Ubuntu
xserver-xorg-driver-nv package

Help, my NVIDIA drivers are completely borked

Asked by Yang

I'm on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and everything was fine up till about two hours ago, since when I've spent all my time trying to make things work again. I was trying to install the latest drivers from the NVIDIA website, v285.05.09 (since I'm currently using the latest drivers available in Ubuntu, nvidia-current v195.36.24, yet WebGL doesn't work in either Chrome or Firefox, and they always suggest that I try the latest driver versions).

But after installing this and rebooting, X starts with an error, prompting me to run in reduced graphics mode and/or restore my graphics settings. When I checked /var/log/kern.log I saw:

    NVRM: API mismatch: the client has the version 285.05.09, but
    NVRM: this kernel module has the version 195.36.24. Please
    NVRM: make sure that this kernel module and all NVIDIA driver
    NVRM: components have the same version.

My questions has two parts:

1. How do I actually make these latest NVIDIA drivers work?

2. If I try this out and it doesn't work...how do I roll back what I had before? Here's what I tried, all to no avail:

    - picking the restore graphics settings option in the initial error prompt from X

    - under Administration > Hardware Drivers, I see that the "NVIDIA (current)" option is already chosen/active, so I can't do anything here

    - ran `sudo dpkg-reconfigure nvidia-current`

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Ubuntu xserver-xorg-driver-nv Edit question
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Yang
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Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Can you give the output of:

lsb_release -a; uname -a; dpkg -l | grep nvidia

Thanks

Revision history for this message
Yang (yaaang) said : 		#2

Sure:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS
Release: 10.04
Codename: lucid

$ uname -a
Linux zs 2.6.32-35-generic #78-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 11 16:11:24 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ dpkg -l | grep nvidia
ii nvidia-173 173.14.22-0ubuntu11 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU li
ii nvidia-173-modaliases 173.14.22-0ubuntu11 Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
ii nvidia-96-modaliases 96.43.17-0ubuntu1.1 Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
ii nvidia-common 0.2.23 Find obsolete NVIDIA drivers
ii nvidia-current 195.36.24-0ubuntu1~10.04.1 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver, kernel module and VDPAU li
ii nvidia-current-modaliases 195.36.24-0ubuntu1~10.04.1 Modaliases for the NVIDIA binary X.Org driver
ii nvidia-settings 195.36.08-0ubuntu2 Tool of configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

ok let's clean this up and we can then reinstall the driver:

sudo apt-get --purge remove nvidia-173 nvidia-current nvidia-settings; sudo apt-get --purge autoremove

Then you can reboot and then run:

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get -y install nvidia-current

Revision history for this message
Yang (yaaang) said : 		#4

After uninstalling all nvidia* packages plus more fidgeting/reinstalling (at some point the NVIDIA installer started prompting me to install a modprobe.d file that would disable nouveau - I think this was key), everything just started working with 285. Thanks for your help, actionparsnip.