NVIDIA graphics driver suddenly stopped working

[ChrisCS]

Could someone please help with this?

I am relatively new to Ubuntu and am running Ubuntu 8.1. My computer has an NVIDIA 6200 graphics card, and for the last few weeks I have been using the NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (version 177) as recommended in the "Hardware Drivers" section, with no problems at all, but suddenly today when booting the computer I got an error message that said:

"Ubuntu running in low graphics mode. The following error was encountered; you may need to update your configuration to solve this:
(EE) NVIDIA(o) failed to initialise the NVIDIA kernel module"

I don't know how to access the configuration mentioned in the error message, still less how to update it. I think that the error is possibly due to running Update Manager yesterday because that is the only thing that might have altered my computer. I noticed something about the display in one of the files that was downloaded but cannot remember what it was. If anyone can suggest what I should do, I would be very grateful

[ChrisCS (chriscro)]

Since posting this question I have deactivated the NVIDIA driver that was recommended and now the computer boots without an error message.

In the course of all this, I tried all three NVIDIA drivers none of which worked. However the recommended driver had been working fine until the last couple of days. The problem seems to have coincided with the latest updates - I downloaded them either early this week or late last week - one of which had something to do with X11 (I think)

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automated message]

In Jaunty (9.04), we are dropping the nvidia-graphics-drivers-177 package, which
is now superseded by then nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 package.

  http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-180

To transition your bug into the new package, we need your help. Please do the following:

 a. Verify the bug occurs in Jaunty with the -180 driver
     (ISOs: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/jaunty/)
 b. If you haven't already, please include in the bug:
     * Your /var/log/Xorg.0.log
     * Your /etc/X11/xorg.conf
     * The output of `lspci -vvnn`
     * Steps to reproduce the issue
 c. Under Affects, click the down arrow to the left of 'nvidia-graphics-drivers-177'
 d. Edit the Package to change 'nvidia-graphics-drivers-177' to 'nvidia-graphics-drivers-180'
 e. Click Save Changes

Thank you!

[We'll expire the remaining -177 bugs in a month or so.]

[ChrisCS (chriscro)]

Hello,

I am reluctant to do what you suggest because after trying each of the nvidia packages in turn, I had to reinstall Ubuntu after each failed package because when booting with any of the packages installed I only booted into a command line. I got various messages to the effect that I no longer had a screen and my attempts to edit xorg.conf ended in disaster. I tried to import a different xorg.config on a floppy, and then a USB stick from a very similar computer with the same motherboard, version of Ubuntu and make of hard disc but the machine with the problem deleted everything on the floppy and everything on the USB stick

However I can tell you the steps that I took when the disasters happened:

I clicked on System/Administration/Hardware Drivers and then clicked on the recommended nvidia driver; clicked 'Activate' and then rebooted. On rebooting I ended up with a command line. I could enter my user name and password but was unable to get the desktop back. I tried various options in "Recovery Mode" but none helped.

I then re-installed Ubuntu and (foolishly) tried one of the other nvidia packages and exactly the same thing happened. In all, I re-installed Ubuntu three times hence my reluctance to 'fiddle around' with nvidia packages again.

I only did it in the first place because I had used one of the recommended nvidia packages on a different computer with a slightly different nvidia card and was very pleased with the outcome.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I understand your reluctance to experiment with the various binary nvidia drivers. But since the hardware is no longer available for doing troubleshooting with, we'll have to close the bug for now. However please feel free to reopen if you are willing to do some troubleshooting with it.

[ChrisCS (chriscro)]

Hello again,

I would be happy to experiment with the current set up if there were someone to help me get the desktop back without reinstalling Ubuntu if, as I suspect, I end up with a machine that has lost its desktop and only has a command line. Ubuntu is easy and painless to install - it is the other things like setting up e-mail, transferring bookmarks etc. that are time consuming. As I said at the beginning of the bug report, I am relatively new to Ubuntu and command lines are still a major mystery to me.

If you would like me to experiment, then I will be able to do so the week after next.

[ChrisCS (chriscro)]

I couldn't resist the temptation to download Jaunty so I have downloaded it and installed it on a USB memory stick and am able to use the memory stick to boot two different computers. I changed the graphics card driver to the 180 version and had some surprising results. On one computer I had no problems at all but the other one would not boot. I got a list of what was happening:-

"Starting System Tools backends
Starting anac(h)ronistic Cron
Starting deferred execution scheduler
Starting periodic command scheduler
Checking battery state...............
/dev/sda Setting Advanced Power Management to 0xfe (254)
/dev/sdb Setting Advanced Power Management to 0xfe (254) "

and that is all that happened. I tried several times but it would not continue with the boot up beyond that point. However when I booted the other computer and removed the 180 and then tried again in the machine that would not boot previously, it booted successfully and did not give a list of what was happening.

So, although I thought that there may have been a bug in the video driver in Ubuntu it looks as if it is my machine that is at fault. The one that doesn't give trouble has a Gigabyte motheboard with a VIA chipset, an LCD monitor, 1.5 GB RAM and an AMD Athlon XP2600+ processor
The newer machine has an Asus motherboard with an Nvidia nforce 750i SLI chipset , 2GB RAM, an HP w1907 LCD monitor and an Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

The information that you wanted isn't available, presumably because the machine wouldn't boot.
I hope that this information is of some use.

[Simon (simon2)]

Hello all,

I'm struggling with a problem that looks quite similar. About my computer: A Thinkpad T61, Ubuntu 8.10, Nvidia graphics card (how can I find which number exactly?). I also used the

Here's what happens: For a long time, Ubuntu 8.10 worked just fine. Then, probably at about the same time as it happend for Chris, the computer switched to text mode at startup. The last message that appears is "Setting advanced power mode..." (as above). Then the screen goes black, after some 10 seconds the same message appears again, it goes black again (some kind of look?) and after that, the low graphics mode screen appears giving me some kind of error message and asking me whether I want to reconfigure graphics mode. Then, when I start with the default configuration, my computer works fine, just that it isn't using the Nvidia 177 driver anymore but the open source driver (which doesn't work with external screen and seams not to support sleep mode).

When I switch back to Nvidia, sometimes the computer starts just fine, sometimes the described problem appear again.

One more point: I have reinstalled the whole system last weekend (four days ago). Since then, I several times rebooted my system without the problem being there. It does not appear systematically, but I did not yet find out what causes this bug to appear and what not.

Attached my /var/log/Xorg.0.log

[Simon (simon2)]

And here's the xorg.conf (currently I'm using the open source driver).

[Simon (simon2)]

And here's the lscpi output...