[nvidia] Repeated screen freezes with GeForce GT 640 (GK107)
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
gnome-shell (Ubuntu) |
Invalid
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
nvidia-graphics-drivers-440 (Ubuntu) |
Confirmed
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
nvidia-graphics-drivers-450 (Ubuntu) |
Confirmed
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
Ubuntu 20.04.01, gnome-shell 3.36.4, nvidia-driver-450, nvidia-driver-440. Both drivers expressly support the hardware. All varieties of desktop environment (Xorg, Gnome Classic, Ubuntu)
Bug summary
Screen hangs randomly and iretrievably with the only possibility of recovery being a a hard system reset. Sometimes this is triggered by activity (launching or using gnome-settings; resizing a window; using Nautilus), sometimes, not. No session lasts more than five minutes.
No combination of keystrokes will yield a terminal of any kind.
The hang also interrupts System Monitor output, so no information regarding use of system resources is available.
Steps to reproduce
1. Install gnome-session.
2. Reboot.
3. Use graphical applications.
What happened]
The screen froze irretrievably.
Screen hangs randomly and iretrievably with the only possibility of recovery being a a hard system reset. Sometimes this is triggered by activity (launching or using gnome-settings; resizing a window; using Nautilus), sometimes, not. No session lasts more than five minutes.
No combination of keystrokes will yield a terminal of any kind.
The hang also interrupts System Monitor output, so no information regarding use of system resources is available.
A hard system reset and consequent reboot yields a variety of outcomes. Sometimes, a normal gdm login. Sometimes, a black screen with an inverted-black mouse cursor/
With nvidia-driver-440, fewer hangs but the monitor resolution can't be set to its capacity.
I don't get it. GNOME hangs have been extensively documented for ten years. The drivers expressly support the hardware. This package is part of an Ubuntu LTS release. Is gnome-session intended to be serious, functional, production software subjected to rigorous and competent quality control? This is a serious question because I have a business to run and can't be sucked down some random technical rabbit hole just to do daily work.
Is GNOME just a cute code project intended as a resume line for people looking for real work?
What kind of quality control processes are in place that allow ancient failures, extensively reported, to persist?
Is anyone at GNOME able and willing to put on their big-boy pants to get a reliable package suitable for production deployments, released?
The command
cat /var/log/syslog | grep gnome-session
reveals fundamental errors in implementing systemd syntax and references/calls to nonexistent binaries. See the gnome-sesion units in /usr/lib/
Source is, astonishingly, a hybrid of C and Javascript, which doubtless presents a QC nightmare. Has anyone given this any thought?
What does it take to get this package to work today?
- What is the procedure? What commands must be run?
- Why doesn't GNOME simply include these commands in a script, just to make it easier? Does anyone there know how?
- Why doesn't GNOME simply compile these commands into the package so it works in the first place?
- Will a different graphics card matter?
- Which one?
- Why, if the drivers support the existing hardware, according to the documentation if not the function?
Can this package be made to work today?
If not, will this package be ready for production use in the next Ubuntu release (i.e., 20.04.02)?
If not, what alternatives exist for production use?
These are all serious questions. It is astonishing that this package has been released to the public. It getting out the door poses an existential reputational threat to the GNOME project.
Any help in getting this package to work would be most gratefully appreciated.
What did you expect to happen
I expected the screen not to freeze.
information type: | Private Security → Public |
tags: | added: 20.04 gnome-session gnome-shell nvidia xorg |
Next time the hang occurs, please reboot and then immediately run:
journalctl -b-1 > prevboot.txt
lspci -kv > lspci.txt
gsettings list-recursively org.gnome.shell > settings.txt
and attach the resulting text files here.
Please also run this command to complete the bug report:
apport-collect 1892973
And in future be careful to only discuss a single topic per bug report. You can also save time by reporting future bugs with the 'ubuntu-bug' command that will do much of this automatically.