Upgrade from 15.0: nvidia driver G05 does not load

English Install/Boot/Login
1

After upgrade from Leap 15.0 to 15.1 (from DVD + standard 15.1 repositories), the nvidia driver does not load anymore (had no problems with 15.0), even though it is installed and shown as installed by yast. Forced reinstallation of the latest G05 driver through (non-GUI, i. e., console) yast changes nothing. nvidia card is GTX 1050 Ti, so G05 driver should be right.

The rpms are installed:
rpm -q x11-video-nvidiaG05: x11-video-nvidiaG05-430.14-lp151.15.1.x86_64
rpm -q nvidia-computeG05: nvidia-computeG05-430.14-lp151.15.1.x86_64
rpm -q nvidia-gfxG05-kmp-default: nvidia-gfxG05-kmp-default-430.14_k4.12.14_lp151.27-lp150.15.1.x86_64
(rpm --rebuilddb changes nothing.)

nvidia-xconfig says it wrote a new /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.
Subsequent nvidia-settings says: “Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused” and “ERROR: The control display is undefined”.
echo $DISPLAY is empty.
lsmod | grep nvidia is empty, no nvidia driver loaded.
modprobe nvidia says: “ERROR: Could not insert ‘nvidia’: Exec format error”

2

Sorry, self-correction of typo (had to use a different computer). Correct is “lp151” instead of “lp150”:
rpm -q nvidia-gfxG05-kmp-default: nvidia-gfxG05-kmp-default-430.14_k4.12.14_lp151.27-lp151.15.1.x86_64

3

Post:

zypper se -si nvidia

/sbin/lspci -nnk | grep -EiA3 'vga|3d|display'

Please post this in Code-Tags, the small # in the Editor of the forum.

4

/sbin/lspci -nnk | grep -EiA3 ‘vga|3d|display’

03:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GP107 [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti] [10de:1c82] (rev a1)
    Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation GP107 [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti] [10de:1c82]
    Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia
03:00.1 Audio device [0403]: NVIDIA Corporation GP107GL High Definition Audio Controller [10de:0fb9] (rev a1)

zypper se -si nvidia

Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S  | Name                             | Type    | Version                             | Arch   | Repository
---+----------------------------------+---------+-------------------------------------+--------+-----------
i+ | nvidia-computeG05                | package | 430.14-lp151.15.1                   | x86_64 | nvidia    
i+ | nvidia-gfxG05-kmp-default        | package | 430.14_k4.12.14_lp151.27-lp151.15.1 | x86_64 | nvidia    
i+ | nvidia-glG05                     | package | 430.14-lp151.15.1                   | x86_64 | nvidia    
i+ | nvidia-texture-tools             | package | 2.0.8-lp151.2.4                     | x86_64 | oss       
i+ | nvidia-texture-tools-debuginfo   | package | 2.0.8-lp151.2.4                     | x86_64 | oss debug 
i+ | nvidia-texture-tools-debugsource | package | 2.0.8-lp151.2.4                     | x86_64 | oss debug 
i+ | pcp-pmda-nvidia-gpu              | package | 4.3.1-lp151.1.3                     | x86_64 | oss       
i+ | pcp-pmda-nvidia-gpu-debuginfo    | package | 4.3.1-lp151.1.3                     | x86_64 | oss debug 
i+ | x11-video-nvidiaG05              | package | 430.14-lp151.15.1                   | x86_64 | nvidia
5

Please post:

grep -i 'blacklist nouveau' /etc/modprobe.d/*

and the whole /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Also it is not recommend to let nvidia-xconfig write an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, so please delete it and restart you PC.

6

Also please post:

zypper se -si kernel

uname -a
7

grep -i ‘blacklist nouveau’ /etc/modprobe.d/*
yielded:
/etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-default.conf:blacklist nouveau

Deleting /etc/X11/xorg.conf and restarting the PC (as advised by you) was a breakthrough, in that the graphical system was now started automatically by the display manager, which had not been the case before. The video driver was very basic, neither nvidia nor nouveau, but it allowed me to use the yast2 GUI. From there, I forced a reinstall of the nvidia driver, but that changed nothing, even after a restart.

I then discovered, through the yast2 software manager, that I still had to update over 1,000 (Leap 15.0) packages from the repositories. Apparently, the upgrade from the Leap 15.1 DVD had updated little more than the kernel (I am absolutely sure it had updated and activated the kernel, because uname -a had that “27” in it), and my subsequent repository update through ncurses yast had only updated the nvidia driver. After that 1,000-packages update from yast2, I restarted the PC, and the nvidia driver now loaded.

So, the problem has been solved for me. Thank you very much for your help, Sauerland. (The 15.1 DVD seems to be less than perfect, to put it mildly. I remember a recommendation by its upgrading module to report a bug, but had not taken it seriously.)

8

Fine that it is working.

And because of Problems with the Kernel I asked in my second post about them.

Please do not use nvidia-xconfig, that maybe break often the graphics, also do not use the /etc/X11/xorg.conf, that file is only for compatibilty there, better is to use the files inside the folder /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/

PS Leap 15.0 packages has the lp150 in their Version, Leap 15.1 an lp151…

smplayer-19.5.0-lp150.60.1.x86_64

So you can use this, to see if there are any Leap1 15.0 packages installed:

zypper se -si | grep i lp150
9

Up until Leap 15.0, I had used nvidia-xconfig because it seemed sometimes necessary to activate the nvidia driver. In such cases, some message from some nvidia component (I guess nvidia-settings) said the nvidia driver was not active and that I should activate it by running nvidia-xconfig. When I then used nvidia-xconfig, the problem was often solved. Also, Michael Kofler recommends nvidia-xconfig as the normal procedure in his useful book “Linux, das umfassende Handbuch”, 14th ed. 2016, pp. 742-745. But it is good to know that, if no graphical environment can be started, it sometimes (as in my case) helps to delete /etc/X11/xorg.conf and reboot.

The recommendation to report a bug, by the Leap 15.1 DVD upgrade module, appeared after I had declined to configure the network, and it said it could not read the RPM database or something like that. With hindsight, that RPM problem was probably the reason why those 1,000 or so Leap 15.0 packages were not updated to 15.1 by the DVD, while the kernel was. When I later updated the nvidia driver manually with ncurses yast, I had an updated kernel and an updated nvidia driver, but all or most of the other packages were still from 15.0, and that resulted in the nvidia driver not loading.

Maybe somebody else makes a similar experience, and he might better understand what’s going on from reading this, or even file that bug report that I was too lazy to write.