x stops working shortly after restart on WSL2/Win10

[ajkessel]

Windows Version

10.0.19045.5011

WSL Version

2.3.26.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

5.15.167.4-1

Distro Version

Ubuntu 24.10 (Oracular Oriole)

Other Software

No response

Repro Steps

For the past year or two, I've been using X/wslg with no problem. Starting recently, however, I observe different behavior. I'm not sure if this is from a WSL update or perhaps an Ubuntu update--I haven't changed anything else on my system that I'm aware of.

When I launch WSL2, I'm able to open X apps from the command-line without a problem. After a few minutes, though, I get Error: Can't open display: :0. Restarting WSL fixes the issue for a short while and then it reverts again.

Where can I look to narrow down the issue?

Some older postings suggest looking at firewall rules but disabling Windows Defender on the vEthernet NICs does not help, and I don't see any inbound rules for VcXsrv (nor any active VcXsrv pids).

Expected Behavior

X app should open

Actual Behavior

X app does not open

Diagnostic Logs

No response

[github-actions]

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View similar issues

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Closed similar issues:

• wslg worked before, now doesn't seem to work. (#11864), similarity score: 0.77
• X apps running in WSL randomly stop displaying on X Server in Windows host (#5339), similarity score: 0.77
• WSL 2 Error: Can't open display: localhost:0.0 (#6430), similarity score: 0.75
• WSL2 can't open display (#6181), similarity score: 0.73
• WSL2 cannot connect X server (VcXSrv) to bash console like I've always done in wsl1 (#7573), similarity score: 0.73

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[ajkessel]

Requested logs attached.

WslLogs-2024-11-12_14-34-59.zip

[github-actions]

Diagnostic information

Detected appx version: 2.3.26.0

[ajkessel]

I think this may be a variation on #9689 which has been closed. The workaround identified in that issue works for me:

declare -i MyUID=$(id -u)
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR:-/run/user/$MyUID}
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR

while findmnt --shadow -n -o SOURCE "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" >/dev/null; do
        echo "Unmounting '$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR'" >&2
        sudo umount "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR"
done

[ajkessel]

Actually, I misspoke. The fix above was not reliably working and may have just been a coincidence. It turns out the problem is /tmp/.X11-unix is getting overwritten (or mounted) by some process such that it is no longer a symlink to /mnt/wslg/.X11-unix. If I delete /tmp/.X11-unix and relink to the wslg folder, X apps work again. Any ideas how to identify what is causing the overwrite/mount?

[ajkessel]

I think this is probably wslg issue #1122. I'll leave it open for now for someone with better expertise to confirm if this is a dupe.