Ubuntu will not boot normally after nvidia driver install

Question

I was trying to install the new NVIDIA drivers and now this is what I see.

Sometimes I can get to the default login screen but when I log as my user I get back to this screen.

Apparently you need to fix lines 58 and 59 from the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf. Try commenting those lines out (put a # symbol at the beginning of the text on line 58 and on line 59, so hi you would become #hi you. You need to open the file as root, eg sudo -H gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and turn on line numbering) and see what happens. Not sure if this is the source of your problem, but maybe it will help to reveal that. — Zanna, Sep 13 '17 at 21:37

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 10 '20 at 21:20

TLDR: deleting /etc/X11/xorg.conf solved my boot issue. Continue reading to see if you had a similar issue.

I stumbled across this question when trying to solve my "Ubuntu will not boot normally after nvidia driver install" problem. It might not be the exact same problem, but the title matches and people searching for the issue I had might land here.

I have Ubuntu 18.04 with a working nvidia-driver-415. While playing around with OpenCL, Vulkan and other GPU-related stuff, I upgraded to nvidia-driver-440 (I did also try to install drivers from nvidia site as well). After that I was unable to get to the login screen when nvidia prime profile was enabled (enabling intel profile works ok).

I spent the whole day doing various things, including this one (some other articles also suggest something like this), it turned out that I had an outdated /etc/X11/xorg.conf which had to be deleted as suggested in this post: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/ubuntu-18-lts-nvidia-440-unable-to-make-nvidia-the-primary-display-driver/107632

this really solved my problem! I have been stuck in this mess for two days, and tried every solution I can found with no luck! untill I got this!!Thank you man, you really saved my life! (ubuntu20.04 + gtx 1050) — NextStep, Jul 25 '20 at 23:52
Works like a harm! I tried installing other drivers, purging, etc, but only this solution work! — Aleksander Burzec, Jan 29 '22 at 16:16
After fiddling with other changes this solved my problem. I was also playing with nvidia because it was not supporting dual monitors. Now everything is fine. — doubleo46, Feb 06 '23 at 13:00

score 8 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 16 '17 at 12:53

8

OP's answer removed from the question (and edited to fix possible issues):

So, I fixed the problem.

First press Ctrl+Alt+F1 and log in with your username and password.

Then you will need to remove the old driver:
sudo apt-get purge ^nvidia-
After that you will need to add the graphics-driver PPA
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers
and then
sudo apt-get update 
Search for the latest Nvidia drivers for your hardware here on the Nvidia site.

In my case I used
sudo apt-get install nvidia-384
And done, just reboot and you should be ready to go.

edited Sep 16 '17 at 12:53

Eliah Kagan

117,780

answered Sep 16 '17 at 12:38

Zanna

70,465

It does not work, hence wish i could downvote! – WordPress Speed Apr 28 '21 at 14:39
It says ERROR: '~graphics-drivers' user or team does not exist. What must be done to resolve this ? – Tanishq Vyas Sep 16 '21 at 16:51
@TanishqVyas try again - maybe you mistyped the command - there should not be a ~ character in it. I just tested and it worked for me – Zanna Sep 16 '21 at 17:39
@Zanna My cross checked my command but it still gave the same error – Tanishq Vyas Sep 18 '21 at 07:58
hmmm... no idea – Zanna Sep 18 '21 at 08:25

Vishal · Answer 3 · 2018-09-17T23:21:16.267

3

Start Ubuntu in recovery mode.
Choose "Drop To Root Shell Prompt'. By default, this will allow you to access the file system in read- only mode. Switch to read/write mode by executing This:. $ mount -o remount,rw /
Purge Nvidia by executing:. $ sudo apt-get purge nvidia*
$ reboot
This will get your system started.
Then install the compatible Nvidia driver.

edited Sep 17 '18 at 23:21

answered Sep 17 '18 at 23:05

Vishal

61

Doing this still shows a similar screen as shared in the question. How to proceed ? – Tanishq Vyas Sep 16 '21 at 16:53
It solved my problem – Thành Công Nov 15 '23 at 00:06

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered May 26 '23 at 14:09

I had a problem after installing the latest NVIDIA driver on fresh Ubuntu 20.04.

What helped me solve the problem is running after NVIDIA installation:

sudo ubuntu-drivers install

To explain.
I just got a black screen on reboot after installing the NVIDIA recommended driver. Further, I used nomodeset feature to enter the Ubuntu.

When in additional software I tried to switch to the old driver, I noticed it said: Continue using a manually installed driver and all other options greyed out. To solve that problem, I followed this answer.

Afterwards the installed nvidia driver was correctly identified and after reboot, it did not get stuck at the black screen any more.

Thanks a lot! I was getting a black screen after updating an nvidia driver on ubuntu 23.10, this solved the problem. — Łukasz Sypniewski, Feb 17 '24 at 12:12

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 18 '20 at 14:37

I had the similar problem (after changed the default driver to the system-recommended Nvidia 435/440 and reboot) in Ubuntu 19.10. I have tried many solutions on internet (e.g., edit grub/nomodeset, blacklist nouveau, manual install old nvidia-driver-418), but none of them worked. Desperate and frustrated, but not gave up!

My final fix is pretty funny ... After selecting the latest nvidia driver in Ubuntu/Additional Driver, I run nvidia-smi in the terminal, which gave me an error like "Unable to communicate with GPU because it is insufficiently powered". Was it the problem? Doubted. BTW, my EVGA/RTX 2070 SUPER black has two power connectors, a 6-pin (optional as said in the manual) and an 8-pin (this was the only one I connected). Simply connecting the second port, now everything works like a charm!

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 20 '22 at 12:07

Enter Recovery Mode, choose "Drop To Root Shell Prompt", if you have the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf delete it (on modern Ubuntu this file is auto-managed with other ones). Reboot, and try.

If that doesn't help reenter "Root Shell Prompt" you can erase nvidia drivers and try another version. For example:

apt remove nvidia-driver-515 --autoremove -yqq && apt install nvidia-driver-510 -yqq

Ubuntu will not boot normally after nvidia driver install

6 Answers6