Bug 1207777

Created attachment 864622 [details]
Output of journalctl which shows the bug at  11:56:33 local time

I am writing to report a serious bug in Tumbleweed after today's automatic upgrade (which makes it essentially unusable):
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Hardware: HP Omen Notebook, model b0509la, CPU i5-11400 with graphics card Geforce RTX 3060.
More details: https://www.hp.com/cl-es/shop/notebook-omen-16-b0509la-4p618la.html
lspci | grep NVIDIA
NVIDIA Corporation GA106M [Geforce RTX 3060 Mobile Max-Q (rev a1)]
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Operation system: Tumbleweed in default configuration, installed half a year ago and updated regularly (weekly) via zypper update.
No customization or optimizations (this machine was used exclusively for mundane tasks like browsing and communication via Skype/Zoom)
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Situation before today's update:
Used kernel: 6.1.17
Video driver: nouveau
Sytem worked smoothly "out of the box" without major issues.
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Situation after today's update:
Installed kernel: 6.1.18-1-default
Installed video driver: NVIDIA 525.85.05 (I did NOT plan to change the driver on this machine!)

After making reboot, as recommended by zypper, the kernel module crashes with message 
"BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference" (see full output of journalctl below, the bug occurs at Jan 30 11:56:33 local time).
After the crash, KDE Plasma does not start at all, but have access only to CLI in recovery mode.

Tried to make rollbacks via snapper, does not help: system boots using NVIDIA driver and crashes, even when I use very old snapshots.

At the same time, when I boot from "read-only" snapshots in GRUB menu, the system boots up and works smoothly with nvidia driver (however, in this case I cannot install any new packages, only can access personal files)


Apparent reason: buggy NVIDIA driver supplied in today's update

Workaround (hope it will help other users) deinstallation of provided NVIDIA driver and fresh installation of original driver, as described here:
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_the_hard_way#Kernel_updates_and_driver_compatibility