Ubuntu – ERROR: NVIDIA driver is not loaded

driversgraphicsnvidianvidia-geforcenvidia-settings

(I'm aware there are several questions with a similar title but they either don't have answers, are very old or don't apply to my situation.)

I'm using Ubuntu 18.04.2, my GPU is a GeForce 840M and the driver version is nvidia-driver-430 (installed from the Softwares and updates panel)

So I can't seem to use the nvidia gpu anymore. I have no idea what caused this. 

sudo nvidia-settings

gives the following output:

ERROR: NVIDIA driver is not loaded ERROR: Unable to load info from any
available system

It does open an Nvidia panel but without the usual settings and just the two PRIME profiles (Nvidia performance mode and intel power saving mode ).

sudo nvidia-smi

gives the following error :

NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA
driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and
running.

I've tried a few things like purging and reinstalling the driver or using an older one , with no luck. I've also tried downloading and running the .run driver from the nvidia website but it failed to install.

I'm looking for advice on what to try next to have it working again. Thanks for your help đŸ™‚

EDIT:

 uname -r

4.15.0-52-generic

 dkms status

nvidia, 430.26, 4.15.0-52-generic, x86_64: installed

 apt-cache policy nvidia-driver-430

nvidia-driver-430:
  Installed : 430.26-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1
  Candidate : 430.26-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1
 Version table :
 *** 430.26-0ubuntu0~gpu18.04.1 500
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/graphics-drivers/ppa/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Best Answer

Been recently running into this problem, so it may be related to a recent update.

Give this a try:

sudo prime-select nvidia

sudo rm /lib/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia.conf /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia.conf

sudo update-initramfs -u

Reference here

I'm able to boot with dual-monitors, indicating that the GPU ( GTX 970 in my case) is being utilized. However, running into other bugs.

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