[Solved] - Unhappy Lappy; sudden boot & network problems.

[kdemeoz]

Hi

In my ongoing efforts to make the AnyDesk remote access program work for me in Maui as per https://forums.mauilinux.org/showthread....2#pid41462, the AD Dev asked me to remove nvidia-prime from both my Tower & Lappy. I did this, then rebooted both PCs. Tower rebooted fine, & continues to operate well. However...

...Lappy has become a disaster! It will boot, & displays the grub menu for 5s as usual ok, then displays the Maui blue splash-screen... but then gives me a black screen & i cannot proceed. At first i wondered if a similar weird file-system fault had spontaneously arisen as per https://forums.mauilinux.org/showthread....1#pid40561 late last year on my Tower, so the first action i now took was to boot Lappy with LiveUSB & run:

Code:

sudo fsck.ext4 /dev/sda6   <<= />>
sudo fsck.ext4 /dev/sda7   <<= /DATA>>

However, both partitions are GOOD.

I rebooted & this time picked the older kernel, but still couldn't get past the splash-screen to the login screen [pls note - Lappy was successfully running for hours last night, & has been for weeks, with these kernels, without any problem til now]. 

I rebooted again, this time chose the grub recovery boot option, in which i chose the fsck option [which did work back in my older Tower fault https://forums.mauilinux.org/showthread....1#pid40561], but now in Lappy i still ended up with the black screen instead of the login screen. 

I changed to tty2, logged in, opened grub with nano, & added nomodeset after quiet splash, then updated grub & rebooted. It did not change anything [so then i undid the previous step]. 

I also tried with nouveau.noaccel=1 instead of nomodeset, but that also made no difference. 

I decided to reinstall nvidia-prime & see if that would return Lappy to "normal", so i switched back to tty2, logged in, & ran:

Code:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-prime

To my immense shock, the response was:

Code:

connect: Network is unreachable

I booted back into LiveUSB, in which i confirmed that i definitely DO have proper network access via the ethernet cable.

Rebooted, got to the black screen again, switched to tty2, repeated the previous apt commands, but again was told there was no network. Tried pinging Google [8.8.8.8 & then 8.8.4.4] ... still no network ... tried pinging 192.168.1.1 ... still no network. Ran:

Code:

sudo systemctl restart network-manager

, which gave no error message, then repeated the pings, but still no network.

What on earth has happened? How can merely removing nvidia-prime have killed both the proper completion of the boot process, AND the network connection? Does anyone have any bright ideas please?

[kdemeoz]

OK, an update... i've solved it, but i have absolutely no understanding of why this silliness erupted out of the blue today. A further [new, different] dumb fault arose during my subsequent solution, which i've also solved, but it also makes no sense at all. Sigh.

I wondered if somehow the removal of nvidia-prime had also unintentionally damaged the Nvidia graphics driver itself, so in case it had, i decided to:

Code:

sudo apt purge nvidia-*

After that i rebooted, assuming Lappy would have no choice now other than to definitely use the Nouveau driver, which presumably should still work... & it did! I was able to now get all the way through the boot process to the normal log-in screen, log-in, & voila. Stupidly, madly, insanely, inexplicably, now the Network Manager decided it was happy again, hence i had my normal network connectivity back [why on earth did the Nvidia driver get corrupted, & WHY then did that stupid fault then cause the Network Manager to die??? What possible relationship is there between a graphics driver & a network manager?]. Using the Driver Manager i reinstalled the latest Nvidia graphics driver, rebooted, & yay... booted correctly, logged in ok, Nvidia driver was working properly again, Network Manager working again... perfect!

Ah, no, not perfect. Now the new fault occurred... System Monitor / KSysGuard decided it was not happy, & so decided to fall over. Every time i launched it, there was a system error sound, & an error msg popup appeared:

Code:

The file /home/kdemeoz/.local/share/ksysguard/ProcessTable.sgrd does not contain valid XML.

As soon as i acknowledged it, there was another error audio chime, & a new but similar popup:

Code:

The file /home/kdemeoz/.local/share/ksysguard/SystemLoad2.sgrd does not contain valid XML.

By now i was quite pissed off [more than half my day had already been wasted by now]. I completely removed ksysguard & two dependencies, reinstalled it/them, launched it... only for the identical symptoms to repeat. Taking note in Dolphin that /home/kdemeoz/.local/share/ksysguard/* had not disappeared when i'd removed ksysguard, i re-removed it & dependencies, manually deleted /home/kdemeoz/.local/share/ksysguard/* , re-reinstalled ksysguard, launched it, & now it was happy -- it ran fine. In Dolphin i noted that /home/kdemeoz/.local/share/ksysguard/* has not been recreated ... huh? --> EDIT - aha, it did reappear the next time i closed ksysguard. 

Lappy's Maui now seems to be happy again... but it's now 8 damn hours since i first booted it up this morning... grrrr. To rub salt into the wound, AnyDesk still does not work [which was the entire reason for removing nvidia-prime that initiated this mess today]. Such fun.

[rocky7x]

Hi kdemeoz,

Does your laptop have Optimus? If yes, then removing Nvidia-prime with installed Nvidia driver will DEFINITELY kill the whole boot process and you will just get a black screen as you described. This package contains the needed files that enable the OS to distinguish between 2 GPUs and enable the boot process to decide which GPU to use. Nvidia driver completely screws up the system where Optimus is present without this package (believe me, I've had my share of hours with it ;-) )

So I'm completely not surprised by the fact that the Tower went without any problems (since it doesn't have Optimus for sure) and the Laptop went to hell (since it probably has Optimus).

[kdemeoz]

Hi Rocky, thanks. This is all bundles of fun, isn't it? 

I'm inclined to answer "no, no Optimus here in Lappy, only nvidia-prime" [which astonishingly i now see is installed again, despite me only installing the Nvidia driver itself, gahhhh]. However maybe i'm naive; how can i tell unequivocally if i do or don't, pls? [sorry for asking you rather than researching it online, but i'm just so pissed off now after this dead day that i don't have the energy left for it]. 

BTW, even if it transpires i do have The Big O [once i know how to tell], for bonus points would you care to opine how the **** that me inadvertently stuffing the Nvidia driver also managed to kill the network connectivity, & then ksysguard? It really was a bumper day today!  

[rocky7x]

Hi kdemeoz,

This is quite normal. Since you did not even get to the login screen, the network manager never started, so you didn't have the network at all. For me it was the same with this Nvidia crap. So I would call it "a feature"

As for the "Big O" as you call it, it's easy to find it out - run the following command from console:

Code:

lspci -vnnn | perl -lne 'print if /^\d+\:.+(\[\S+\:\S+\])/' | grep VGA

If you get something like the following (my case), then you have Optimus:

Code:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0416] (rev 06) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GK106GLM [Quadro K2100M] [10de:11fc] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)

The GPU that has [VGA controller] at the end is the one that is used by the system. If you only get 1 GPU, then you don't have Optimus.

[kdemeoz]

Gosh Rocky, how do you & Pliny & leszek & AJSlye etc, know all this amazing stuff? I feel sooooooo inadequate! Thank you again.

OK, i see your logic re my Network Manager, but what about the post-repair failure of KSysGuard? Was that just icing on my cake given how wonderful a day it was?  

This is from my Lappy:

Code:

XPS-L501X:~$ lspci -vnnn | perl -lne 'print if /^\d+\:.+(\[\S+\:\S+\])/' | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0046] (rev 18) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GF108M [GeForce GT 420M] [10de:0df1] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

So, ain't i just the lucky lady; i have that "[VGA controller] at the end" not once but twice. Bonus!! 

For my final naive question [for now], the name "Optimus" does not appear even once in all that code i pasted above, & you pasted above, so what bright spark decided to call their product "Optimus"? I think they need a new marketing manager...

[ali_deda]

The command that is typed and given my video card [VGA controller]

Code:

lspci -vnnn | perl -lne 'print if /^\d+\:.+(\[\S+\:\S+\])/' | grep VGA

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Bonaire XTX [Radeon R7 260X/360] [1002:6658] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

I do not understand what the problem is, the cards are identified by chipset. Manufacturer cards can give a name to their marketing strategy.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeFo...837.0.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Optimus

[ali_deda]

Connect your Lappy to the router with network cable
To have internet login in terminal as root or user and typing (sudo) /sbin/dhclient

[rocky7x]

Gosh Rocky, how do you & Pliny & leszek & AJSlye etc, know all this amazing stuff? I feel sooooooo inadequate! Thank you again.

OK, i see your logic re my Network Manager, but what about the post-repair failure of KSysGuard? Was that just icing on my cake given how wonderful a day it was?  

This is from my Lappy:

Code:

XPS-L501X:~$ lspci -vnnn | perl -lne 'print if /^\d+\:.+(\[\S+\:\S+\])/' | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0046] (rev 18) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GF108M [GeForce GT 420M] [10de:0df1] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

So, ain't i just the lucky lady; i have that "[VGA controller] at the end" not once but twice. Bonus!! 

For my final naive question [for now], the name "Optimus" does not appear even once in all that code i pasted above, & you pasted above, so what bright spark decided to call their product "Optimus"? I think they need a new marketing manager...

Hi kdemeoz,

So you indeed HAVE Optimus It is Nvidia's name for their mobile GPU technology that can turn the GPU on or off in laptops, always paired up with an integrated GPU. However, I'm quite puzzled about that "VGA Controller" part being in both - that's strange. Anyway I see you have quite an old CPU with an old intel chip (pre-Sandy Bridge). So using the Nvidia card is probably your only option, since that intel integrated GPU is quite slow. Since you have Optimus and want to use the Nvidia proprietary driver, you MUST have Nvidia-prime installed. In order to properly use the Nvidia card, open the console and execute this:

Code:

sudo prime-select nvidia

It will properly select the nvidia card.

As for the KSysGuard, from my perspective, it's a completely isolated case, maybe your laptop crashed while it was running and the config in your home dir remained corrupted or something - I wouldn't relate it to the Nvidia stuff in any way.

[kdemeoz]

Hi Rocky

Re KSG, uh, ok, i will accept it broke merely as coincidence, unrelated to the other shenanigans, but oh golly, what timing... it just made yesterday that little bit more... "pleasant".  

Yes, my Lappy is no spring chicken; i bought it new in Jan 2011. It's been good. Anyway, thanks for contextualising its nvidia-prime for me, that makes sense. I haven't yet run your command, as i wanted to ask you if i actually need to... pls see this pic which suggests it's already set properly [???]: