Failed to load kernel modules on nixos-rebuild switch and boot

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1

Hello,

I recently installed nixos on my workstation(hardware) and I am having problems with some kernel modules failing to load either when doing nixos-rebuild switch or on booting.

[user@nixos:/nix/store]$ sudo nixos-rebuild switch --show-trace                     
[sudo] password for user: 
building Nix...
building the system configuration...
activating the configuration...
setting up /etc...
reloading user units for sddm...
reloading user units for user...
setting up tmpfiles
warning: the following units failed: systemd-modules-load.service

â—Ź systemd-modules-load.service - Load Kernel Modules
   Loaded: loaded (/nix/store/dcq8vn5xnb0hn9phzp40y8mibfssvifz-systemd-243.7/example/systemd/system/systemd-modules-load.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
  Drop-In: /nix/store/46c9vdkf3x9508i3yzdc4xrmjw47qq2j-system-units/systemd-modules-load.service.d
           └─overrides.conf
   Active: failed (Result: timeout) since Wed 2020-03-25 12:23:30 CET; 24ms ago
     Docs: man:systemd-modules-load.service(8)
           man:modules-load.d(5)
  Process: 1176 ExecStart=/nix/store/dcq8vn5xnb0hn9phzp40y8mibfssvifz-systemd-243.7/lib/systemd/systemd-modules-load (code=killed, signal=TERM)
 Main PID: 1176 (code=killed, signal=TERM)
       IP: 0B in, 0B out
      CPU: 6ms

Mar 25 12:22:00 nixos systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Modules...
Mar 25 12:23:30 nixos systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
Mar 25 12:23:30 nixos systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=15/TERM
Mar 25 12:23:30 nixos systemd[1]: systemd-modules-load.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
Mar 25 12:23:30 nixos systemd[1]: Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.
warning: error(s) occurred while switching to the new configuration

So to further debug this issue i tried :

[user@nixos:/nix/store]$ journalctl _PID=1176
– Logs begin at Mon 2020-03-23 16:06:41 CET, end at Wed 2020-03-25 12:23:30 CET. –
– No entries –

but unfortunately there are no logs (is there a nixos options to activate more logging for this ? )

my hardware-configuration contains the following kernel modules:

{ config, lib, pkgs, … }:

{
imports =
[ <nixpkgs/nixos/modules/installer/scan/not-detected.nix>
];

boot.initrd.availableKernelModules = [ “nvme” “xhci_pci” “ahci” “usbhid” “usb_storage” “sd_mod” ];
boot.initrd.kernelModules = ;
boot.kernelModules = [ “kvm-amd” “wl” ];
boot.extraModulePackages = [ config.boot.kernelPackages.broadcom_sta ];
…

I am looking for guidance on how to debug/fix this issue.

Thx

P.s I am running on nixos 19.09

2

I have the same issue and I traced it to this: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=206795

Running journalctl -b gives me a kernel bug during the boot that seems to cause this timeout.

1 Like
3

@ndreas Thank you very much . I also have the kernel bug it’s printed during boot. And i also can see it with your provided command journalctl -b .

Originally i thought i have 2 issues (the kernel modules failing to load) and the traceback i saw during boot. But thx to you , i know now that it’s just one issue ( nice :slight_smile: ) .

Did you change your kernel version to get rid of this issue ?
I’m playing with the thought to change it back 4.19.106 as the bug creator wrote that it’s still working there. Just need to find out how to do this :smiley:

Anyways, thx for your help you saved me a lot of time troubleshooting.

4

I’m currently on 20.03 beta and had to downgrade to the 4.19 kernel due to some other problems so I’m going to try to go back to the 5.4 kernel. Otherwise I think I’ll wait out 4.19.110.

1 Like
5

/etc/nixos/configuration.nix for downgrading to 4.19.106 (requires a reboot afterwards)

boot.kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxPackagesFor (pkgs.linux_4_19.override {
  argsOverride = rec {
    src = pkgs.fetchurl {
          url = "mirror://kernel/linux/kernel/v4.x/linux-${version}.tar.xz";
          sha256 = "63c8bd76a9b282e18112f8ff9e3fd41e3d1df9f9b7248ea1a370b05a827e9cda";
    };
    version = "4.19.106";
    modDirVersion = "4.19.106";
    };
  });

taken from: Override kernel version - #5 by Alan01252

sudo nixos-rebuild switch && reboot

After that everything is fine :slight_smile:

6

Another possible solution would be setting boot.kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxPackages_latest; and using 5.4 on 19.09, that’s what I ended up doing.