Error when starting anon-whonix: "Qube anon-whonix has failed to start: internal error: libxenlight failed to create new domain ‘anon-whonix’"

[qqubes]

Qubes OS release

4.1

Brief summary

This issue is possibly two similar but separate issues. It/they were reported in the Qubes forums:

I’ve seen the following two issues recur a number of times:

1. When I try to start anon-whonix a popup with the following error appears:

Qube anon-whonix has failed to start: internal error: libxenlight failed to create new domain ‘anon-whonix’

2. I can start anon-whonix, but it fails the connectivity test, i.e. the IP Check on the Whonix welcom page. Shutting down the qube and restarting it does not help.

The only way I know to fix either of these is to restart the computer.

Could it possibly be related to issue-1269902751?

Steps to reproduce

As described this only happens intermittently and is unpredictable.

Expected behavior

anon-whonix starts up properly.

Actual behavior

[andrewdavidwong]

Every issue must be about a single, actionable thing. Adjusting this issue to be only about the first problem described.

[andrewdavidwong]

FWIW, "internal error: libxenlight failed to create new domain" is a very common error message:

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues?q=%22internal+error%3A+libxenlight+failed+to+create+new+domain%22

[DemiMarie]

FWIW, "internal error: libxenlight failed to create new domain" is a very common error message:

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues?q=%22internal+error%3A+libxenlight+failed+to+create+new+domain%22

This error basically means, “something went wrong in libxl, look at libxl logs for details”. It should really be replaced with a better error message, ideally one that actually indicates what happened in libxl. Right now it is basically a useless catchall.

[qqubes]

This error basically means, “something went wrong in libxl, look at libxl logs for details”. It should really be replaced with a better error message, ideally one that actually indicates what happened in libxl. Right now it is basically a useless catchall.

I'm not sure where I can find the libxl logs so that I can check them next time this happens?

[rustybird]

[Edit: Removed link to a kernel bug that, on second look, only affected my experimental setup]

I'm not sure where I can find the libxl logs so that I can check them next time this happens?

/var/log/libvirt/libxl/libxl-driver.log

[qqubes]

Issue (2) just occurred after a suspend and resume, which others have reported in the forum.

I notice that the padlock is not even responsive. So I tried to stop sys-whonix, but it gives an error. journalctl says (I cannot copy & paste the whole output from dom0): internal error: Failed to shutdown domain '6' with libxenlight.

Nothing in libxl logs for this second case.

[adrelanos]

For issue tracking purposes:

• Affects Qubes-Whonix: Yes, as reported.
• Caused by Whonix-Whonix source code: Highly unlikely.
• This is primarily a Qubes dom0 issue.

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Feature request:

• Improve the error message, automatically collect any logs the user should append to this bug report to make it actionable by developers.

[DemiMarie]

Feature request:

• Improve the error message, automatically collect any logs the user should append to this bug report to make it actionable by developers.

Unfortunately the error message (which comes from libvirt) is absolutely terrible. Somewhere the actual error gets swallowed before qubesd gets it.

IMO this needs to be fixed so that the actual error is somewhat self-contained.