Libxenlight failed to create new domain after update to 6.12.5-2.fc37 kernel

I just ran Qubes Update, checking the boxes for all qubes (dom0, debian-12-xfce, whonix, etc.) dom0 was the first to update and i noticed that it showed it was downloading a kernel. I did not pay attention to exactly what it was downloading, and when the system tried to update Debian 12, it showed an error saying "Start failed: internal error: libxenlight failed to create new domain ‘debain-12-xfce’ " (all of the subsequent qubes failed to start as well). When I looked at the logfile libxl-driver.log I saw this: “xc: panic: xg_dom_core.c: xc_dom_find_loader: no loader found” Invalid kernel ". There were other similar messages, this was just the last one.

Under Settings > Advanced > Kernel I show the following:

6.648-1.fc37
6.6.68-1.fc37
6.10.10-1.fc37
6.12.5-2.fc37
default (6.12.5-2.fc37) (current)

When I changed the kernel to 6.10.10-1.fc37 it starts normally with no error messages. I have this issue with every qube and changing to the 6.10 kernel fixes the problem. I ran the Qubes Update tool again and everything updated normally. It seems there is an issue with the 6.12 kernel, at least on my system. Does anyone have an idea of what is happening and how to fix it? Or should I just remove the 6.12 kernel? Thanks in advance.

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This is strange, it seems to be very similar to this:

The fix is already in the stable repository, so you should have it if everything in dom0 has been updated.
Since the patch is in version 4.17.5-5, can you open a dom0 terminal and make sure you have it by running rpm -qa | grep xen-4.17

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Thanks for the reply. This is what it returned:

python3-xen-4.17.5-5.fc37x86_64
xen-4.17.5-5.fc37.x86_64

One other thing to mention is that in Qubes Updater, when I check for dom0 it shows:

Unable to detect release version (use ‘–releasever’ to specify release version)

Not sure if that is an issue.

I just reran the updater on dom0 and it shows no updates available.

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You have the correct version. Have you rebooted your system recently?

This is a known issue, but it’s not related to yours:

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I had not, so I rebooted, now nothing happens, just a blank screen. It seems as if nothing is loading. Any ideas?

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When you say you have a blank screen, do you mean that nothing at all has appeared on the screen since the reboot?

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Yes, no matter how long I let it sit, nothing appears .

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I meant, did you get a menu like grub before you got the blank screen, or did the computer start up and show nothing from the beginning?

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grub never comes up, not even the bios. I can swap the drive with one with a different os and everything starts up normally.

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There isn’t much information to know for sure what’s going on.
Do you have Qubes on a USB flash drive so you can use rescue mode?
If you are using UEFI, you can try recreating the boot entry with that to see if it changes anything:

efibootmgr -v -c -u -L Qubes -l /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi -d /dev/sda -p 1

Note: Be sure to specify the correct disk and partition, lsblk should tell you what to use.

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Here is what I tried:

  1. I was able to use a thumb drive with the regular drive attached to boot qubes and it loaded like usual, I did not see the usual grub option to install, test or rescue qubes. I got the normal (post install) grub options. Everything loaded normally and I was even able to load a qube using the 6.12 kernel with no issues.

  2. I shut down the system, removed the thumb drive with the regular drive still attached and tried starting. I got the same result as before, with nothing loading.

  3. I put the thumb drive back in, disconnected the regular drive and started. I saw the expected grub install and rescue options. I reconnected the regular drive and selected the rescue option. I selected option 1, I believe, and after I entered the password, it said there was no linux partition found (I may have the wording wrong on that). I dropped into a shell and tried the command you posted above to try recreating the boot entry. When that finished I shut down, removed the thumb drive and restarted. It seemed to hesitate momentarily but then it started loading like normal.

Everything seems to be working properly now so I am not sure what happened or why the system would load normally with the thumb drive in. If you have any ideas I would be interested to hear. Thanks for your help!

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