NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver

Ask Fedora
1

Dear all,

after having upgraded F43 kernels to 6.19.6-200 and 6.19.7-200 my Nvidia graphics card is no longer recognized. The last upgrade that went pretty well was to 6.18.16-200 . But with 6.19.6-200 I get:

[18:34:28]jojo@waldstadion:~$ nvidia-smi                        
NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

Checking /var/cache/akmods/nvidia I see

[18:49:58]jojo@waldstadion:~$ ls
580.119.02-1-for-6.18.16-200.fc43.x86_64.log        580.119.02-1-for-6.19.7-200.fc43.x86_64.failed.log
580.119.02-1-for-6.19.6-200.fc43.x86_64.failed.log  kmod-nvidia-6.18.16-200.fc43.x86_64-580.119.02-1.fc43.x86_64.rpm

So there is only one .rpm for
kmod-nvidia-6.18.16-200.fc43.x86_64-580.119.02-1.fc43.x86_64.rpm , but two *.failed.log.

When I run sudo dnf5 upgrade --allowerasing --refresh I usually wait 10 minutes to assure that akmods is able to run after the kernel upgrade. But after the uprade to 6.19.6-200 I did not recognize akmods running afterward. When I rebooted I saw a message
akmod: Building /usr/src/akamods/nvidia-kmod.latest
.
At the end I get the failing nvidia-smi messages.

What went wrong? How kann I initiate to rebuild the NVIDIA driver?

Thank you in advance
Jochen

2

update the nvidia driver.

3

Bro I use nvidia-driver 590.48.01 the latest version that you can upgrade for now it have same problem.

So when you upgrade it the problem still happen.

For recommend Boot it with kernel 6.18.x it still work.

for more Fedora 44, kernel 6.19.x nVidia akmod cannot be built

4
  1. I am not your Bro! Won’t be responding to messages like that anymore.
  2. this driver is also old and will not compile w/o a patch for 6.19 kernels
  3. use 580.126.18 ( 580.142 not packaged by rpmfusion yet) or the beta 595.45.04
5

@Mark: where do I get the driver 580.126.18 from?

6

should be available in rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver or rpmfusion-nonfree-updates

$ dnf rq --repo=rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
Updating and loading repositories:
Repositories loaded.
akmod-nvidia-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
akmod-nvidia-open-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
kmod-nvidia-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
kmod-nvidia-open-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
nvidia-modprobe-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
nvidia-persistenced-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
nvidia-settings-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
nvidia-xconfig-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.i686
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-devel-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.i686
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-devel-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-kmodsrc-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.i686
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-xorg-libs-3:580.126.18-1.fc43.x86_64
7

@Mark: thank you, got it.
And how can I now initiate the build of the driver? Do I have to run a particular akmods command?

8

man dnf :slight_smile:

you have to update the driver and then akmods will compile the kernel modules for your current kernel automatically., Do not restart, instead wait for a few minutes after the command has finished.

assuming you’ve installed the nvidia driver packaged by rpmfusion.

sudo dnf upgrade --repo=rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver

I wonder why your system is still running 580.119.02? Have you disabled the rpmfusion repositories?

1 Like
10

Yes, unfortunately I disabled weeks ago because I was not aware what they are good for
shame on me! I enabled again when I read the link that peeranat attached Fedora 44, kernel 6.19.x nVidia akmod cannot be built

Anyway: you fixed it!

[21:05:57]jojo@waldstadion:~$ nvidia-smi
Sat Mar 14 21:07:23 2026
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 580.126.18             Driver Version: 580.126.18     CUDA Version: 13.0     |
±----------------------------------------±-----------------------±---------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti     Off |   00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   48C    P8              3W /   50W |       1MiB /   4096MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
±----------------------------------------±-----------------------±---------------------+

±----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                             |
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Thanks a lot for your help!

1 Like
11

Eintracht supporter?

Heja BVB! :stuck_out_tongue:

12

Indeed! I grew up near Waldstadion and fell in love with SGE when I was a child.
BVB
there are a few clubs in 1. Bundesliga I dislike more than BVB :+1:

13

I am so sorry to you what thing that i text. That day i got drunk from alc—l and for some reason i see this post and text that you see.

your problem solve are correct it can work on RTX 3050 Mobile too.

 bash  îȘœ   îźą 0ms⠀                                                                         î‚Čî‚Č  100 î‚Čî‚Č ïł 17,22:28 
╰─îȘ¶ nvidia-smi
Tue Mar 17 22:28:06 2026       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 580.126.18             Driver Version: 580.126.18     CUDA Version: 13.0     |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 ...    Off |   00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   39C    P8              3W /   80W |       1MiB /   4096MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                             |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

for again i am sorry to you. And i will not text like that again anymore.