KWIN broken after latest Nvdia driver update

**fredsiejo** · 13-Feb-2018, 03:19

Hi all

I received an update to the G04 Nvidia driver today to version 390.25_k4.4.76_1-4.1. After reboot KDE graphics seem to be broken - partial windows appear, duplicated, across the screen and apps won't load. I also repeadtedly get a KWIN message saying "Desktop effects were restarted due to a graphics reset".

I got KDE graphics working again by choosing the failsafe option at login, and I think the best thing for now would be to roll back to the previous Nvidia driver. However YAST doesn't seem to give me this option - the only driver version listed is the latest one.

Can anyone suggest a course of action so I don't have to choose failsafe at each login?

Regards

Fred

**MichaelRailton** · 13-Feb-2018, 04:05

Originally Posted by fredsie

Hi all I got KDE graphics working again by choosing the failsafe option at login, and I think the best thing for now would be to roll back to the previous Nvidia driver. However YAST doesn't seem to give me this option - the only driver version listed is the latest one. Can anyone suggest a course of action so I don't have to choose failsafe at each login? Regards Fred

I cant even get the failsafe to work. All I get is a blank screen. Fortunately, I have an oldish installation that I use as my own 'failsafe'. Do you have to supply any extra parameters at boot time? Michael Railtton

**fredsiejo** · 13-Feb-2018, 04:17

Originally Posted by MichaelRailton

I cant even get the failsafe to work. All I get is a blank screen.

I may not have been clear enough when I used the term "failsafe". Just to clarify, I'm not taking about the failsafe kernel option at boot - I allowed the latest kernel version to be used. But I use multiple user accounts in KDE so after boot I'm presented with a (green) logon screen for the window-based environment where I can choose either account. (I'm not sure what this looks like, or whether it appears, if only one account is used.)
However at the bottom left of that logon screen there is a settings icon, and it's using that icon that allows me to choose failsafe for the windows session.

**wolfi323** · 13-Feb-2018, 04:31

Depending on what card you use, you may try to uninstall the G04 driver and install G03 instead.

You're not the only ones having problems with 390.25...
http://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1080742

**fredsiejo** · 13-Feb-2018, 05:01

Thanks wolfi, useful to know there's a logged issue with this version.
I don't think I'll mess about with other versions right now, as the graphic environment is working perfectly as long as I enter it in its failsafe mode.

This does make me wonder though what the graphics failsafe mode actually does. Presumably it's switching off some features - there must be a clue there as to what's going wrong.

**wolfi323** · 13-Feb-2018, 05:24

Originally Posted by fredsie

This does make me wonder though what the graphics failsafe mode actually does. Presumably it's switching off some features

Yes, mainly usage of hardware acceleration/OpenGL I think.

Btw, there's also http://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1080787 now.
This suggests the problem is specific to the rpm packages and the .run installer (i.e. installing "the hard way") should work fine.

**PingooseCovert** · 13-Feb-2018, 05:53

Originally Posted by wolfi323

Depending on what card you use, you may try to uninstall the G04 driver and install G03 instead.

You're not the only ones having problems with 390.25...
http://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1080742

Thanks for the info that there is a known bug in 390.25. I cannot boot in either normal or recovery mode - just a blank black screen.
I hope that when the bug is resolved we'll learn how to update to working driver.
I have booted with a pre-update NVIDIA driver from a snapper snapshot but I keep getting messages about configuration files being missing.
I have forgotten how to force a boot to a given snapshot (i.e. make the snapshot the 'current' version).

**wolfi323** · 13-Feb-2018, 06:20

Originally Posted by PingooseCovert

Thanks for the info that there is a known bug in 390.25. I cannot boot in either normal or recovery mode - just a blank black screen.

Yes, because nvidia's OpenGL libraries only work with the nvidia driver.
IOW, just having nvidia installed, breaks OpenGL support for every other driver, in particular the fallback driver that's used by recovery mode.

Uninstall the package nvidia-glG04 (or better all nvidia packages) to "fix" that.

I hope that when the bug is resolved we'll learn how to update to working driver.

Code:

zypper up

(unless you uninstalled it of course)

I have forgotten how to force a boot to a given snapshot (i.e. make the snapshot the 'current' version).

Boot the snapshot and run

Code:

snapper rollback

**SUSEtoad** · 13-Feb-2018, 06:43

Also affected by this bug. Normal KDE update. Now PC boots to blank screen with only mouse pointer visible. Adding my name to the list because nothing gets fixed unless people complain.