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DKMS says “Manual intervention is required!” when it has marked a module/version as broken because its source directory or the source symlink pointing to that directory is missing. In an EndeavourOS/NVIDIA example, the warning named a missing kernel directory, but the path DKMS needed to identify was under /var/lib/dkms—a different problem and location.
What DKMS means by “broken”
DKMS documents a module/version as broken when its source directory—or the symbolic link named source that points to it—is missing. Once a combination is in this state, DKMS takes no further action on it. See the DKMS manual.
This message identifies a missing part of DKMS’s source tree; it does not, by itself, explain why the directory or link disappeared. The correct next step depends on whether the source package is still needed and whether the directory or only its link is missing.
Why the two paths in the EndeavourOS example matter
After a kernel update on EndeavourOS, DKMS reported nvidia/565.57.01: broken. A separate find: warning named /usr/lib/modules/6.12.3-arch1-1/, a kernel-module directory. The missing source path relevant to DKMS’s broken-state check was /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/565.57.01/source.
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/usr/lib/modules/6.12.3-arch1-1/is the kernel directory named by thefind:warning./var/lib/dkms/nvidia/565.57.01/sourceis the DKMS source path the diagnostic needed to show.
These paths refer to different locations and different failures. The missing kernel directory warning does not establish that removing or recreating that directory will repair the missing DKMS source entry.
How to decide on a safe next step
If only the source symlink is missing
The DKMS manual says the add action may be used to re-add the module/version combination when the source link is missing. That guidance is narrow: it does not prescribe one universal repair command for every cause of a broken state. Check which module and version are affected, and confirm what source package supplies them before acting.
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If the source directory itself is missing
Establish whether that module/version is still needed. If it is, reinstall the package that provides its source. If it is a stale version that is no longer needed, its stale directory can be removed. Do not treat this as permission to delete all of /var/lib/dkms, use a blanket recursive deletion, or remove every broken entry.
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In an account by DKMS contributor hopsayer, the generic error appeared at four diagnostic call sites: module_is_broken_and_die, do_status, run_match, and autoinstall. The reported change made each print the specific source path being checked, so users could see which module/version path was missing instead of having to infer it from a separate warning.
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The author also reports a separate, guarded hint: remove the stale directory if that module version is no longer needed, or reinstall the package providing its source if it is. The hint was kept in a separate commit so maintainers could omit it without losing the path diagnostic. The account says ten test blocks were updated and EndeavourOS was added to the test script’s distribution case.
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The author reports that issue #606 led to PR #607 and that the PR was merged into main. The linked pull request could not be independently verified here, so this is an attributed report, not confirmation of current GitHub status or of the first DKMS release containing the change. The account describes the usability problem succinctly: “The problem is that the path never makes it into the error message.”
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For testing, the author reports a successful final run_test.sh run on EndeavourOS with kernel 7.2.7-zen1-1-zen, after addressing distro recognition, /lib/modules versus /usr/lib/modules expectations, use of the system DKMS binary, and pre-existing state under /var/lib/dkms. The same account says a Fedora 44 CI container job failed because an unrelated pahole version-mismatch warning caused an exact-output diff to fail in an earlier test. These are the author’s reported test outcomes, not independent test results.
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