NVIDIA Xid 119: GSP RPC Timeout Evidence and Recovery
Preserve Xid 119 GSP timeout, driver and preceding event evidence. Coordinate recovery and verify the workload before concluding hardware failure.
Xid 119 reports a GSP RPC timeout. It does not by itself prove a deadlocked channel, automatic reset or defective GPU. Preserve the full event and driver context; persistent or recurring faults need the NVIDIA and platform recovery/debug workflow.
- Root cause
- A GSP RPC response timed out. Driver, firmware and preceding device events distinguish the cause; the event alone does not establish failing silicon.
- Recommended fix
- Preserve the full Xid line, GPU identity, driver version and preceding kernel/workload events before recovery.
- How Denpex helps
- Denpex investigates NVIDIA Xid 119: GSP RPC Timeout Evidence and Recovery using the evidence you provide or your connected workload collects. Earlier rank, host or application evidence is needed to distinguish an initiating failure from a downstream report.
What this failure is
The driver timed out waiting for a GPU System Processor RPC response. Xid 120 is a related GSP error family, but the complete messages and preceding events still matter.
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Why it happens (the mechanism)
NVIDIA describes these events as GSP code errors or timeouts waiting for a response. Driver and platform evidence are needed before assigning a specific cause.
What you'll observe
- The workload can lose progress while the driver waits for a GSP response.
Common symptoms and what they mean
| Symptom | Why it happens |
|---|---|
| NVRM: Xid 119, Timeout waiting for RPC message from GSP-RM firmware | A GSP RPC response timed out. Driver, firmware and preceding device events distinguish the cause; the event alone does not establish failing silicon. |
Which systems are affected
- NVIDIA GPUs and driver releases using the GPU System Processor
How to confirm this is the problem
Use this checklist to test the hypothesis against a small reproduction. No single line proves the root cause, so preserve the preceding events and compare one variable at a time.
- ✓Correlate the full event with the workload and driver release.
- ✓After approved recovery, rerun the affected operation and check progress, expected results and recurrence.
Root cause
- A GSP RPC response timed out. Driver, firmware and preceding device events distinguish the cause; the event alone does not establish failing silicon.
The fix and how to prevent it
The fix and the prevention pattern
The root cause is on this page and stays free. A free account adds the exact remediation steps, saved history, and the fix on every entry in the encyclopedia.
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Why the recommended fix works
The appropriate recovery can restore service state, while repeated events provide evidence for further debugging. Neither proves the original cause was removed.
Best practices by model family
| Model / Stack | Recommendation | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Small CNN / MLP | Recommended | Stabilises early-gradient noise even for tiny models. |
| Transformer (ViT/BERT) | Required | Attention stacks amplify gradient instability without active mitigation. |
| LLM (Llama / Qwen / GPT) | Required | At scale, every failure compounds across distributed collectives. |
| Diffusion / Stable Diffusion | Recommended | U-Net + cross-attention paths benefit from the same hardening. |
With the fix vs without the fix
| Dimension | With the fix | Without the fix |
|---|---|---|
| Symptom window | Stable from the first step | Visible within tens to hundreds of steps |
| Final metrics | Reproducible optima | Plateau or divergence below the baseline |
| Operational risk | Bounded by the prevention checklist | Compounds across folds / reruns |
| Prod recommendation | Ship | Block until the fix is in place |
Diagnostic note
“No physical GSP recovery experiment is claimed for this reference entry.”
Xid 119 in context
Xid 119 is one of a small set of codes the NVIDIA driver uses to report GPU faults, and the number is most of the diagnosis: it tells you whether you are looking at your own code, the driver, or a board that needs replacing.
Compare every Xid code side by sideDiagnose this failure in VS Code
Select the traceback or open the failed terminal, then run Denpex locally to see the initiating rank, collateral failures, exact fix, and verification command without uploading the log.
Install the free VS Code extensionRelated failures to investigate next
Frequently asked questions
Questions engineers and on-call staff commonly ask about this failure.
Does Xid 119 prove defective hardware?
References
Don't just read the fix, diagnose your run
The encyclopedia tells you what went wrong. Denpex tells you what went wrong in YOUR training run. With your logs, your config, and your stack.