Not able to change the Nvidia driver in ubuntu 20.04

Question

In Additional Drivers under Software & Updates, the NVIDIA driver is stuck on Continue using a manually installed driver, and all other options are greyed out.

I want to set the driver to proprietary driver(nvidia-driver-390), which was originally selected before I changed it to the open source driver, but now it is stuck.

How can I resolve this issue? Should remove all NVIDIA drivers and install them again? If so , how to do it safely in Ubuntu 20.04?

Additional info:

1. cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log output: https://termbin.com/hqo3

2. lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display' output: https://termbin.com/bog0

Solution 1

This problem should be fixed by running

sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

after a reboot.

Solution 2

I encountered myself in a similar situation because of broken packages (Ubuntu complained on launching sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall; further in Software & Updates -> Additional Drivers my Nvidia graphics was locked to manual installation). I solved it like this:

1. Remove all nvidia packages and make sure nouveau is installed (you need sudo rights):

dpkg -P $(dpkg -l | grep nvidia-driver | awk '{print $2}')
apt autoremove
apt install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

2. Reboot
3. Reinstall latest nvidia packages (again, sudo rights):

ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

Comments

[Pilot6]

Please edit your question and add output of lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display' terminal command.

[Pilot6]

The proprietary dtiver is installed now. It must be a bug in GUI.

[vikrant]

but how can i change the driver? it is not letting me change as they are greyed out.

[Pilot6]

What do you want to change? Did you reboot?

[Pilot6]

The 390 is the only applicable driver for this card. It is installed now?

[vikrant]

yes, i did multiple times by now, i will try once again. i want to select dfferent drivers available, as i have observed that the xorg process is using a lot of cup

[Pilot6]

What are "other drivers available"? There should be nouveau and 390.

[vikrant]

yes the 390 is installed and was selected initially, but i changed it to the open source driver, and it hanged and now it is stuck. i want to try selecting out open source and 390 again

[Pilot6]

Try to run sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall.

[vikrant]

other options are 390, 340, and open source version

[vikrant]

ok i did autoinstall, and now it is installing a bunch of stuff related to nvidia

[Pilot6]

Reboot after it is installed and see if it is fixed.

[vikrant]

@Pilot6 yes that did solve the issue. now the 390 is selected, and the "continue to use a manually installed driver" option is gone. i searched quite a bit about this issue and a lot of people have gotten this issue in the past, the way they solved it involved a lot of complex steps like uninstalling and installing. I am grad it was really this simple to solve it. i have also noticed that now it is using a lot less cpu. you should post this as an answer.

[Franva]

This one works for me, but after reboot, my mouse becomes lag. It is like: I move my mouse from right to left, half seconds later, the mouse on the screen starts moving. Could anyone help please?

[ahmed]

I'm here to report that my computer just underwent this procedure and that no mouse lag was detected after reboot. My Nvidia driver went from 450 to 460 on a GeForce 920M.

[drfence]

I tried doing this and I see this: The following packages have unmet dependencies: nvidia-driver-470 : Depends: libnvidia-gl-470 (= 470.57.02-0ubuntu1) but it is not going to be installed <snip> Recommends: libnvidia-gl-470:i386 (= 470.57.02-0ubuntu1) E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

[Thinh NV]

Awesome, I followed your guide and it worked, Thanks,

[David]

How is this an answer to the question? It reads like you are asking your own question. If so you do not do that this way.

[King Holly]

I see when running ubuntu-drivers -h to see the help text, the following: autoinstall Deprecated, please use "install" instead. I can't say why this is, but just something to note.