Re: recent nvidia-driver trouble

On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:53:02 +0200
Pascal Hofstee <caelian_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> Sometime during the last week i have started to encounter trouble with
> my system locking up trying to switch from X to console, but only when
> using the nvidia-driver kernel module. Using the plain "nv" driver
> works without any problems ... When the lock up happens the system
> seems to no longer respond to keyboard input etc. (haven't been able
> to confirm wether or not remote access is still possible).
> 
> Is anybody else experiencing similar problems out there ... this has
> used to work for months without problems ... i made sure to force a
> reinstall of the nvidia-driver port on every new kernel install but
> that just doesn't seem to solve the problem either.
> 

I've seen this also. It's a panic due to a NULL-pointer dereference
someplace in the nvidia-driver. I suspect that it's related to the
recent locking/mutex/whatever changes but can't prove it. All the
crash dumps which I have are corrupted so I can't do a backtrace :-(

The bug seems to be in the binary blob part of the driver, which means
we have to wait for Nvidia to get around to fixing it.

BTW I tried _all_ versions of the driver and every one of them
exhibits this problem.

I'm now using an old Matrox card via VGA (lost my DVI).

--- 
Gary Jennejohn / garyjATjennejohnDOTorg gjATfreebsdDOTorg
garyjATdenxDOTde