Ubutun 20.04 driver 470 installed but can’t be enabled

user152410 · January 26, 2022, 8:45pm

Hi,
I’ve installed nvidia driver 470 on my Ubuntu 20.04 (Asus mchine) and then reboot,
The drive seems to be installed fine, but when I open the installed Nvidia software (Nvidia X-server settings) to enable the Nvidia GPU I get an empty window like this:

So I checked some previous similar issues posted here, I tried some of the answers but nothing finally got me to the right answer to my issue.
The Nvidia is looking for the driver (which has already installed) but it couldn’t find/comunicate with it.

$ 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.

and those some of my system outputs may help clear the situation:

$sudo lshw -c video
  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520]
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 07
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pciexpress msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:128 memory:dd000000-ddffffff memory:b0000000-bfffffff ioport:f000(size=64) memory:c0000-dffff
  *-display UNCLAIMED
       description: 3D controller
       product: GK208BM [GeForce 920M]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:de000000-deffffff memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:d0000000-d1ffffff ioport:e000(size=128) memory:df000000-df07ffff

Kernel version & info

$ uname -r
5.15.10-051510-generic

$ dpkg --list |grep "linux-headers"

ii  linux-headers-5.11.0-37-generic               5.11.0-37.41~20.04.2                        amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.11.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.11.0-46-generic               5.11.0-46.51~20.04.1                        amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.11.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.13.0-27-generic               5.13.0-27.29~20.04.1                        amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.15.10-051510                  5.15.10-051510.202112171031                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.15.10
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-33                        5.4.0-33.37                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-33-generic                5.4.0-33.37                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-40                        5.4.0-40.44                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-40-generic                5.4.0-40.44                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-42                        5.4.0-42.46                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-42-generic                5.4.0-42.46                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-51                        5.4.0-51.56                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-51-generic                5.4.0-51.56                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-52                        5.4.0-52.57                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-52-generic                5.4.0-52.57                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-53                        5.4.0-53.59                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-53-generic                5.4.0-53.59                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-54                        5.4.0-54.60                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-54-generic                5.4.0-54.60                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-56                        5.4.0-56.62                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-56-generic                5.4.0-56.62                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-60                        5.4.0-60.67                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-60-generic                5.4.0-60.67                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-62                        5.4.0-62.70                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-62-generic                5.4.0-62.70                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-64                        5.4.0-64.72                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-64-generic                5.4.0-64.72                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-65                        5.4.0-65.73                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-65-generic                5.4.0-65.73                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-66                        5.4.0-66.74                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-66-generic                5.4.0-66.74                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-70                        5.4.0-70.78                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-70-generic                5.4.0-70.78                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-71                        5.4.0-71.79                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-71-generic                5.4.0-71.79                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-74                        5.4.0-74.83                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-74-generic                5.4.0-74.83                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-77                        5.4.0-77.86                                 all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-77-generic                5.4.0-77.86                                 amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-96                        5.4.0-96.109                                all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 5.4.0
ii  linux-headers-5.4.0-96-generic                5.4.0-96.109                                amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-5.8.0-63-generic                5.8.0-63.71~20.04.1                         amd64        Linux kernel headers for version 5.8.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-headers-generic                         5.4.0.96.100                                amd64        Generic Linux kernel headers
ii  linux-headers-generic-hwe-20.04               5.13.0.27.29~20.04.13                       amd64        Generic Linux kernel headers

And when trying to downgrade the current kernel it seems that some headers and images are not intalled:

$ sudo apt remove linux-image-$(uname -r) linux-headers-$(uname -r)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package 'linux-image-5.15.10-051510-generic' is not installed, so not removed
Package 'linux-headers-5.15.10-051510-generic' is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Here you find the bug report:
nvidia-bug-report.log (722.5 KB)

Thanks in advanced.

generix · January 27, 2022, 9:08am

Just boot into the installed 5.13 kernel in grub menu.

user152410 · January 27, 2022, 9:25am

I tried to open GRUB menu on the Ubuntu startup (press and hold on shift key) but the GRUB menu is not showing.

generix · January 27, 2022, 9:28am

That’s often fiddly. Just configure grub to always show the menu:
https://www.fosslicious.com/2020/01/show-and-hide-grub-menu-ubuntu-linux.html

user152410 · January 27, 2022, 9:51am

I booted from 5.13 kernel but after reboot and login for about 1 minute the system freezes and I had to force reboot and then freezes again, also seemed to me that the network connection is not working!
So I reverse back to the default kernel
What could be the issue ?

generix · January 27, 2022, 10:17am

The 5.13 kernel recently pushed out by ubuntu has some bugs, might be that you ran into one. Please try the 5.11 kernel. Might be that you have to reinstall the nvidia driver afterwards.

user152410 · January 27, 2022, 10:32am

Thank you.
Will try to the other version at evening an get back with the result

user152410 · January 27, 2022, 11:29am

Though should I uninstall nvidia driver before switching the kernel version?

generix · January 27, 2022, 11:56am

Shouldn’t be necessary but if you want to be sure this doesn’t interfere, you can also remove the nvidia driver.

user152410 · January 27, 2022, 5:52pm

I had just removed the installed nvidia driver → reboot → downgrade to kernel 5.11 → install nvidia driver → Done

everything is working fine thanks a lot!