bumblebee fails on trying to modprobe "off"

[Nazar Mokrynskyi]

Currently Ubuntu switched to systemd by default, unfortunately bumblebee is not working in this case.
I have proprietary nvidia driver and bumblebee from standard repository, kernel 3.19.0.

    nazar-pc@nazar-pc ~> optirun steam
    [ 523.733713] [ERROR]Cannot access secondary GPU - error: Could not load GPU driver

    [ 523.733754] [ERROR]Aborting because fallback start is disabled.

with Driver=

    nazar-pc@nazar-pc ~> sudo service bumblebeed status
    ● bumblebeed.service - Bumblebee C Daemon
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bumblebeed.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
    Active: active (running) since ср 2015-03-25 03:56:04 CET; 31s ago
    Main PID: 16229 (bumblebeed)
    Memory: 292.0K
    CGroup: /system.slice/bumblebeed.service
    └─16229 /usr/sbin/bumblebeed

    бер 25 03:56:04 nazar-pc systemd[1]: Started Bumblebee C Daemon.
    бер 25 03:56:04 nazar-pc systemd[1]: Starting Bumblebee C Daemon...
    бер 25 03:56:04 nazar-pc bumblebeed[16229]: [ 495.736332] [INFO]/usr/sbin/bumblebeed 3.2.1 started
    бер 25 03:56:32 nazar-pc bumblebeed[16229]: modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:816 kmod_module_insert_module() could not find module by name='off'
    бер 25 03:56:32 nazar-pc bumblebeed[16229]: modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'off': Function not implemented
    бер 25 03:56:32 nazar-pc bumblebeed[16229]: [ 523.733668] [ERROR]Module nouveau could not be loaded (timeout?)
    бер 25 03:56:32 nazar-pc bumblebeed[16229]: [ 523.733678] [ERROR]Could not load GPU driver

with Driver=nvidia

    nazar-pc@nazar-pc ~> sudo service bumblebeed status
    ● bumblebeed.service - Bumblebee C Daemon
    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bumblebeed.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
    Active: activating (auto-restart) (Result: exit-code) since ср 2015-03-25 04:01:52 CET; 1s ago
    Process: 18370 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/bumblebeed (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
    Main PID: 18370 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

    бер 25 04:01:52 nazar-pc systemd[1]: Unit bumblebeed.service entered failed state.
    бер 25 04:01:52 nazar-pc systemd[1]: bumblebeed.service failed.

When booted with upstart - works perfectly

From bumblebee developer:

> Looks like a compatibility issue with the modprobe configuration file on Ubuntu.
> When I said compatibility, I think that systemd(/kmod?) does not like the alias nvidia off line in some modprobe configuration as supplied by the nvidia package.

Initially reported on GitHub: https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/issues/644

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

bumblebeed itself fails in the modprobe call, so reassigning back for now. This could also belong to kmod, but let's find out what's wrong first. What does that command say?

   grep -r off /etc/mod*

My suspicion is that there is some "alias whatever off" in /etc/modprobe.d which bumblebee tries to load, and bumblebee calls "modprobe whatever" and gets this error:

modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:816 kmod_module_insert_module() could not find module by name='off'
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'off': Function not implemented

This is how current kmod behaves, and is independent of systemd vs. upstart. That may or may not be a kmod bug, but I don't think it is -- "off" is not a magic name in any way, it's not documented in man modprobe.d. So it seems "off" is merely a convention, but modprobing indeed will fail. I'll wait for your confirmation, then we can set this to "Triaged", and I suggest the upstream bug should be reopened.

Thanks!
I don't see any "off" in the bumblebee source, and debian/bumblebee.conf (which gets installed into /etc/modprobe.d/bumblebee.conf) looks fine to me.

[Timo (friedrich-timo)]

Confirm

Exact same problem for me.

15.04 beta 2, nvidia-346

timo@Timo-NB:~$ glxgears
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Error: couldn't get an RGB, Double-buffered visual

timo@Timo-NB:~$ sudo optirun nvidia-settings
[ 1484.024073] [ERROR]Cannot access secondary GPU - error: Could not load GPU driver

[ 1484.024179] [ERROR]Aborting because fallback start is disabled.

timo@Timo-NB:~$ sudo service bumblebeed status
● bumblebeed.service - Bumblebee C Daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bumblebeed.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Di 2015-03-31 20:14:01 CEST; 26min ago
 Main PID: 735 (bumblebeed)
   CGroup: /system.slice/bumblebeed.service
           └─735 /usr/sbin/bumblebeed

Mär 31 20:14:41 Timo-NB bumblebeed[735]: [ 43.334347] [ERROR]Module nouveau could not be loaded (timeout?)
Mär 31 20:14:41 Timo-NB bumblebeed[735]: [ 43.334360] [ERROR]Could not load GPU driver
Mär 31 20:19:49 Timo-NB bumblebeed[735]: modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:816 kmod_module_insert_module() could not find module by name='off'
Mär 31 20:19:49 Timo-NB bumblebeed[735]: modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'off': Function not implemented
Mär 31 20:19:49 Timo-NB bumblebeed[735]: [ 352.023899] [ERROR]Module nouveau could not be loaded (timeout?)
Mär 31 20:19:49 Timo-NB bumblebeed[735]: [ 352.023919] [ERROR]Could not load GPU driver
Mär 31 20:38:41 Timo-NB bumblebeed[735]: modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:816 kmod_module_insert_module() could not find module by name='off'
Mär 31 20:38:41 Timo-NB bumblebeed[735]: modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'off': Function not implemented
Mär 31 20:38:41 Timo-NB bumblebeed[735]: [ 1484.023970] [ERROR]Module nouveau could not be loaded (timeout?)
Mär 31 20:38:41 Timo-NB bumblebeed[735]: [ 1484.023992] [ERROR]Could not load GPU driver

[Timo (friedrich-timo)]

Sorry, something I forgot yesterday

grep -r off /etc/mod* didn't show me something regarding nvidia or bumblebee

but

grep -r nvidia /etc/mod* listed alot but nothing regarding 346, only the other numbers and current

[Nazar Mokrynskyi (nazar-pc)]

Just got systemd-related update of kmod, now everything works fine)

[David (dallovi)]

I'm using Ubuntu 15.04 recently updated and I have the same problem yet. I have the nvidia-304 package.

[Nazar Mokrynskyi (nazar-pc)]

Your nvidia package is too old, Ubuntu 15.04 already have version 346 in repository and there is 349 in xorg-edgers ppa.
Try to install 346 first, with 349 my system works fine.

[Andrey (coderusinbox)]

This is not related to nvidia or bumblebee. I'm having same error when trying to modprobe nouveau:
# sudo modprobe nouveau
modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:816 kmod_module_insert_module() could not find module by name='off'
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'off': Function not implemented

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

Bumblebee was doing this for me with the nvidia-367 driver installed. Commenting out these lines in /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-367_hybrid.conf fixed it:

alias nouveau off
alias lbm-nouveau off