All of a sudden the driver for my Nvidia 4080 stopped working. I don't recall changing anything but the next day I was greeted with a log-in screen that had a tiny resolution and it didn't recognise the second screen. This was due to the graphics driver (version 545.29.06) not working anymore and I am very confused as to why that is. I try to provide as much pertinent information as I can, please correct me if I miss anything.

Currently I had to re-install version 535.183.01 but unfortunately the performance of this driver is noticeably slower (e.g. in playing video games I get a lot of frame drops) that this is not a solution.

Below I outline every step I took to get a newer version than 535 installed again but each failed.

TLDR: Does anyone have any advice what issue I am facing here and how it can be solved? How can I install a newer driver?

Installing a driver other than 535 fails

In general, I only have these relatively old drivers available, which I also wonder about:

sudo ubuntu-drivers list

Output:

nvidia-driver-535-server, (kernel modules provided by linux-modules-nvidia-535-server-generic-hwe-22.04)nvidia-driver-535-open, (kernel modules provided by linux-modules-nvidia-535-open-generic-hwe-22.04)nvidia-driver-545-open, (kernel modules provided by nvidia-dkms-545-open)nvidia-driver-545, (kernel modules provided by nvidia-dkms-545)nvidia-driver-535-server-open, (kernel modules provided by linux-modules-nvidia-535-server-open-generic-hwe-22.04)nvidia-driver-535, (kernel modules provided by linux-modules-nvidia-535-generic-hwe-22.04)

When I try to install, a 545 driver again, I get the following error message:

sudo ubuntu-drivers install nvidia:545

The end of the output:

ERROR: Cannot create report: [Errno 17] File exists: '/var/crash/nvidia-dkms-545.0.crash'Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 6.8.0-40-generic (x86_64)Consult /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/545.29.06/build/make.log for more information.dpkg: error processing package nvidia-dkms-545 (--configure): installed nvidia-dkms-545 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 10dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of nvidia-driver-545: nvidia-driver-545 depends on nvidia-dkms-545 (<= 545.29.06-1); however:  Package nvidia-dkms-545 is not configured yet. nvidia-driver-545 depends on nvidia-dkms-545 (>= 545.29.06); however:  Package nvidia-dkms-545 is not configured yet.dpkg: error processing package nvidia-driver-545 (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfiguredNo apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.                                                                                                          Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.35-0ubuntu3.8) ...Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ...Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.140ubuntu13.4) ...update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.8.0-40-genericErrors were encountered while processing: nvidia-dkms-545 nvidia-driver-545E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Running

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-545

Produces this output:

Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 6.8.0-40-generic (x86_64)Consult /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/545.29.06/build/make.log for more information.dpkg: error processing package nvidia-dkms-545 (--configure): installed nvidia-dkms-545 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 10dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of nvidia-driver-545: nvidia-driver-545 depends on nvidia-dkms-545 (<= 545.29.06-1); however:  Package nvidia-dkms-545 is not configured yet. nvidia-driver-545 depends on nvidia-dkms-545 (>= 545.29.06); however:  Package nvidia-dkms-545 is not configured yet.dpkg: error processing package nvidia-driver-545 (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfiguredNo apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.                                                                                                          Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.140ubuntu13.4) ...update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.8.0-40-genericErrors were encountered while processing: nvidia-dkms-545 nvidia-driver-545E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

The tail of /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/545.29.06/build/make.log is

make[2]: *** [/usr/src/linux-headers-6.8.0-40-generic/Makefile:1926: /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/545.29.06/build] Error 2make[1]: *** [Makefile:240: __sub-make] Error 2make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-6.8.0-40-generic'make: *** [Makefile:82: modules] Error 2

Running sudo apt upgrade, now also runs into the same error each time. sudo apt install nvidia-dkms-545 doesn't help as does sudo dpkg-reconfigure nvidia-dkms-545. The latter one complains:

/usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: nvidia-dkms-545 is broken or not fully installed

Lastly, in another question I found checking dkms status:

nvidia/545.29.06: added

and this sudo dkms autoinstall but I get this error:

Kernel preparation unnecessary for this kernel. Skipping...Building module:cleaning build area...unset ARCH; [ ! -h /usr/bin/cc ] && export CC=/usr/bin/gcc; env NV_VERBOSE=1 'make' -j16 NV_EXCLUDE_BUILD_MODULES='' KERNEL_UNAME=6.8.0-40-generic IGNORE_XEN_PRESENCE=1 IGNORE_CC_MISMATCH=1 SYSSRC=/lib/modules/6.8.0-40-generic/build LD=/usr/bin/ld.bfd CONFIG_X86_KERNEL_IBT= modules......(bad exit status: 2)ERROR: Cannot create report: [Errno 17] File exists: '/var/crash/nvidia-dkms-545.0.crash'Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 6.8.0-40-generic (x86_64)Consult /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/545.29.06/build/make.log for more information.

Edits/Additions

Kernel:

uname -aLinux XXXX 6.8.0-40-generic #40~22.04.3-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Jul 30 17:30:19 UTC 2 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

GCC:

gcc --versiongcc (Ubuntu 11.4.0-1ubuntu1~22.04) 11.4.0Copyright (C) 2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NOwarranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

I am not too familiar with gcc but sudo apt install gcc-12 this says it's already installed.

I've followed the instructions here: Unable to install nvidia-driver-495 and nvidia-dkms-495, but when I choose the nouveau I couldn't even normally boot and had to re-install 535 in safe mode. Before, I did try to install 545 but it failed again.