Boot broken after recent update -- -oracle and -lowlatency kernels installed?

[chconnor]

Hi -- after a recent routine update my system wouldn't boot anymore. Just started to a black screen with: "Failed to start LSB: VirtualBox Linux kernel module". Later I get an sda_hda_intel error line: "HSW/BDW HD-audio HDMI/DP requires binding with gfx driver." Eventually I just ctrl-alt-delete to reboot.

After investigating, it appears that I now have installed -oracle and -lowlatency kernel packages, neither of which will boot. When I boot to the 5.19.0-38-generic kernel, the system boots as normal.

I did not manually install those kernels. I ran these commands to investigate:

debtree -R --max-depth 4 linux-image-5.19.0-1019-oracle | dot -Tsvg
and
debtree -R --max-depth 4 linux-image-5.19.0-1021-lowlatency | dot -Tsvg

...I'm not qualified to evaluate the results, but it would naively appear as if the nvidia driver package is "recommending" these kernels which apparently triggered them to be installed? Does that seem correct? Any known harm in removing them?

Attached are the svg's generated by dot.

Thanks!

[Snowhog]

Any known harm in removing them?

If you aren't/don't use them, remove them.

[claydoh]

Ok, this may be the second instance today of oddball kernels getting pulled in by something.
Something the user has installed, or some odd packaging bug is installing these quite non-standard packages.

I am not seeing reports in general ubuntu-land as of yet, so I imagine some specific software or package may be the culprit.
these kernels are not part of any major meta-package that would depend on them, so it is a weird one.

https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/...en-won-t-start

This one is in 22.04 though

[chconnor]

Thanks -- I have removed them. If there's anything I can do to help track down what's going on, let me know.

[claydoh]

I should have had you check to see what was being removed along wit these, to see if there was a clue as to what thing had these as dependencies. Whatwever it was, if present, would possible be removed along with these. If it happens again, we can check that.
if you do and apt autoremove for general cleanup, maybe post what is there, if anything.

[chconnor]

Here's my /var/log/apt/history.log showing the auto installation a few days ago:

Start-Date: 2023-04-06 15:47:14
Commandline: packagekit role='update-packages'
Requested-By: myusername (1000)
Install: linux-signatures-nvidia-5.19.0-1019-oracle:amd64 (5.19.0-1019.22+1, automatic), linux-objects-nvidia-515-5.19.0-1019-oracle:amd64 (5.19.0-1019.22+1, automatic), linux-modules-5.19.0-1021-lowlatency:amd64 (5.19.0-1021.22, automatic), linux-image-5.19.0-1021-lowlatency:amd64 (5.19.0-1021.22, automatic), linux-image-5.19.0-1019-oracle:amd64 (5.19.0-1019.22, automatic), linux-modules-5.19.0-1019-oracle:amd64 (5.19.0-1019.22, automatic), linux-signatures-nvidia-5.19.0-1021-lowlatency:amd64 (5.19.0-1021.22+1, automatic), linux-objects-nvidia-515-5.19.0-1021-lowlatency:amd64 (5.19.0-1021.22+1, automatic)
Upgrade: distro-info-data:amd64 (0.54ubuntu0.1, 0.54ubuntu0.2)
End-Date: 2023-04-06 15:47:56​

That presumably was what caused the boot to break; at any rate the next day a bunch of nvidia packages installed:

Start-Date: 2023-04-07 10:37:10
Commandline: packagekit role='update-packages'
Requested-By: myusername (1000)
Upgrade: libnvidia-common-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), libnvidia-fbc1-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), libnvidia-fbc1-515:i386 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), libnvidia-gl-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), libnvidia-gl-515:i386 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), linux-objects-nvidia-515-5.19.0-38-generic:amd64 (5.19.0-38.39, 5.19.0-38.39+1), libnvidia-extra-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), nvidia-compute-utils-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), nvidia-driver-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), libnvidia-encode-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), libnvidia-encode-515:i386 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), linux-signatures-nvidia-5.19.0-38-generic:amd64 (5.19.0-38.39, 5.19.0-38.39+1), nvidia-utils-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), xserver-xorg-video-nvidia-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), libnvidia-decode-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), libnvidia-decode-515:i386 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), nvidia-kernel-common-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), linux-modules-nvidia-515-5.19.0-38-generic:amd64 (5.19.0-38.39, 5.19.0-38.39+1), libnvidia-cfg1-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), nvidia-kernel-source-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), libnvidia-compute-515:amd64 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), libnvidia-compute-515:i386 (515.86.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1, 515.105.01-0ubuntu0.22.10.1), linux-modules-nvidia-515-generic:amd64 (5.19.0-38.39, 5.19.0-38.39+1)
End-Date: 2023-04-07 10:38:07​

Then I removed the non-functional kernels:

Start-Date: 2023-04-08 10:56:30
Commandline: /usr/sbin/synaptic
Requested-By: myusername (1000)
Remove: linux-signatures-nvidia-5.19.0-1019-oracle:amd64 (5.19.0-1019.22+1), linux-objects-nvidia-515-5.19.0-1019-oracle:amd64 (5.19.0-1019.22+1), linux-modules-5.19.0-1021-lowlatency:amd64 (5.19.0-1021.22), linux-image-5.19.0-1021-lowlatency:amd64 (5.19.0-1021.22), linux-image-5.19.0-1019-oracle:amd64 (5.19.0-1019.22), linux-modules-5.19.0-1019-oracle:amd64 (5.19.0-1019.22), linux-signatures-nvidia-5.19.0-1021-lowlatency:amd64 (5.19.0-1021.22+1), linux-objects-nvidia-515-5.19.0-1021-lowlatency:amd64 (5.19.0-1021.22+1)
End-Date: 2023-04-08 10:58:08​

...it didn't seem like anything else was removed.

$ deborphan
chromium-browser-l10n:all
conky:all
pdftk:amd64

$ sudo apt autoremove
[sudo] password for myusername:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 4 not upgraded.​

[linelocker]

this may be the second instance today of oddball kernels getting pulled in by something.
Something the user has installed

Hi,
Since I am the one posting this in the 22.04 thread, I can assure you that I installed VB from Discover way before this error occurred.
I hadn't used it for days and there was nothing in the update list that pertained to it.
Every thing was working normally before I allowed the system upgrade
That thread might be useful to others so I hope it helps. I can't even get to the terminal.

[mirage7513]

Hi i had the same problem and had to manually use the generic versions of kernel from grub to boot. I had not uninstalled the kernels yet and as required above is searched for dependents and found most of them were nvidia modules. Hope this helps.