Ubuntu works without nvidia but stuck at login screen with nvidia

Question

I have Nvidia graphics card installed and the Ubuntu used to work without any issue till yesterday. Unfortunately, it is now stuck at the login screen. I switched to terminal mode (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and removed Nvidia drivers using the following command:

sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*

It works! However, I want to use Nvidia drivers so after logging in successfully, I installed Nvidia drives from "additional drivers" under "software and updates" in Ubuntu. After rebooting, it again stuck at login screen.

Below is the permission info. for .Xauthority file:

ravi@lab:~$ ls -la .X*
-rw------- 1 ravi ravi 48 Feb 20 11:43 .Xauthority
-rw------- 1 ravi ravi 48 Feb 20 11:27 .Xauthority.bak

I am not able to figure out the cause of the problem. Below is the content of dmesg:

[    1.342426] init: plymouth-upstart-bridge main process ended, respawning
[    1.544607] Adding 16734204k swap on /dev/sda3.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:16734204k SSFS
[    1.594473] systemd-udevd[359]: starting version 204
[    1.596107] tsc: Refined TSC clocksource calibration: 3600.032 MHz
[    1.620273] lp: driver loaded but no devices found
[    1.631667] ppdev: user-space parallel port driver
[    1.649728] wmi: Mapper loaded
[    1.651556] shpchp: Standard Hot Plug PCI Controller Driver version: 0.4
[    1.681165] [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
[    1.690956] type=1400 audit(1550630628.420:2): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" profile="unconfined" name="/sbin/dhclient" pid=487 comm="apparmor_parser"
[    1.690962] type=1400 audit(1550630628.420:3): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-dhcp-client.action" pid=487 comm="apparmor_parser"
[    1.690965] type=1400 audit(1550630628.420:4): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/lib/connman/scripts/dhclient-script" pid=487 comm="apparmor_parser"
[    1.691995] type=1400 audit(1550630628.420:5): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" profile="unconfined" name="/sbin/dhclient" pid=493 comm="apparmor_parser"
[    1.691999] type=1400 audit(1550630628.420:6): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-dhcp-client.action" pid=493 comm="apparmor_parser"
[    1.692002] type=1400 audit(1550630628.420:7): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/lib/connman/scripts/dhclient-script" pid=493 comm="apparmor_parser"
[    1.693989] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1f.3: irq 182 for MSI/MSI-X
[    1.768260] checking generic (d1000000 7f0000) vs hw (c0000000 10000000)
[    1.768261] checking generic (d1000000 7f0000) vs hw (d0000000 2000000)
[    1.768262] fb: conflicting fb hw usage nouveaufb vs EFI VGA - removing generic driver
[    1.768280] Console: switching to colour dummy device 80x25
[    1.768906] nouveau E[  DEVICE][0000:01:00.0] unknown chipset, 0x134000a1
[    1.768910] nouveau E[     DRM] failed to create 0x80000080, -22
[    1.769175] nouveau: probe of 0000:01:00.0 failed with error -22
[    2.019597] EXT4-fs (sda2): re-mounted. Opts: errors=remount-ro
[    2.229627] init: failsafe main process (750) killed by TERM signal
[    2.415213] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.17
[    2.415250] NET: Registered protocol family 31
[    2.415251] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[    2.415255] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[    2.415257] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[    2.415259] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[    2.418438] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[    2.418447] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[    2.418451] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized
[    2.425587] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[    2.425608] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[    2.425634] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11
[    2.446701] type=1400 audit(1550630629.176:8): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/lib/cups/backend/cups-pdf" pid=837 comm="apparmor_parser"
[    2.446704] type=1400 audit(1550630629.176:9): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/sbin/cupsd" pid=837 comm="apparmor_parser"
[    2.465787] init: cups main process (842) killed by HUP signal
[    2.465817] init: cups main process ended, respawning
[    2.497078] type=1400 audit(1550630629.224:10): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_load" profile="unconfined" name="/usr/sbin/cups-browsed" pid=916 comm="apparmor_parser"
[    2.558491] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[    2.588489] init: alsa-restore main process (1031) terminated with status 19
[    2.598291] Switched to clocksource tsc

Any workaround, please? I guess that some Nvidia configuration files need to be cleaned properly.

Solution

It seems that the package shim-signed was the culprit. Hence after removing it, I reinstalled NVIDIA. We need to restart the PC and it works

sudo apt-get remove shim-signed
sudo apt-get install nvidia-384

The secure boot was disabled in my PC from the BIOS menu. Please note that the answer is originally posted here.

Comments

[ravi]

Thank you very much for this wonderful explanation. I have NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050. I tried sudo apt-get purge nvidia-* to remove NVIDIA drivers and installed NVIDIA drivers from "additional drivers" under "software and updates" in Ubuntu. I also have CUDA 8.0 working. Is there a better way to re-install the NVIDIA drivers ? Can you please explain how to disable and blacklist the nouveau driver?

[ravi]

Thanks again for the help. I removed NVIDIA and then installed again from "additional drivers" under "software and updates". As per your suggestion, I have also blacklisted the noveau drivers. Later from CLI (Ctrl+Alt+F1), I executed sudo update-initramfs -u. However, the problem persists. I am sharing the blacklist.conf and dmesg with you. Please have a look.

[ravi]

I just want to add this> I installed nvidia-410 from ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa -y but the problem persists. I am sharing the new dmesg file. Please have a look.