Nvidia/Bumblebee freezes at boot (nvidia-gpu i2c timeout error)

millus · 2019-07-21 09:37:13

I installed Arch yesterday and rebooted a few times, installing more programs via the package manager.
But today I when I tried to boot, the system suddenly freezes right after I enter my luks passphrase.
I get two lines of output on the screen before that happens:

/dev/mapper/vg0-root: recovering journal
/dev/mapper/vg0-root: clean, 274165/58908672 files, 12681350/235617280 blocks

and then the cursor will stop blinking and become "stuck", showing just as an unblinking underscore and I cannot even switch to virtual terminals anymore or hit CTRL+ALT+DEL. Just keep power button pressed for a few seconds is the only thing to do, but the freezing happens on next restart again, even when I choose "Arch (fallback initramfs)" from the grub menu.
How would I even start finding out what to do here?

Edit:
I booted from Arch iso, chrooted into the system again and issued another

mkinitcpio -p linux

and for what it's worth the system now still freezes but it changes the screen resolution before doing so, from the rough huge starting fonts to the fine resolution, and the cursor becomes invisible. And it only shows the second line mentioned above now, not the "recovering journal" one anymore. But it still freezes.

Last edited by millus (2019-07-21 11:19:49)

frostschutz · 2019-07-21 09:43:04

you could try add 'rd.debug' to kernel parameters and maybe that will give some more output

also remove 'quiet' option if present

and in general: check smartctl -a for all disks, run a memtest, etc.

Last edited by frostschutz (2019-07-21 09:43:36)

WorMzy · 2019-07-21 09:43:16

Start with https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ge … t_problems

Also, if you can elaborate on what you installed and how, that may help shed some light on what has happened.

Mod note: Not an installation issue, moving to NC.

millus · 2019-07-21 10:13:35

@frostschutz
Thanks! Looking at those debug messages it freezes after displaying

[ OK ] Reached target Timers.

However, googling for boot freeze on ^this message yields nothing substantial it seems.
I will add ignore_loglevel and try again in a moment.

@WorMzy
Thanks for that page. I added "rd.debug" as frostschutz said instead of "debug" as that wiki page says for now, as I wasn't sure if it's ok to add both.
Regarding what I installed, well a large amount of programs as I just set up the system, with X and Xfce4 and lightdm and nvidia drivers and all, probably 2+ GB in packages in total.

Edit:
So I re-ran the boot process, this time with

debug ignore_loglevel

and the last message is

nvidia-gpu 0000:01:00.3: i2c timeout error ffffffff

so I guess this means something is wrong with the nvidia graphics driver, huh?
The system is an optimus system, switching via bumblebee between intel iGPU and nvidia discreete card - well or it is supposed to become that kind of system, when it works..

The depressing thing is that this forum posting is actually the top result on google now, while other results seem to be not substantial for this problem

Some more messages before this:

input: Video Bus as /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0A08:00/device:13/LNXVIDEO:01/input/input26
snd_had_intel 0000:00:1f.3: bound 0000:00:02.0 (ops i915_audio_component_bind_ops [i915])
bbswitch: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.
bbswitch: module verification failed: signature and/or required key missing - tainting kernel
bbswitch: version 0.8
bbswitch: Found integrated VGA device 000:00:02.0: \_SB_.PCI0.GFX0
bbswitch: Found discreete VGA device 0000:01:00.0: \_SB_.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP
ACPI Warning: \_SB.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20190509/nsarguments-59)
bbswitch: detected an Optimus _DSM function
pci 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0003)
bbswitch: Successfully loaded. Discreete card 0000:01:00.0 is on
fbcon: i915drmfb (fb0) is primary device
bbswitch: disabling discreete graphics
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 240x67
i915 0000:00:02.0: fb0: i915drmfb frame buffer device
[ OK ] Created slice system-systemd\x2dbacklight.slice. Starting Load/Save Screen Backlight Brightness of backlight:intel_backlight...
iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: base HW address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
nvidia-gpu 0000:01:00.3: i2c timeout error ffffffff

Edit:
I added 'bbswitch' to modules in mkinitcpio.conf and tried again.
Now the last 4 messages were:

bbswitch: disabling discreete graphics
nvidia-gpu 000:01:00.3: i2c timeout error ffffffff
ucsi_ccg 0-0008: i2c_transfer failed -110
ucsi_ccg 0-0008: ucsi_ack: failed

Edit:
I removed bumblebee package (and primus/primus_vk packages as they depend on it), now the system doesn't freeze anymore and the VTs are fine, but the VT 7 that is supposed to startup LightDM stays completely black.
ps reveals that Xorg and lightdm are running though.
I stopped lightdm and killed Xorg and manually started it in VT and indeed a black screen comes up. So since yesterday I already was in X (Xfce4) just fine, before I installed bumbleblee, now if it still doesn't work again after removing it (I also removed the module in mkinitcpio.conf again accordingly) that means some other package must still be interfering, right?

Do you think it even makes sense to start to try debugging this or should I just do a complete reinstall of the system instead because it might be easiest in terms of effort required?
The problem is that again I have no idea what I am actually looking for now. I had a look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log but wasn't sure what I was expecting to actually see there. When I google for the actual i2c timeout error message all I find are basically some kernel code things it seems.
I had installed bumblebee following the Arch wiki page, that means enabling the service and adding my user to its group, a pretty simple and straightforward process, so I wonder what went wrong there.
(I edited the thread title to reflect that it's not really luks-related or anything but rather a bumblebee/nvidia issue.)

Last edited by millus (2019-07-21 11:45:20)

millus · 2019-07-21 13:16:29

So actually I reinstalled the whole system, this time only installing the minimum required packages. And again as soon as I installed bumblebee/bbswitch following the wiki instructions the system would just freeze again on boot as described in the op.
Totally at a loss here.

millus · 2019-07-21 20:16:44

Ok, for some more hours I tried a loooot of things, including "nvidia-xrun". In the end, nothing really worked out. nvidia-xrun came closest, which itself is rather a emergency solution with heavy drawbacks, I was able to actually install games on Lutris, just not play them..

Finally tried Ubuntu 19.04 and I was able to install everything just fine out of the box. The desktop environment appears to run on the dedicated GPU right from the start, so no switching involved, and I was able to install and play stuff in Lutris just fine, following the usual Lutris instructions.
The hardware is a Gigabyte Aero15-X9 by the way, just in case anyone has the same problems and reads this.

seth · 2019-07-21 20:47:23

tried Ubuntu 19.04 … The desktop environment appears to run on the dedicated GPU right from the start

So what surprises you???

The error in this thread occurs when bbswitch tries to deactivate the dedicated GPU and it apparently reports shit (ffffffff looks super-suspicious) on the i2c bus.
If you want to run the system on the dedicated GPU, you don't need bumblebee itfp. and bbswitch is only required to completely power down the GPU, ie. you can still use bumblebee to run the desktop on the IGP (and games on the GPU) and just disable bbswitch. If you want to power down the GPU still, you might want to try https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bu … kernel_4.8

iuasfehsoi · 2020-10-21 06:39:08

Just FYI - i registered just to post that this error seems to be all over the place - not limited to Arch. Ive seen the exact same thing on (k)ubuntu 20. I have just stumpled upon a fix!

https://www.linuxquestions.org/question … ost6085385

from the page:

Create a file `/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist_i2c-nvidia-gpu.conf` with these contents: `blacklist i2c_nvidia_gpu`

The internet seems to agree that Nvidia is to blame (again)

Just my two cents - but a real solution would be much, much preferred...!

Last edited by iuasfehsoi (2020-10-21 07:05:06)

Miki_1414 · 2021-02-28 09:46:34

Thank you @iuasfehsoi, I was stuck on every boot with nvidia-gpu i2c timeout error (on desktop computer with RTX 2070s), but this solution did the trick.

Arch Linux

#1 2019-07-21 09:37:13

Nvidia/Bumblebee freezes at boot (nvidia-gpu i2c timeout error)

#2 2019-07-21 09:43:04

Re: Nvidia/Bumblebee freezes at boot (nvidia-gpu i2c timeout error)

#3 2019-07-21 09:43:16

Re: Nvidia/Bumblebee freezes at boot (nvidia-gpu i2c timeout error)

#4 2019-07-21 10:13:35

Re: Nvidia/Bumblebee freezes at boot (nvidia-gpu i2c timeout error)

#5 2019-07-21 13:16:29

Re: Nvidia/Bumblebee freezes at boot (nvidia-gpu i2c timeout error)

#6 2019-07-21 20:16:44

Re: Nvidia/Bumblebee freezes at boot (nvidia-gpu i2c timeout error)

#7 2019-07-21 20:47:23

Re: Nvidia/Bumblebee freezes at boot (nvidia-gpu i2c timeout error)

#8 2020-10-21 06:39:08

Re: Nvidia/Bumblebee freezes at boot (nvidia-gpu i2c timeout error)

#9 2021-02-28 09:46:34

Re: Nvidia/Bumblebee freezes at boot (nvidia-gpu i2c timeout error)

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