System won't boot with nvidia driver enabled

Question

I just tried to upgrade Ubuntu 11.04 to 11.10, but without success.

I took a picture of what the screen are showing when i try to boot:

If i use recovery mode -> resume, it works.

Normal boot without the NVIDIA driver works.

Does anyone know how to fix this? :)

(Asus p8p67, Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti SOC)

Bug report on Launchpad

Same problem posted here with log files ubuntuforum

Solution 1

Try to completely remove your nvidia drivers from your system:

sudo apt-get purge nvidia*

Remove your xorg.conf

sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Reinstall xorg completely

sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-core libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 libgl1-mesa-dri:amd64

Re-configure Xorg

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Reboot

sudo reboot

You should be greeted with lightdm, this will default everything x the same way a fresh install would.

After this you can try installing the drivers again using the 'Additional Drivers' tool in Ubuntu but if those drivers don't work you can test the latest drivers from the x-swat ppa

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Note - if the above doesn't work - try also using the PAE kernel

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic-pae

(tip received by @Scott)

Solution 2

I could fix this issue by
logging in at tty1, purging nvidia,
rebooting,
logging in again at tty1 (killing the graphical interface at tty7 if needed), and installing a previously downloaded drive (from nvidia official suite).

Comments

[OctaviaLo]

Nothing happened.

[Alejandro García Iglesias]

I had the same problem. Had to quit Ubuntu :( Still looking for another distro...

[OctaviaLo]

...That did not work :( The only difference is the driver names under "Additional Drivers".

[Bruno Pereira]

what do you have there now?

[OctaviaLo]

"nvidia_current" (was named something else before it was activated) and "NVIDIA binary Xord driver, kernel module and VDPAU libary".

[Bruno Pereira]

and if you activate the nvidia current your system doesnt boot to graphical anymore?

[OctaviaLo]

It was the first thing I tried but it did not work. = /

[OctaviaLo]

It stops when I get the picture I attached. It works if I use safe mode ...

[OctaviaLo]

I tried twice, first with 192MB then 512MB, it did not work. I can not find the error messages that are on the page you link to, so it is something else. :'(

[Bruno Pereira]

Added more instructions for tested x-swat drivers (latest nvidia drivers). If that doesn't also doesn't work something is really wrong. Your card is supported and should work, consider a reinstall and if that also hangs start troubleshooting hardware issues.

[Bruno Pereira]

So you remove your xorg.conf and then tell it to not do much? removing the xorg.conf file would have the same result...

[Ritwik Bose]

there is clearly so much I don't know... what is the difference btw TTY1 and 7 for example?

[desgua]

tty1 tty2 tty3 ... tty7 are the terminals that you can access when you press Ctrl + Alt + F1 or Ctrl + Alt + F2 or Ctrl + Alt + F3 etc. The tty7 is the terminal that loads the graphical interface by default in Ubuntu.

[Eti]

I backup the existing xorg.conf and create a new one with the default content. The original xorg.conf had nvidia stuff in it, which I had to get rid of. This should load the default driver instead of the nvidia one. Worked for me: now I have a crappy, slow, poor, buggy driver. But I have a driver and a desktop with gfx acceleration.

[Bruno Pereira]

Those options will not do anything except not load a logo that will not be loaded on the first place because the driver is not even loaded on xorg.conf.

[Eti]

Well it did make Xorg load again. You see, I don't really care what exactly happens behind the scene when I can get Xorg to load again after a day without Xorg. It's not like I have entire days of free time to fix such issues. Without that modification, I would not be writing here right now...