WSL don't start, don't open and don't answer

[isaporto]

Environment

Windows build number: 20197.1000
WSL 2

Steps to reproduce

Open the Windows terminal

Expected behavior

Should open the Ubuntu terminal but didn't appear even the tab in the Windows terminal.

Actual behavior

The problem is that sometimes, when I open the Windows Terminal the WSL don't appear. Acctually appear once but don't show/load anything, then, when I open again the terminal, it's gone. If I try to run wsl or wsl -l -v or wsl --shutdown, nothing happens, just keep like it's loading the answer forever. If I try to open the Linux folder just keep loading forever. Sometimes I restart the computer and just works but sometimes don't. I tried reinstall all Linux but the error appear again.

[sirredbeard]

Did you install a WSL distro from the Store? Can you run it from the icon on the Start Menu?

I know this isn't a solution for WT but I am trying to determine if it is properly installed.

In PowerShell, what does the following report?

wsl.exe --list --all --verbose

Do you have any third-party security or endpoint management utilities installed on this device?

[isaporto]

I followed this setup https://github.com/lewagon/setup/blob/master/WINDOWS.md
I am able to open the Ubuntu icon from Start Menu and wsl too. When I open, an terminal show up all black and nothing happens. If I try to run any command like wsl.exe or wsl -l -v, etc, nothing happens either, just keeps like it's waiting for an answer

[survivant]

Since Windows [10.0.20201.1000] wsl doesn't work (neither Docker for Windows)

basicaly.. when we enter wsl : nothing happen.. it won't respond.

I try this (also.. lot of reboot)

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

wsl --set-default-version 2

wsl.exe --update

wsl --shutdown

wsl -l -v

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> wsl -l -v
NAME STATE VERSION

• Ubuntu-20.04 Stopped 2
  Ubuntu-18.04 Stopped 2
  docker-desktop-data Stopped 2
  Ubuntu Stopped 2

no problem so far... but if I try just to enter wsl... it will stalled

I try wsl -d Ubuntu ... same thing.

[AlexanderC]

Same issue. It worked until the last update arrived KB4571744

[MinnDevelopment]

Same issue. When I try to stop it with sc as an administrator I get this:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>sc query LxssManager

SERVICE_NAME: LxssManager
        TYPE               : 30  WIN32
        STATE              : 3  STOP_PENDING
                                (NOT_STOPPABLE, NOT_PAUSABLE, IGNORES_SHUTDOWN)
        WIN32_EXIT_CODE    : 0  (0x0)
        SERVICE_EXIT_CODE  : 0  (0x0)
        CHECKPOINT         : 0x2
        WAIT_HINT          : 0xea60

C:\WINDOWS\system32>sc stop LxssManager
[SC] ControlService FAILED 1061:

The service cannot accept control messages at this time.

Only way to fix this is a complete reboot.

[pmlange]

I had same issue. Turning off Hyper-V in Windows Features resolved the issue for me, but then I have trouble with Docker Desktop.

[licanhua]

when you hit the issue, can you check the disk usage? I do found that if there is very few free disk space available(eg. 1G), the lxss has slow response or no response.
Another factor is the memory, lxss has very slow response if memory is 1G.
It requires 2G or more for Windows 10. If you run windows 10 in virtual machine, please make sure you allocated 2+G memory.

[survivant]

@licanhua I don't have a issue with free disk space (over 350gigs), no trouble with ram 32gigs. The problem appear only with the build [10.0.20201.1000] (no problem before that update)

[MinnDevelopment]

My C:\ drive has 20GB free and the M:\ drive where I have my Ubuntu distro installed has 80GB free. I have 16GB RAM. And the issue only started recently, 1 or 2 weeks ago.

[licanhua]

How about the %temp% folder? did you see a .vhdx which is created when you start Ubuntu and the size is always 0? For example:
C:\Users\yourlogon\AppData\Local\temp\{161c4a83-cd9d-4e29-92e2-84391fefb692}.vhdx
{161c4a83-cd9d-4e29-92e2-84391fefb692} is a random uuid

[benhillis]

That should be plenty of space. @licanhua I suspect this is not the same issue you have been looking at.

[benhillis]

If it is, disabling swap and trying to launch would confirm:

.wslconfig
[wsl2]
swap=0

[isaporto]

I already ran the @survivant commands and my Hyper-V it's already off. My C: have a lot space yet too
My WSL it's updated and I already set WSL 2. My disk doesn't seem to be used all over but my Windows terminal not even load the Ubuntu option, just print same as @pizzafox

Could not find your default profile in your list of profiles - using the first profile.
Check to make sure the "defaultProfile" matches the GUID of one of your profiles.

[licanhua]

There are two suspicious:

1. missing kernel. please run wsl --update --status to see if there is any error.
2. the swap file. you can create .wslconfig in %userprofile% to verify it. A reboot is required to apply it if your machine is already in weird state.

.wslconfig
[wsl2]
swap=0

[isaporto]

When I run wsl --update --status there's no error. It's already updated. Kernel version is 4.19.128
I created this .wslconfig file and seems that didn't change anything

[licanhua]

@isaporto A reboot may required to apply .wslconfig if your machine is already in weird state.

Could you please help to provide logs by Feedback Hub and share the feedback link after you submitted it? I tried and I never be able to reproduce the problem locally.

[isaporto]

After I created the .wslconfig file I reboot the computer. Still not working!
https://aka.ms/AA9j1mx <- I tried to reproduce the error, but basically the windows terminal don't load the ubuntu. any command like wsl --shutdown or wsl -l -v don't work but don't print any message error too, just keeps loading forever. I will try to update my windows to Windows [10.0.20201.1000] but seems that another persons get the same error with this version too

[survivant]

Yes same problems, and I found few posts that others persons have the same issues.

[licanhua]

@isaporto, Thanks for the log, but there is no log is attached. Have you 'Click Start Recording' to start collecting logs, then repro the problem, then Stop Recording?

[isaporto]

Yes! I wasn't able to see the record, only the images. Maybe I can try once more @licanhua

[survivant]

I'll try after work

[AlexanderC]

Disabling and then re-enabling HyperV feature followed by a restart worked for me to revive My WSL2

[survivant]

I try to record the screen, but I don't have a stop recording. I added a screenshot. I rebooted again.. still not working

[survivant]

oh ! I got a Green screen of death again.. after that I did a hard reboot (press poweroff for few seconds)

Windows rebooted and I got a welcome screen and enter few settings like (my default browser, finger...) rebooted again.. and now wsl + docker works.

but I previously I added

.wslconfig
[wsl2]
swap=0

and rebooted, but wsl didn't work at that time

[isaporto]

I decided to reinstall the ubuntu once more and it's stuck in the Installing, this may take a few minutes... for an hour already. Almost giving up from Ubuntu

[licanhua]

@isaporto It's hard to identify what's the problem. I guess:

1. lxss is 'dead'. You can think lxss as a single thread, if it's busy, other one can't get the locker and have to wait. You can wsl -l -v, if it hangs, lxss has some problem and you have to fix it first.
2. You are running out of disk.
3. Your disk is busy. You can verify it from task manager.
4. running out of memory or cpu is busy. less likely you are on this.
5. Ubuntu problem. You may try Debian.

[afromankenobi]

@isaporto It's hard to identify what's the problem. I guess:

1. lxss is 'dead'. You can think lxss as a single thread, if it's busy, other one can't get the locker and have to wait. You can `wsl -l -v`, if it hangs, lxss has some problem and you have to fix it first.

In my case i have only the first symptom, everything keeps frozen and each time that i want to poweroff my Surface it hangs in a BSoD. How do we suppose to fix Lxss? Reinstalling? Moreover, how do i diagnose Lxss?

Sorry if my questions are too basic.

[duaneking]

I'm getting this as well, but I have everything enabled. WSL2 just doesn't work.

[z4mir]

WSL hangs forever for me, anyone facing the same issue? used to be fine yesterday

[paddy-r]

WSL hangs forever for me, anyone facing the same issue? used to be fine yesterday

The only thing that ever worked with me was getting my machine completely reimaged. And then using a different machine entirely!

[ifkas]

Had a similar issue where one day I could open my Ubuntu terminal and the next day it stopped working. Would not be able to access my files and opening Ubuntu gives me a blank terminal with nothing on it (no words etc).

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Ubuntu and it did not work. Tried restarting my computer, nothing happened.

What worked was this:

1. Go to 'Programs and Features'

2. Click 'Turn Windows features on or off'

3. Check if 'Windows Hypervisor Platform' is enabled (I also enabled 'Virtual Machine Platform')

Afterwards it worked again, hope this manages to help someone!

This worked for me, enabled Windows Hypervisor Platform and restarted, all good afterwards, back on track!

[MMeram]

Had a similar issue where one day I could open my Ubuntu terminal and the next day it stopped working. Would not be able to access my files and opening Ubuntu gives me a blank terminal with nothing on it (no words etc).
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Ubuntu and it did not work. Tried restarting my computer, nothing happened.
What worked was this:

1. Go to 'Programs and Features'

2. Click 'Turn Windows features on or off'

3. Check if 'Windows Hypervisor Platform' is enabled (I also enabled 'Virtual Machine Platform')

Afterwards it worked again, hope this manages to help someone!

This worked for me, enabled Windows Hypervisor Platform and restarted, all good afterwards, back on track!

I have Windows 11 and this solution worked for me.

[devhindo]

Disabling and then re-enabling HyperV feature followed by a restart worked for me to revive My WSL2

this worked for me

[Antoineloiseau1]

I recently had this issue and I just uninstalled Docker Desktop on Windows and wsl stopped to hang forever

[CosmicHazel]

Hey folks - so it looks like there was a recent regression given the uptick in comments. Here's the fix that worked for me. None of the fixes in this thread worked.

#9075 (comment)

[TonnyWildeman]

Had a similar issue where one day I could open my Ubuntu terminal and the next day it stopped working. Would not be able to access my files and opening Ubuntu gives me a blank terminal with nothing on it (no words etc).

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Ubuntu and it did not work. Tried restarting my computer, nothing happened.

What worked was this:

1. Go to 'Programs and Features'
2. Click 'Turn Windows features on or off'
3. Check if 'Windows Hypervisor Platform' is enabled (I also enabled 'Virtual Machine Platform')

Afterwards it worked again, hope this manages to help someone!

This worked for me W10 22H2 19045.4412. Also rebooted. I noticed that the vmmem also went to 100% cpu usage on my 16 core machine on all cores. Was nice.

Things to do with the LxssManager did not work.

[dhruvmsheth]

finally fixed it. nothing in the comments above helped me. I navigated to the .wslconfig files placed in /Users/<username>/ and opened .wslconfig file with a text editor and removed a line which redirected the kernel to a non-existent directory. Make sure the config file only says [wsl2]

[fallwsxrfv]

My wsl2 broke after installed nvidia workbench and cannot access files there.
followed velletti solution above and back to work
thanks

[buryo]

For me the solution was to enable Control Flow Guard (CFG). I needed to disable this in Windows Security settings to run some games, never couldn't guess that this will make Docker and WSL stop working

[Leon0824]

For me the solution was to enable Control Flow Guard (CFG). I needed to disable this in Windows Security settings to run some games, never couldn't guess that this will make Docker and WSL stop working

You save my life.

[joaomarcelogomes]

I don't understand why, but I managed to fix this by running the following in Powershell in administrative mode.

netsh int ip reset all
netsh winsock reset

I don't even have to restart; WSL starts working the second I run these commands.

This worked for me too. Thank you.

[Laviniu-Raul-Gavris]

I just ended the WSL tasks from Task Manager and re-opened it. This worked for me.

[chuanqisun]

I had the same issue. My observation is that when I login as soon as the welcome screen appears, this issue is more likely to happen. The issue doesn't occur as often when I wait a few seconds before logging into Windows. Maybe some race condition?

Another issue that often happens at the same time is edge browser and anything that requires webview does not load. Opening edge browser has no effect. No error. The process shows up in the task manager but there is no UI.

Both issues can be fixed by rebooting

[lsambolino]

I had same issue. Turning off Hyper-V in Windows Features resolved the issue for me, but then I have trouble with Docker Desktop.

This solved for me on Windows 11. Thank you.

[rngadam]

1. Go to 'Programs and Features'
2. Click 'Turn Windows features on or off'
3. Check if 'Windows Hypervisor Platform' is enabled (I also enabled 'Virtual Machine Platform')

Also seems to have fixed my problem when WSL and Rancher stopped working abruptly (in the middle of a remote container work session with VSC) on Microsoft Windows 11 Entreprise Version 10.0.22631.

Digging into the Event Viewer, the only thing I noticed is that there seemed to be a hardware error in "PCI Express Legacy Endpoint" at about the same time it failed, but I don't see how that disabled the hypervisor: https://gist.github.com/rngadam/2a43df052ed1221c51ccf74e61aacee2

wsl -v
Version WSL : 2.2.4.0
Version du noyau : 5.15.153.1-2
Version WSLg : 1.0.61
Version MSRDC : 1.2.5326
Version direct3D : 1.611.1-81528511
Version de DXCore : 10.0.26091.1-240325-1447.ge-release
Version de Windows : 10.0.22631.4037

[TonnyWildeman]

GA104GLM [RTX A3000 12GB Laptop GPU]

I have a different graphic card on desktop that also crashed around the same time, that time. Didn't correlate that until this message.
FYI: I updated the driver for my graphics card and I don't have any more (display) crashes, and also no more WSL weird things.
Might be correlated, might be nothing

[ThePlenkov]

Never had issues, but now started happening to me too. However it happens only after PC sleep and recovers after OS restart, which is very annoying..

 wsl -v
WSL version: 2.2.4.0
Kernel version: 5.15.153.1-2
WSLg version: 1.0.61
MSRDC version: 1.2.5326
Direct3D version: 1.611.1-81528511
DXCore version: 10.0.26091.1-240325-1447.ge-release
Windows version: 10.0.22631.4037

[hanzlahabib]

my hyperservice was disabled

[ThePlenkov]

i managed to solve the issue. In my case it was related to docker resource saver + autoMemoryReclaim: gradual. Reported in #11066

[uzchss22]

I had the same problem.

"If I try to run wsl or wsl -l -v or wsl --shutdown, nothing happens, just keep like it's loading the answer forever."

As a last resort, you can force exit and rerun.

https://github.com/uzchss22/TerminateWSLService.git

1. Download zip file
2. Decompression
3. Run the .bat file (if you are security sensitive, you can check the source code of GitHub.)

[sineme]

I disabled the windows features, restarted, enabled them again, restarted, and it worked again.

[lookas1]

I don't understand why, but I managed to fix this by running the following in Powershell in administrative mode.
netsh int ip reset all
netsh winsock reset

This one worked for me as well though not sure how this is related to wsl.

[nurlybekovnt]

Nothing helps:

WSL version: 2.3.26.0
Kernel version: 5.15.167.4-1
WSLg version: 1.0.65
MSRDC version: 1.2.5620
Direct3D version: 1.611.1-81528511
DXCore version: 10.0.26100.1-240331-1435.ge-release
Windows version: 10.0.22631.4460

[toxicbuzzer]

I don't understand why, but I managed to fix this by running the following in Powershell in administrative mode.
netsh int ip reset all
netsh winsock reset

This one worked for me as well though not sure how this is related to wsl.

This worked for me too (reboot required), cheers

[HonestDeng]

I had same issue. Turning off Hyper-V in Windows Features resolved the issue for me, but then I have trouble with Docker Desktop.

It works for me.

[dionisvl]

up