Bug#1119137: linux-image-6.12.48+deb13-amd64: CPU stall when Debian Trixie runs as guest in VirtualBox environment
Control: tags -1 + moreinfo
On Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 01:53:19PM +0100, Jan Stolarek wrote:
> Package: src:linux
> Version: 6.12.48-1
> Severity: important
> X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-amd64@lists.debian.org, jan.stolarek@mailbox.org
> User: debian-amd64@lists.debian.org
> Usertags: amd64
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> When trying to run Debian Trixie as a guest OS in a VM, I ran into major issues
> that make Trixie unusable in a virtualized environment.
>
> I am using Debian Trixie as a host (same as guest) and VirtualBox 7.2 available
> in Trixie repositories. I created a new virtual machine, selected
> debian-13.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso as the installation media (obtained from debian
> servers, MD5: a9d5c5778f6e228af1e462d717a6d544), and performed a basic Trixie
> installation in text mode. I went with a single-partition installation with no
> desktop environment; during the Software selection step I only selected "SSH
> server" and "standard system utilities". After the installation I added a
> handful of tools such as aptitude, mc, emacs-nox, vim and htop. Essentially, it
> is a text-only environment that I want to be able to SSH into.
>
> However, the guest system is highly unstable. Usually, after a couple of
> minutes of uptime, it becomes unresponsive with kernel errors being reported on
> TTY1:
>
> [ 325.455294] rcu: INFO: rcu_preempt detected stalls on CPUs/tasks:
> [ 325.455336] rcu: 9-...!: (1 ticks this GP) idle=a678/0/0x0 softirq=1084/1085 fqs=0 (false positive?)
> [ 325.455356] rcu: 10-...!: (19 ticks this GP) idle=8460/0/0x0 softirq=821/823 fqs=0 (false positive?)
> [ 325.455382] rcu: 13-...!: (0 ticks this GP) idle=2fe0/0/0x0 softirq=687/687 fqs=0 (false positive?)
> [ 325.455399] rcu: 15-...!: (0 ticks this GP) idle=3bf0/0/0x0 softirq=1160/1160 fqs=0 (false positive?)
> [ 325.455416] rcu: (detected by 7, t=5260 jiffies, g=11081, q=2672 ncpus=16)
>
> Detailed call traces van be found in dmesg:
>
> [ 325.455437] Sending NMI from CPU 7 to CPUs 9:
> [ 325.455458] NMI backtrace for cpu 9
> [ 325.455462] CPU: 9 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/9 Not tainted 6.12.48+deb13-amd64 #1 Debian 6.12.48-1
> [ 325.455465] Hardware name: innotek GmbH VirtualBox/VirtualBox, BIOS VirtualBox 12/01/2006
> [ 325.455467] RIP: 0010:pv_native_safe_halt+0xf/0x20
> [ 325.455478] Code: 09 e9 50 bd 20 00 0f 1f 44 00 00 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 f3 0f 1e fa eb 07 0f 00 2d 05 29 31 00 fb f4 <e9> 27 bd 20 00 66 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 90 90 90 90 90 90
> [ 325.455479] RSP: 0018:ffffb5d6c010bed8 EFLAGS: 00000202
> [ 325.455482] RAX: 0000000000000009 RBX: ffff9c92409d0000 RCX: ffff9c924b148860
> [ 325.455484] RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000009 RDI: 00000000000da674
> [ 325.455485] RBP: 0000000000000009 R08: 0000000000000001 R09: 0000000000000001
> [ 325.455486] R10: 0000000000000009 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: 0000000000000000
> [ 325.455487] R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: 0000000000000000
> [ 325.455488] FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff9c99b4480000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
> [ 325.455490] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
> [ 325.455499] CR2: 00007f0c46000010 CR3: 0000000108326000 CR4: 00000000000506f0
> [ 325.455502] Call Trace:
> [ 325.455510] <TASK>
> [ 325.455511] default_idle+0x9/0x20
> [ 325.455521] default_idle_call+0x29/0x100
> [ 325.455523] do_idle+0x1fe/0x240
> [ 325.455538] cpu_startup_entry+0x29/0x30
> [ 325.455540] start_secondary+0x11e/0x140
> [ 325.455551] common_startup_64+0x13e/0x141
> [ 325.455557] </TASK>
>
> I will attach full dmesg log in a follow-up email.
>
> I attempted to resolve the problem by changing the default virtual machine
> settings, in particular:
>
> - enabling PAE/NX
> - enabling Nested VT-x/AMD-V
> - disabling Nested Paging
> - changing the graphics controller
> - installing VirtualBox Guest Addons inside the guest OS
>
> None of these changes had any effect.
>
> At this point, Debian Trixie seems unusable with VirtualBox. I will attempt to
> create a Trixie VM with QEmu and see whether that works. I also note, that on
> the same host machine I have a Debian Buster virtual machine running under
> VirtualBox without any issues. Lastly, I managed to report the bug from inside
> the VM, so information that follows is accurate w.r.t. the problematic guest
> system.
>
> Please let me know if any further details are required.
We suspect this is actually a virtualbox issue. Please thus test this
under Qemu. Does the issue reproduce there?
Regards,
Salvatore
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