Nvidia driver installed but doesn't load properly

Ask Fedora
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1

Hi,

I installed the nvidia driver using the process described in this page. And the video driver doesn’t seem to load properly.

Half of the time after boot, nvidia X Server settings show only the basic info but not the configurations.

Through journalctl I found logs that indicates nvidia driver wasn’t loaded properly

...
Mar 19 23:21:37 fedora /usr/bin/nvidia-powerd[1160]: Found unsupported configuration. Exiting...
...
Mar 19 23:21:38 fedora systemd[1]: nvidia-fallback.service - Fallback to nouveau as nvidia did not load was skipped because of an unmet condition check (ConditionPathExists=!/sys/module/nvidia).
...

These don’t look like what should be happening, though I have no reference so maybe they are alright? The full boot log is here if you need to see more.

Are these normal behaviour, what should I do next to try to fix this? I also found online that some people say I should switch from Wayland to X11, and that supposed could fix the issue. Should I try that? Would that cause any other issues?

Here are some other info I hope can be useful. As you can see, the driver seems to be installed properly.

ythan@fedora:~$ modinfo -F version nvidia
550.54.14

than@fedora:~$ dnf list installed \*nvidia\*
Installed Packages
akmod-nvidia.x86_64                                                                                       3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
kmod-nvidia-6.7.9-200.fc39.x86_64.x86_64                                                                  3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @@commandline                   
nvidia-gpu-firmware.noarch                                                                                20240312-1.fc39                                                                     @updates                        
nvidia-modprobe.x86_64                                                                                    3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
nvidia-persistenced.x86_64                                                                                3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
nvidia-settings.x86_64                                                                                    3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia.x86_64                                                                                3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda.x86_64                                                                           3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs.i686                                                                        3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs.x86_64                                                                      3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-kmodsrc.x86_64                                                                        3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs.i686                                                                             3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs.x86_64                                                                           3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power.x86_64                                                                          3:550.54.14-1.fc39                                                                  @rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver

lsmod | grep -iE "nvidia|nouveau"
nvidia_drm            126976  28
nvidia_modeset       1605632  5 nvidia_drm
nvidia_uvm           6651904  0
nvidia              60362752  135 nvidia_uvm,nvidia_modeset
video                  77824  2 i915,nvidia_modeset
2

Removed server

3

I would suggest logging in with xorg.While I do not have any major issues using wayland nvidia-settings does not show very much.On xorg I have alot more options in nvidia-settings.Nvidia has gotten better using wayland but they still have a ways to go.

4

I switched to xorg and now nvidia x settings does show up. But that fallback to nouveau line still shows up in boot log. Is that something to worry?

Is there a absolute way to know what driver is currently running?

5

Secure boot? If so did you sign the keys?

You can try this

dnf remove 'kmod-nvidia-*' then akmods --force

6

I did sign the keys following the guide on rpmfusion

7

I had a problem with Fedora 39 not waking up after going to sleep so I investigated NVIDIA drivers on my machine - not sure if it is tightly related - tangential possibly - but they work on my machine with Wayland.
Here is from the other post:
One small issue was with machine “going to sleep and waking up”. It iseems to occur in several previous versions of Fedora. I found some info that it is related to NVIDIA. I checked if any NVIDIA drivers were active lsmod | grep nvidia and there were none. Then I checked if any were installed sudo dnf list installed | grep nvidia . There were none in both cases so I installed themsudo dnf install akmod-nvidia . After reboot lsmod was still not showing them so I disabled Smart Boot in BIOS and tried again. This time they were loaded. So I tried nvidia-smi which turned out required extra package xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda . After that nvidia-smi worked and reported GPU usage (among other things) so I knew NVIDIA was working on Fedora. It also seems to fix the “not being able to wake up” issue. So far so good.

8

Try the commands I posted I usually need to use those after installation and MOK keys signed after that I have modules loaded

9

My install process was: first MOK keys, then nvidia driver. Was that the right sequence?

10

I always do drivers first wait 5 minutes that they are loaded sign MOK and restart and then do the posted commands and last restart

11

Yes.
This ensures the driver module is already signed when it is built and can be loaded immediately
If the driver is installed before the keys are prepared it will not be signed and must be removed and rebuilt with the keys.

12

That line should show up in the boot log.
It tells you that the fallback is skipped because the requiring conditions are not met – meaning the nvidia driver loaded properly so the nouveau driver is not required.

13

Oh I see.

I read it like: Fallback to nouveau as nvidia did not load, was skipped because of an unmet condition check.

So I thought the nvidia driver was skipped due to unmet condition😅

14

how you sign the keys before Drivers i just can’t thats why i do it like drivers first

phatle@fedora:~$ mokutil --import /etc/pki/akmods/certs/public_key.der
Failed to get file status, /etc/pki/akmods/certs/public_key.der
phatle@fedora:~$ sudo mokutil --import /etc/pki/akmods/certs/public_key.der
Failed to get file status, /etc/pki/akmods/certs/public_key.der
phatle@fedora:~$

and sorry to post here the question when there is a solution

15

what I did was first run sudo kmodgenca -a to generate the key, then import using mokutil

16

That explains things more since that one is missing on how to secure boot docs it just says to create and sign

https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/Secure%20Boot

17

Very easy to misread that message. I had to look at it more than once before I understood what it said.

You must install akmods first, then do the kmodgenca & mokutil steps, then install the drivers. This is never made clear, and akmods is one of the dependencies that is installed when akmod-nvidia is installed so the need to install akmods first and import the key for secure boot is hidden.

After akmods is installed the next boot creates the signing key, but by installing the driver first the modules are is not signed and the key has not been imported to the bios until the user does so manually.