nvidia-persistenced.service: Failed at step EXEC spawning /usr/bin/nvidia-persistenced: No such file or directory

[Anders Kaseorg]

If you install the nvidia-384 package, you get an enabled nvidia persistenced.service that fails to start up on boot, because it tries to launch /usr/bin/nvidia-persistenced which doesn’t exist (the binary is actually at /usr/lib/nvidia-384/bin/nvidia-persistenced).

$ systemctl status nvidia-persistenced.service
● nvidia-persistenced.service - NVIDIA Persistence Daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nvidia-persistenced.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Wed 2017-12-20 19:20:45 EST; 7min ago
  Process: 1265 ExecStopPost=/bin/rm -rf /var/run/nvidia-persistenced (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 1262 ExecStart=/usr/bin/nvidia-persistenced --user nvidia-persistenced --no-persistence-mode --verbose (code=exited, status=203/EXEC)

Dec 20 19:20:45 change-mode systemd[1]: Starting NVIDIA Persistence Daemon...
Dec 20 19:20:45 change-mode systemd[1262]: nvidia-persistenced.service: Failed to execute command: No such file or directory
Dec 20 19:20:45 change-mode systemd[1262]: nvidia-persistenced.service: Failed at step EXEC spawning /usr/bin/nvidia-persistenced: No such file or directory
Dec 20 19:20:45 change-mode systemd[1]: nvidia-persistenced.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=203
Dec 20 19:20:45 change-mode systemd[1]: nvidia-persistenced.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Dec 20 19:20:45 change-mode systemd[1]: Failed to start NVIDIA Persistence Daemon.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Simon M (simon-m-m)]

I can confirm this bug. Interestingly nvidia-375 provides nvidia-persistenced.
Extracting the bin from nvidia-persistenced to /usr/bin/ fixes it as a workaround.

[PabloAB (pabloab777)]

[Related askubuntu question](https://askubuntu.com/questions/845113/how-to-get-nvidia-persistenced-daemon-to-work-properly).

`sudo apt install nvidia-persistenced` doesn't fix it, that removed "nvidia-persistenced" user and:

ERROR: Failed to find user ID of user 'nvidia-persistenced': Success

## Reference

file:///usr/share/doc/nvidia-375/html/nvidia-persistenced.html (if you have it)
http://docs.nvidia.com/deploy/driver-persistence/index.html
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/995248/cuda-setup-and-installation/setting-up-nvidia-persistenced/post/5090647/#5090647

[Serhiy (xintx-ua)]

Trying to workaround it with

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/nvidia-375/bin/nvidia-persistenced /usr/bin/nvidia-persistenced

[Serhiy (xintx-ua)]

More to it: `/usr/bin/nvidia-persistenced` gets deleted by every `prime-select intel`. And I haven't found yet what exactly deletes it. Can anyone point it?

[Serhiy (xintx-ua)]

For some reason I cannot add nvidia-graphics-drivers-384, so I added Nvidia and another bug report (see duplicates).

[Anders Kaseorg (andersk)]

Retitling to reflect the fact that nvidia-persistenced was removed in artful. The /usr/bin/nvidia-persistenced path referred to by nvidia-persistenced.service doesn’t exist in any package now.

[Anders Kaseorg (andersk)]

(To be clearer: the nvidia-persistenced _package_ was removed in artful, but nvidia-persistenced.service is still in the nvidia-384 package pointing to the wrong path for the nvidia-persistenced _binary_.)

[Moulick Aggarwal (byesahil)]

This bug is also present in Ubuntu 17.10 with Nvidia 390.12 drivers.

[Simon M (simon-m-m)]

I have no idea why this is being ignored. It isn't even a code bug. It is a simple misunderstanding/packaging error/wrong dependency.

I am not able to use nvidia prime properly for over half a year now on my laptop. I had to revert to the log-out-log-in method.

Can somebody please try to fix this mess?

[Moulick Aggarwal (byesahil)]

@simon-m-m Any reason you are not using BumbleBee for managing Nvidia?

[Simon M (simon-m-m)]

Last time I tried it, it didn't work.
Also they dropped support for the nouveau driver because "noveau will implement prime themself". Noveau is no where near to supporting prime themself.

I can try it again and report back.

[Moulick Aggarwal (byesahil)]

https://gist.github.com/whizzzkid/37c0d365f1c7aa555885d102ec61c048

Instructions in this gist work very well.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Larry Griffin (l-g-griffin)]

I have a Dell Precision 16.04 upgraded to 18.04.1 LTS. HD Graphics is Coffeelake 3x8 GT2 and nvidia-graphics-drivers-390. I've had this problem for a year now and would like it to end. Moulick Aggarwal (byesahil) fix is for KDE I have Gnome is there a Fix?

Regards Larry

[Tomás Reyes (trcecilio)]

As a workaround I did the following:

sudo systemctl disable nvidia-persistenced.service

sudo apt remove nvidia-prime

sudo nano /etc/gdm3/custom.conf
and uncomment #WaylandEnable=false