Ubuntu Update broke my Nvidia drivers

Support and Help
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1

Ubuntu Version:
24.10

Desktop Environment:
Gnome

Problem Description:
After updating Ubuntu my Nvidia drivers stopped working. I think the kernel headers were updated. I am using Ubuntu 24.10.

When running nvidia-smi I get:

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

Running sudo apt upgrade I get:

Not upgrading:                                      
  linux-modules-nvidia-560-open-generic

Summary:
  Upgrading: 0, Installing: 0, Removing: 0, Not Upgrading: 1

When I try to install it with sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade linux-modules-nvidia-560-open-generic it fails:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading status information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that
you have requested an impossible situation or, if you are using the
unstable distribution, that some required packages have not yet been
built or have not left Incoming.
The following information may help you resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
linux-modules-nvidia-560-open-generic : Depends on: linux-modules-nvidia-560-open-6.11.0-18-generic (= 6.11.0-18.18) but is not installable
E: Problems cannot be corrected, you have held back broken packages.

How can I fix my drivers?

What I’ve Tried:
I tried all the suggested answers from Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages and it did not fix it.

3

Why exactly did you use this ? It tells apt to only upgrade this single package and nothing else … since this package is a meta package you can not do this as it needs to upgrade the depending package too (which you explicitly deny it to do with that switch)

1 Like
4

I see. Would sudo apt install linux-modules-nvidia-560-open-generic be correct in this case?

With that I also get:

Unsatisfied dependencies:
linux-modules-nvidia-560-open-generic: Depends on: linux-modules-nvidia-560-open-6.11.0-18-generic (= 6.11.0-18.18) but cannot be installed
Error: Problems cannot be resolved, you have held back broken packages.
5

You already have that package installed, you want its dependency to be updated, not the metapackage itself … did you simply try an apt full-upgrade ?

also check with:

apt policy linux-modules-nvidia-560-open-6.11.0-18-generic

and

apt policy linux-modules-nvidia-560-open-generic

to see what the versions are that are currently available

1 Like
6

For whatever reason it just now let me update the package and installed the dependency.

I ran sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade again and then it just installed normally.

Of course I already tried that multiple times before but only just now it worked.

Maybe it was a phasing issue with the updates? (I am not really a technical user so I don’t really know.)

But either way it is all fixed now. Thanks for the help.

7

That is what i wanted you to check with the apt policy ... commands, it clearly shows if a package is still phasing … great it solved itself now though :slight_smile: