desktop lockups return after rolling back nvidia to nouveau

buzzwallard · 2021-06-04 13:02:06

I was having occasional desktop freezes that stopped once I installed NVIDIA (from the NVIDIA official archive). I'm new to Arch ( a couple days or so) so the lockups was an issue I would "get to".

I didn't install NVIDIA to solve the lockups but I noticed that they stopped.

The NVIDIA driver was causing non-critical but annoying problems so I rolled back to nouveau.

Now the desktop freezes have returned.

The system is accessible via SSH and it looks to be in pretty good shape, but I notice a couple things that may help to solve the issue.

Last two lines of lightdm/x-0.log

failure to allocate surface 16x16@32 (pitch 64): -2
failure to allocate surface 1x32@8 (pitch 64): -2

Trace from journalctl
https://pastebin.com/uEPyk3B4

Last edited by buzzwallard (2021-06-04 13:44:50)

V1del · 2021-06-04 14:18:08

The nouveau driver is in general not the most stable driver (it doesn't see all that much development/involvement from nvidia and it is tangled up in some unresolvable issues due to the nvidia cards requiring signed firmware) and frequently sees breakage like you are seeing. The best shot you'll have is testing the LTS or even older kernels, otherwise you will want to report these issues and or check whether they are already reported on the nouveau gitlab: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/nouveau/-/issues/

buzzwallard · 2021-06-04 14:31:37

Thanks for that link.

I am using LTS kernel, Would it be better to try an install from the AUR rather than from the NVIDIA site's archive. I could give that a go if there's a respectable chance it will go better than the NVIDIA archive one.

Last edited by buzzwallard (2021-06-04 14:32:30)

seth · 2021-06-04 14:41:21

You should generally not install the nvidia driver from their archive and you don't need the AUR for the LTS kernel - you need it for the 390xx legacy driver and the one you get from nvidia will likely not even build for any archlinux kernel (the AUR augments various patches)

What's the exact nature of your annoying problems w/ the nvidia blob?

mixer · 2021-06-04 14:58:27

I've experienced similar with RTX 2070 hardware and the standard kernel, with nouveau driver first and then nothing (plain mode setting). Installing the proprietary NVIDIA driver fixed all instability issues.

buzzwallard · 2021-06-04 14:59:55

seth wrote:

What's the exact nature of your annoying problems w/ the nvidia blob?

- Video screen tearing
- nvidia-settings corrupting its configuration files (in attempt to fix tearing)
- xscreensaver failing on GL* screensavers

You may remember these. You ran support on them.

I'm leaning toward installing nvidia from AUR. From the documentation I read, installing from nvidia archive was the only choice. (I'm learning to see the archwiki as the first stop for doc. It can wander into the weeds here and there but it's generally worth the persistence.)

seth · 2021-06-04 15:10:55

Do you use a second login "holiday"?
* XSS is here, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=266841 - I know what the problem is and how to fix it, but there's unlikely going to be an XSS upstream patch and no response from nvidia.
* nvidia-xconfig is garbage - and so is "Xorg -configure", neither should be used by anyone on any driver ever.
* the general approach to fix screen tearing is to enforce the *full* composition pipeline, but I don't see a thread of yours about this and screen tearing can happen at multiple levels (driver, compositor, client)

buzzwallard · 2021-06-04 15:19:20

seth wrote:

Do you use a second login "holiday"?

Busted.
I thought at first it would be a good idea to have another login for another issue. I didn't want to appear a nuisance
Turns out the nuisance is having more than one login.

seth wrote:

* XSS is here, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=266841 - I know what the problem is and how to fix it, but there's unlikely going to be an XSS upstream patch and no response from nvidia.
* nvidia-xconfig is garbage - and so is "Xorg -configure", neither should be used by anyone on any driver ever.
* the general approach to fix screen tearing is to enforce the *full* composition pipeline, but I don't see a thread of yours about this and screen tearing can happen at multiple levels (driver, compositor, client)

That is what I was trying to do with the nvidia-settings but couldn't make it stick.You may remember my naive struggling with 20-nvidia.conf

I'm going to take a timeshift snapshot and install from the AUR.

Let's see how that goes. At the very worst I'll learn some more new things.

Last edited by buzzwallard (2021-06-04 15:19:57)

Arch Linux

#1 2021-06-04 13:02:06

desktop lockups return after rolling back nvidia to nouveau

#2 2021-06-04 14:18:08

Re: desktop lockups return after rolling back nvidia to nouveau

#3 2021-06-04 14:31:37

Re: desktop lockups return after rolling back nvidia to nouveau

#4 2021-06-04 14:41:21

Re: desktop lockups return after rolling back nvidia to nouveau

#5 2021-06-04 14:58:27

Re: desktop lockups return after rolling back nvidia to nouveau

#6 2021-06-04 14:59:55

Re: desktop lockups return after rolling back nvidia to nouveau

#7 2021-06-04 15:10:55

Re: desktop lockups return after rolling back nvidia to nouveau

#8 2021-06-04 15:19:20

Re: desktop lockups return after rolling back nvidia to nouveau

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