Kernel Bug when using Valve Index and Steam VR

[syss]

Recently I got my Valve Index and wanted to try it out with Steam VR.
I can see a picture for some seconds, but it freezes shortly after.
Checking the logs it seems that there is a kernelbug:

Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: ------------[ cut here ]------------
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: kernel BUG at mm/slub.c:304!
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP PTI
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: CPU: 10 PID: 1363 Comm: Xorg Tainted: P        W IOE     5.8.6-1-MANJARO #1
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: Hardware name: System manufacturer System Product Name/P6T SE, BIOS 0908    09/21>
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: RIP: 0010:__slab_free+0x264/0x470
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: Code: 9d 66 66 90 66 90 4d 85 ff 0f 85 dd 00 00 00 80 7c 24 6b 00 79 05 45 84 c9 >
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: RSP: 0018:ffffbe4602593c10 EFLAGS: 00010246
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: RAX: ffff9e7c29e22e80 RBX: 0000000080200018 RCX: ffff9e7c29e22e00
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: RDX: ffff9e7c29e22e00 RSI: fffff8a8d7a78880 RDI: ffff9e7c64406f40
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: RBP: ffffbe4602593cb8 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: ffffffffc1a153f2
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: R10: ffff9e7c29e22e00 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: fffff8a8d7a78880
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: R13: ffff9e7c29e22e00 R14: ffff9e7c64406f40 R15: ffff9e7b6ee17208
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: FS:  00007f50cb634540(0000) GS:ffff9e7c67c80000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: CR2: 00007f2531e65ff8 CR3: 000000060c964006 CR4: 00000000000206e0
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: Call Trace:
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? unix_stream_sendmsg+0x4c7/0x500
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? _nv000460kms+0x22/0x150 [nvidia_modeset]
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  kfree+0x238/0x250
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  _nv000460kms+0x22/0x150 [nvidia_modeset]
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? _nv000450kms+0xba/0x110 [nvidia_modeset]
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? sock_write_iter+0x97/0x100
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? _nv002494kms+0x1b/0x70 [nvidia_modeset]
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? _nv000454kms+0x67/0x70 [nvidia_modeset]
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? _nv002498kms+0xc8/0x320 [nvidia_modeset]
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? __kmalloc+0x19b/0x260
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? nvkms_alloc+0x20/0x50 [nvidia_modeset]
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? __check_object_size+0x136/0x147
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? _copy_from_user+0x2e/0x60
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? _nv000311kms+0x40/0x40 [nvidia_modeset]
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? nvKmsIoctl+0x96/0x1d0 [nvidia_modeset]
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x26/0x50
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? nvkms_ioctl+0x103/0x180 [nvidia_modeset]
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? nvidia_frontend_unlocked_ioctl+0x37/0x50 [nvidia]
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? ksys_ioctl+0x82/0xc0
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? __x64_sys_ioctl+0x16/0x20
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? do_syscall_64+0x44/0x70
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  ? entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x44/0xa9
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: Modules linked in: rfcomm ecb ecryptfs tun nft_reject_inet nf_reject_ipv4 nf_reje>
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel:  mac_hid acpi_cpufreq uinput nvidia_drm(POE) nvidia_modeset(POE) drm_kms_helper c>
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: ---[ end trace ff32c85df0dd6d1b ]---
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: RIP: 0010:__slab_free+0x264/0x470
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: Code: 9d 66 66 90 66 90 4d 85 ff 0f 85 dd 00 00 00 80 7c 24 6b 00 79 05 45 84 c9 >
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: RSP: 0018:ffffbe4602593c10 EFLAGS: 00010246
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: RAX: ffff9e7c29e22e80 RBX: 0000000080200018 RCX: ffff9e7c29e22e00
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: RDX: ffff9e7c29e22e00 RSI: fffff8a8d7a78880 RDI: ffff9e7c64406f40
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: RBP: ffffbe4602593cb8 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: ffffffffc1a153f2
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: R10: ffff9e7c29e22e00 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: fffff8a8d7a78880
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: R13: ffff9e7c29e22e00 R14: ffff9e7c64406f40 R15: ffff9e7b6ee17208
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: FS:  00007f50cb634540(0000) GS:ffff9e7c67c80000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
Sep 21 19:10:59 workingclass kernel: CR2: 00007f2531e65ff8 CR3: 000000060c964006 CR4: 00000000000206e0

This results in the X server to crash and a lot of messages afterwards which have problems with the X server.

syss@workingclass:~$ inxi -G
Graphics: Device-1: NVIDIA GM204 [GeForce GTX 970] driver: nvidia v: 440.100
Display: x11 server: X.org 1.20.8 driver: nvidia resolution:
OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 970/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 440.100

What can I do in such case except to report that bug to Nvidia?

[Fabby]

Welcome to Manjaro!

@syss

What can I do in such case except to report that bug to Nvidia?

I hate to tell you this because the 450 series drivers has more bugs than the 440 series so you could try out the 435 series of the driver first and if that doesn’t solve the problem, take a full system backup and try out the 450 series.

P.S. As you did not provide an inxi --admin --verbosity=7 --filter --no-host I can’t tell you whether to try another kernel and see if that one does not cause that particular nVidia bug…

[syss]

Thank you for your reply!
It seems to be that it had nothing to do with the nvidia drivers.

I tried nvidia 435, 440 and 450 on kernel 5.8 with no success.

Now i am using the LTS kernel 5.4.64-1-MANJARO and it worked right away.

thank you for your useful input, which led me to try out other kernels!