Ubuntu 20.04 LTS NetworkManager.service fails to start

I began having issues with NetworkManager.service and not having any internet connection at all several months ago. I would get Ubuntu error popups for this service failing to start, but a computer restart would get it started properly again and it didn't happen too often. It then started happening more frequently and restarting stopped working each time resulting in several attempts to have it start properly. I found someone who said that the command sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager.service would get it started again, and for a while this did the trick (though I had to run it almost every time I restarted the computer).

Just today though, this command no longer worked, produced an error, and now I cannot connect to the internet whatsoever from Ubuntu even after several computer restarts and shutdowns:

~$ sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager.service
Job for NetworkManager.service failed because a fatal signal was delivered causing the control process to dump core.
See "systemctl status NetworkManager.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

Checking the systemctl status of it, I get this:

~$ systemctl status NetworkManager.service
● NetworkManager.service - Network Manager Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: failed (Result: core-dump) since Sun 2021-06-27 14:40:30 EDT; 2min 9s ago Docs: man:NetworkManager(8) Process: 3222 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon (code=dumped, signal=BUS) Main PID: 3222 (code=dumped, signal=BUS)
Jun 27 14:40:30 user systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Jun 27 14:40:30 user systemd[1]: Stopped Network Manager.
Jun 27 14:40:30 user systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Jun 27 14:40:30 user systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Failed with result 'core-dump'.
Jun 27 14:40:30 user systemd[1]: Failed to start Network Manager.

As for the journalctl -xe output, I have put all the log gave me at this pastebin link: There's a lot of errors similar to above saying that it failed with a core-dump, but here's just one of the blocks that might be relevant:

-- A start job for unit NetworkManager.service has begun execution.
--
-- The job identifier is 1897.
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x200000 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: irq_stat 0x40000008
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: cmd 60/08:a8:70:9a:41/00:00:5a:00:00/40 tag 21 ncq dma 4096 in res 41/40:00:74:9a:41/00:00:5a:00:00/00 Emask 0x409 (media error) <F>
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: status: { DRDY ERR }
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: error: { UNC }
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#21 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE cmd_age=0s
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#21 Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#21 Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error - auto reallocate failed
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#21 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 5a 41 9a 70 00 00 08 00
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 1514248820 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4: EH complete
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x4000000 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: irq_stat 0x40000008
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: cmd 60/08:d0:70:9a:41/00:00:5a:00:00/40 tag 26 ncq dma 4096 in res 41/40:00:74:9a:41/00:00:5a:00:00/00 Emask 0x409 (media error) <F>
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: status: { DRDY ERR }
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: error: { UNC }
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#26 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE cmd_age=0s
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#26 Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#26 Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error - auto reallocate failed
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#26 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 5a 41 9a 70 00 00 08 00
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: blk_update_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 1514248820 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4: EH complete
Jun 27 14:40:28 user systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Main process exited, code=dumped, status=7/BUS
-- Subject: Unit process exited
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support:
--
-- An ExecStart= process belonging to unit NetworkManager.service has exited.

I've seen similar posts like this that had replies saying to update the kernel version and other things, but I'm currently running the latest there is on the 20.04 LTS version, and I wouldn't think that I would have to deviate much from it.

I'm running Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS x86_64 with the kernel:

~$ uname -a
Linux user 5.8.0-59-generic #66~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 17 11:14:10 UTC 2021 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I also started experiencing frequent error popups for services that were never failing before today while I was collecting these logs. They were for the following services:

/usr/libexec/colord
/usr/libexec/tracker-extract
/usr/libexec/tracker-miner-fs
/usr/lib/packagekit/packagekitd

I don't know if they're related, but considering they started at the same time the restart command I was using stopped working, it seems likely there is a bigger issue. On top of these, restarting and shutting down the computer produces pages of errors scrolling too fast for me to read them during the shutdown sequence.

Any help towards debugging or finding a workaround would be appreciated.

Edits:

Here is the output of grep -i FPDMA /var/log/syslog*:

Here is the output of dmesg. There were a few I/O errors in this one. For the record, the installation drive is /dev/sdb:

The output of fsck on the install drive:

~$ sudo fsck -f /dev/sdb2
fsck from util-linux 2.34
e2fsck 1.45.5 (07-Jan-2020)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
/dev/sdb2: 635347/61022208 files (1.4% non-contiguous), 29081215/244059648 blocks

screenshot of SMART test

1 Answer

NCQ

You're having disk NCQ errors...

Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: failed command: READ FPDMA QUEUED
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: cmd 60/08:a8:70:9a:41/00:00:5a:00:00/40 tag 21 ncq dma 4096 in res 41/40:00:74:9a:41/00:00:5a:00:00/00 Emask 0x409 (media error) <F>
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: status: { DRDY ERR }
Jun 27 14:40:28 user kernel: ata4.00: error: { UNC }

Native Command Queuing (NCQ) is an extension of the Serial ATA protocol allowing hard disk drives to internally optimize the order in which received read and write commands are executed.

Edit sudo -H gedit /etc/default/grub and change the following line to include this extra parameter. Then do sudo update-grub to write the changes to disk. Reboot. Monitor hangs/etc., and watch grep -i FPDMA /var/log/syslog* or dmesg for continued error messages.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash libata.force=noncq"

fsck

• boot to a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB in “Try Ubuntu” mode
• open a terminal window by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T
• type sudo fdisk -l
• identify the /dev/sdXX device name for your "Linux Filesystem"
• type sudo fsck -f /dev/sdXX, replacing sdXX with the number you found earlier
• repeat the fsck command if there were errors
• type reboot

SSD

Regarding your SanDisk SSD PLUS 1TB, check for a firmware update. Go to the SanDisk web site and download their Dashboard software. Windows required.

See

Update #1:

Even though SMART says the SSD is ok, it's not. You have 6146 uncorrectable errors and 21388 uncorrectable ECC errors! Since you already changed the cable and updated the firmware, then the problem is either with the SATA port, or your SSD is bad.