Non-deterministic graphical login freeze with nVidia graphics card

[Dieter Maurer]

I had nouveau related problems in Ubuntu 16.04: quite often, the display screen was replaced by an irregular black and white pattern and the system no longer reacted to the mouse or the keyboard.

Since the Ubuntu 18.04 upgrade, the problem shows itself slightly differently. The freeze is now mostly restricted to the graphical login (only once since the upgrade about 3 weeks ago, starting an application caused the problem). In case of the freeze of the graphical login, the display can get the following state: no background; colored irregular pattern, usually filling the complete display but sometimes only small parts of it, configured background color with black bars. The system still follows the mouse and responds to SysRq-keys but is otherwise not responsive.

Like under Ubuntu 16.04, I see many "nouveau ... MMIO write ... FAULT" in "syslog". Trying to unfreeze the display with SysRq-k leads to "nouveau ... Xwayland ... failed to idle channel" messages (with varying channel numbers).

The problem occurs non-deterministically. The probability of a freeze is particularly high, when I login while there is still disk activity. When a freeze happened, it was typically after the syslog entry "Started Zeitgeist full-text search indexer."

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.15-2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-37.40-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-37-generic i686
.tmp.unity_support_test.0:

ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.4
Architecture: i386
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,compiztoolbox,decor,move,resize,snap,place,grid,vpswitch,gnomecompat,mousepoll,imgpng,session,regex,animation,unitymtgrabhandles,workarounds,wall,fade,expo,ezoom,scale,unityshell]
CompositorRunning: None
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Mon Oct 22 09:20:02 2018
DistUpgraded: 2018-10-01 11:03:14,204 DEBUG Running PostInstallScript: './xorg_fix_proprietary.py'
DistroCodename: bionic
DistroVariant: ubuntu
ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes
GraphicsCard:
 NVIDIA Corporation C61 [GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a] [10de:03d6] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation C61 [GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a] [1849:03d6]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-01-21 (2099 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20120817.3)
Lsusb:
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
MachineType: To Be Filled By O.E.M. To Be Filled By O.E.M.
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-37-generic root=UUID=9c03cebc-9cba-47bc-9974-5c236a34906e ro
SourcePackage: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2018-10-01 (20 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 05/27/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: P1.30
dmi.board.name: N68-S3 UCC
dmi.board.vendor: ASRock
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrP1.30:bd05/27/2010:svnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:pnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:pvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:rvnASRock:rnN68-S3UCC:rvr:cvnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:ct3:cvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:
dmi.product.family: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.product.name: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.product.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.sys.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.13.1+18.04.20180302-0ubuntu1
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.91-2
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 18.0.5-0ubuntu0~18.04.1
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 18.0.5-0ubuntu0~18.04.1
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4.1
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.10.5-1ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:18.0.1-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20171229-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.15-2
xserver.bootTime: Mon Oct 1 07:31:24 2018
xserver.configfile: default
xserver.devices:
 input Power Button KEYBOARD, id 6
 input Power Button KEYBOARD, id 7
 input AT Translated Set 2 keyboard KEYBOARD, id 8
 input ImPS/2 Logitech Wheel Mouse MOUSE, id 9
xserver.errors:
 Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)
 Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)
xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log
xserver.version: 2:1.18.4-0ubuntu0.8
xserver.video_driver: nouveau

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, you might have better success enabling the nvidia drivers from software-properties-gtk