this forum, please help.

nvidia-bug-report.log.gz (137.6 KB)

So, I installed (disabled secure boot)

  1. sudo apt update
  2. sudo apt upgrade
  3. sudo apt install nvidia-driver-450.66 (recommended)
  4. while trying to remove /etc/X11/xorg.conf --got output as no such file/directory exist
  5. sudo reboot,
  6. nvidia-smi I get this, but not sure as my settings->details isn’t showing graphic as nvidia 450.66. Also, no usage status through smi command
    nvidia-smi

**I am running 2 OS on this razer blade, let me know if this has something to do! Thanks

Please advise

sanket@sanket-Blade:~$ nvidia-smi
Fri Sep 4 18:27:26 2020
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 450.66 Driver Version: 450.66 CUDA Version: 11.0 |
|-------------------------------±---------------------±---------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
| 0 GeForce GTX 106… Off | 00000000:01:00.0 Off | N/A |
| N/A 41C P8 3W / N/A | 0MiB / 6078MiB | 0% Default |
| | | N/A |
±------------------------------±---------------------±---------------------+

±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| No running processes found |
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
sanket@sanket-Blade:~$

I am experiencing the same issue just like everyone, I am having GTX 1050 and installed its drivers using

  • sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall
    which seemed to workfine (checked using nvidia-smi) but after installing cuda 10.0 using run file I am unable to load Nvidia drivers

NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

  • I have disabled the secure boot

nvidia-bug-report.log.gz file attached
nvidia-bug-report.log.gz (81.3 KB)