nvidia kernel modules not updating

maninalift · #1 (**permalink**) 12-Jan-2009, 04:37

SHORT VERSION: After updating nvidia driver to 180.22 (AMD64) X failed to start with the following error: "Error: API mismatch: the NVIDIA kernel module has version 177.82, but this NVIDIA driver component has version 180.22"

On downloading and installing v177.82, X started properly. Note that 177.82 was not even the most recent driver that I had installed (previously I was running 180.18, and before that 180.16 and 180.12... ).

MORE DETAILS:
This is "NVIDIA Driver on openSUSE 11.1 saga part III" parts I and II are here and here.

(1) I had 180.16 installed (using the nvidia installer) and working (though there were various artifacts so I was pleased to update when the next driver appeared)
(2) I updated to 180.18 using the nvidia installer which caused X to crash when using autologin,
(3) ...so I turned off autologin and things worked properly again though still with lots of artifacts and garbage
(4) I updated to 180.22 using YAST but X crashed even more horribly (not even giving me a terminal login)
(5) I booted to runlevel 2 and reinstalled 180.18 using the nvidia installer
(6) I got my X back, uninstalled the nvidia driver with the package manager and reinstalled it with the shell script to try to make sure the package database didn't think it owned the nvidia binaries
(7) X starts properly everything seems to be fine
(8) I try installing 180.22 again, this time using the nvidia installer
(9) Now X doesn't start and on running "startx" I get the error message above.
(10) X starts after reinstalling 177.82, however I am unable to reinstall any more recent drivers (180.12, 180.16, 180.22), all of them producing similar errors to that given above (the kernel module seems to be stuck at version 177.82).

NB - no error messages are displayed when running the nvidia installers.

Many thanks for reading through all this and thanks inadvance for your help.

maninalift · #2 (**permalink**) 12-Jan-2009, 05:44

...ok this makes a little more sense.

I think that when I updated the driver using YAST I actually installed version 177.82 (NOT 180.22).

So this installation has left behind something that is causing the problem.

maninalift · #3 (**permalink**) 12-Jan-2009, 06:53

I was distracted from my work to try one more thing

The following procedure DID NOT WORK:

(1)uninstall 177.82 with nvidia installer:
sudo sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-177.82-pkg2.run --uninstall
(2)reinstall 177.82 using zypper
(3)uninstall again using zypper
(4)unload nvidia modules:
su -c 'modprobe -r nvidia'
(5) install 180.22 using nvidia installer
(6) startx

I truely out of ideas now. And getting back to work. Any help appreciated.

brucecadieux · #4 (**permalink**) 12-Jan-2009, 07:18

Go into Yast, software repositories, disable the nvidia repository.

Then into software management, uninstall the nvidia drivers.

Then install 180.22 from nvidias website.

If you do not disable the nvidia repository in yast, it will keep installing the older version, and it will conflict with the version you are tring to install.

maninalift · #5 (**permalink**) 12-Jan-2009, 07:33

@brucecadieux

I think I have dealt with this but I'll try again.

maninalift · #6 (**permalink**) 12-Jan-2009, 07:48

I definitely don't have any nvidia drivers installed in my package-manager database.

Ahhh... when installing the nvidia driver I think it may have selected nvidia-gfxG01-kmp-trace (instead of -default) and a load of "-trace" components.

This appears to be something to do with "the realtime linux kernel" I don't know what this is but perhaps I'm booting with the wrong kernel???

I have both kernel-trace and kernel-default installed.

maninalift · #7 (**permalink**) 12-Jan-2009, 08:12

I perhaps rashly given that I didn't really understand why they were there uninstalled kernel-trace and dependent packages. Thankfully nothing awful happened, indeed it apparently made no difference at all.

maninalift · #8 (**permalink**) 13-Jan-2009, 06:59

bump it up

maninalift · #9 (**permalink**) 13-Jan-2009, 09:11

OK I fixed it in a fairly unsatisfactory sort of a way:

(1) start with either 177.82 installed or no driver installed
(2) enable the NVIDIA repository
(3) install 177.82 though the repo (using zypper or YAst2)
** make sure you "apply" the change in step 2 but you dont need to reboot
(4) uninstall the 177.82 driver (using zypper or Yast)
(4) go to init 3 ("ctrl-alt-F2 to get" terminal then enter "su -c 'init 3'")
(5) install 180.22 with the installer script
(6) go back to init 5

BlackMoses · #10 (**permalink**) 13-Jan-2009, 12:28

This didnt work for me. Someone found what causing this problem. When driver 180.22 will be able from rpm ?

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