vhdx files becoming corrupted since 2.0.4.0 pre-release install

[jtabox]

Windows Version

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.22621.2361]

WSL Version

2.0.4.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

5.15.123.1-1

Distro Version

Ubuntu 22.04

Other Software

No response

Repro Steps

I can't really reproduce this, I was mostly wondering if anyone else has had their virtual hd's gradually becoming corrupted with the pre-release version of WSL2.
I installed v2.0.4.0 two days ago, had an Ubuntu 22.04 (the standard distro from the store) already installed. After some time I suddenly started getting filesystem read-only errors. I've had this distro installed (same vhdx file) for almost a year now, never had similar issue (or any other for that matter). Only things that had changed now is the pre-release version and 2 settings activated in .wslconf, autoMemoryReclaim=gradual and sparseVhd=true (I also ran --manage --set-sparse true for my already existing image).
Google said it's probably a corrupted disk image, e2fsck found errors and supposedly repaired them, but the read-only errors persisted. I loaded a copy of the vhdx file that I had from before the pre-release install, soon enough it also started throwing read-only errors. Debug console showed the root filesystem was being mounted with errors, I would correct them with e2fsck but they persisted.
I ended up nuking both files, and did a fresh distro install. Went fine but at some point it started throwing corruption errors too, this time dpkg wouldn't run because of corrupted files.
I've now spent the last two days uninstalling and reinstalling WSL and testing out distros, but have been having the same issue. I wonder if it could be the sparseVhd option. Has anyone else had any similar issues? I've deactivated the option for now and watching if I get a corrupted file again, if I do I'll probably revert to the previous release version.

Expected Behavior

Mainly I'd expect my vhdx files not becoming corrupted 😅

Actual Behavior

They became corrupted.

Diagnostic Logs

No response

[benhillis]

Jay Bee (@jtabox) - is it possible your distro vhd is full?

[OneBlue]

/logs

[jtabox]

Jay Bee (@jtabox) - is it possible your distro vhd is full?

No, I don't think so. As I said, this happened with fresh installs of the Ubuntu 22.04 directly from the Store, so I hadn't installed many things. Maybe a miniconda installation at most, the vhdx files were never above 2 Gb.

In regard to logs, I have actually not had a similar issue ever since I deactivated sparseVhd in the configuration file. I installed a lot of things by now, the image is at 30 Gb at the moment and it seems to be working fine. So, I don't know how much use any logs would have now.
I'm not sure if my corruption issues were directly related to sparseVhd option, or indirectly, in some obscure way. But the fact is I haven't had any corruption the last day or so, while previously with sparseVhd enabled, the image would become corrupted within an hour or two.
I'll try to make a backup of my working installation and re-enable sparseVhd and see if the issues come back.

[OneBlue]

Thank you Jay Bee (@jtabox). Can you try to reproduce the issue under log collection ? We'd need to to see logs from when the disk becomes normal to corrupt to root cause the issue.

/logs

[ASleepyCat]

I've also had this issue when enabling sparseVhd and --set-sparse on Ubuntu. It's also affecting files outside the VM for me:

• Games that are on my C:/ drive were getting corrupted (random crashes, softlocks). Reinstalling them fixed the issues
• Steam forgot that most of my games were installed on my D:/ drive
• I was getting notifications to restart my computer to fix disk corruption

These issues started from the very first 2.0.0 pre-release version.

Edit: My drive got corrupted again, although this time I had disabled sparseVhd on my distro. I guess my C:/ drive corruption issues are unrelated?

[NGRhodes]

This is a clean Win11 install today, fully updated and running 2.0.4 with sparseVhd in my .wslconfig and --set-sparse against Ubuntu

I run touch test sucessfully, activate a conda env and try running pycharm from Windows (remote connection to WSL2). Try touch test2 and get a readonly error. All happens within a few minutes.
Here are my logs for the above.

WslLogs-2023-10-11_22-06-43.zip

This is chkdsk straight after:

The type of the file system is NTFS.

WARNING!  /F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
Attribute list for file 6196 is corrupt.
Attribute list for file 6197 is corrupt.
  270592 file records processed.
File verification completed.
 Phase duration (File record verification): 5.54 seconds.
File record segment 1783E is an orphan.
File record segment 1783F is an orphan.
File record segment 2FBD0 is an orphan.
File record segment 2FBD1 is an orphan.
  8188 large file records processed.
 Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 10.84 milliseconds.

Errors found.  CHKDSK cannot continue in read-only mode.```

[jtabox]

Nick Rhodes (@NGRhodes) So you're getting similar errors I assume? With sparseVhd active? At least I'm not the only one, I haven't seen any similar feedback so I was worried it's something specific to my PC. Do you use antivirus software? Besides Microsoft's Defender. I've installed Avast Free Antivirus recently, and it's been a bit too eager to block and meddle in stuff in general, so I was wondering if it's related in some way.

ASleepyCat Luckily I haven't had any issues with anything else outside the vhdx file getting corrupted. Gotta admit it sounds a bit far-fetched, I'd assume ´sparseVhd´ only affects the vhdx files, though I might be totally wrong here.

[NGRhodes]

wsl --manage Ubuntu --set-sparse false and I can still reproduce the error.

Jay Bee (@jtabox) - I have tried with Kaspersky and Windows Defender and the drive goes readonly in both cases.