Nouveau driver periodic hang

[Nick Payne]

Running Mint 14 amd64 with an nVidia GTX650 Ti video card. Maybe once every couple of days, the GUI locks up. Sometimes I can still Ctrl+Alt+F1 to a console and login and reboot, but usually even that doesn't work and I have to power cycle the machine. When this problem happens, if I look at syslog after rebooting, I usually see entries like the following:

Code: Select all

Apr 23 13:20:06 nick-mint kernel: [ 1201.176545] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:10 nick-mint kernel: [ 1205.469923] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:15 nick-mint kernel: [ 1209.763274] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:19 nick-mint kernel: [ 1214.056677] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:23 nick-mint kernel: [ 1218.350042] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:27 nick-mint kernel: [ 1222.643396] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:32 nick-mint kernel: [ 1226.936763] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:35 nick-mint kernel: [ 1230.239922] nouveau E[     DRM] GPU lockup - switching to software fbcon
Apr 23 13:20:36 nick-mint kernel: [ 1231.230185] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:40 nick-mint kernel: [ 1235.523589] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:45 nick-mint kernel: [ 1239.816978] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:49 nick-mint kernel: [ 1244.110345] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:50 nick-mint kernel: [ 1245.010366] nouveau E[    1759] failed to idle channel 0xcccc0001
Apr 23 13:20:52 nick-mint kernel: [ 1247.012825] nouveau E[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] playlist 0 update timeout
Apr 23 13:20:53 nick-mint kernel: [ 1248.403739] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:55 nick-mint kernel: [ 1250.008686] nouveau E[    1759] failed to idle channel 0xcccc0000
Apr 23 13:20:57 nick-mint kernel: [ 1252.008150] nouveau E[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] channel 2 kick timeout
Apr 23 13:20:57 nick-mint kernel: [ 1252.011285] nouveau W[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unknown status 0x00000100
Apr 23 13:20:59 nick-mint kernel: [ 1254.010525] nouveau E[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] playlist 0 update timeout
Apr 23 13:20:59 nick-mint kernel: [ 1254.010578] nouveau ![   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] unhandled status 0x00000001
Apr 23 13:20:59 nick-mint gnome-session[2179]: Gdk-WARNING: gnome-session: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.#012
Apr 23 13:20:59 nick-mint mdm[1700]: WARNING: mdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0
Apr 23 13:21:02 nick-mint kernel: [ 1257.058314] nouveau E[    2550] failed to idle channel 0xcccc0000
Apr 23 13:21:04 nick-mint kernel: [ 1259.057686] nouveau E[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] channel 4 kick timeout
Apr 23 13:21:06 nick-mint kernel: [ 1261.060011] nouveau E[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] playlist 0 update timeout
Apr 23 13:21:06 nick-mint acpid: client 1759[0:0] has disconnected
Apr 23 13:21:06 nick-mint acpid: client connected from 3876[0:0]
Apr 23 13:21:06 nick-mint acpid: 1 client rule loaded
Apr 23 13:21:08 nick-mint kernel: [ 1263.464501] nouveau E[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] playlist 0 update timeout
Apr 23 13:21:10 nick-mint kernel: [ 1265.487677] nouveau E[   PFIFO][0000:02:00.0] playlist 0 update timeout
Apr 23 13:21:51 nick-mint kernel: Kernel logging (proc) stopped.

[catweazel]

I've had endless troubles with the nouveau driver. I'm convinced it's more bug-riddled than a termite mound. I'd recommend installing the binary driver and giving nouveau the flick.