WSL Failed to Start

[Ping-Hung]

Windows Version

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.26200.7623]

WSL Version

2.6.3.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

6.6.87.2-1

Distro Version

No response

Other Software

No response

Repro Steps

1. Launch Terminal (I have powershell as default)
2. invoke wsl by typing wsl
3. waiting for wsl to start

Expected Behavior

Expecting to see Ubuntu (my installed kernel distro) to launch, but stuck waiting.

Actual Behavior

Logs:
WslLogs-2026-02-05_21-23-17.zip

Diagnostic Logs

WslLogs-2026-02-05_21-23-17.zip

[github-actions]

The log file doesn't contain any WSL traces. Please make sure that you reproduced the issue while the log collection was running.

Diagnostic information

Detected appx version: 2.6.3.0
Found no WSL traces in the logs

[Ping-Hung]

try this log

WslLogs-2026-02-05_21-40-25.zip

[github-actions]

The log file doesn't contain any WSL traces. Please make sure that you reproduced the issue while the log collection was running.

Diagnostic information

Detected appx version: 2.6.3.0
Found no WSL traces in the logs

[Ping-Hung]

WslLogs-2026-02-05_21-49-33.zip

[github-actions]

The log file doesn't contain any WSL traces. Please make sure that you reproduced the issue while the log collection was running.

Diagnostic information

Detected appx version: 2.6.3.0
Found no WSL traces in the logs

[Ping-Hung]

Let me restate my problem: "WSL doesn't start when I typed wsl in powershell"
command I run

    .\collect-wsl-logs.ps1 ; wsl

WslLogs-2026-02-05_21-54-15.zip

[github-actions]

The log file doesn't contain any WSL traces. Please make sure that you reproduced the issue while the log collection was running.

Diagnostic information

Detected appx version: 2.6.3.0
Found no WSL traces in the logs

[zachbugay]

I am also getting the same error. I just updated to the latest WSL and I am getting failures.

[    0.444331] VFS: Cannot open root device "" or unknown-block(0,0): error -6
[    0.446902] Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
[    0.447301] List of all bdev filesystems:
[    0.447566]  ext3
[    0.447569]  ext4
[    0.447655]  ext2
[    0.447735]  squashfs
[    0.447820]  fuseblk
[    0.447888]  xfs
[    0.447971] 
[    0.448247] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)
[    0.448571] CPU: 8 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2 #1
[    0.448990] Hardware name: Microsoft Corporation Virtual Machine/Virtual Machine, BIOS Hyper-V UEFI Release v4.1 09/25/2025
[    0.449679] Call trace:
[    0.449812]  dump_backtrace+0xa0/0x128
[    0.449977]  show_stack+0x20/0x38
[    0.450227]  dump_stack_lvl+0x78/0xc8
[    0.450397]  dump_stack+0x18/0x28
[    0.450564]  panic+0x36c/0x3d8
[    0.450798]  mount_root_generic+0x194/0x338
[    0.451025]  mount_root+0x154/0x220
[    0.451191]  prepare_namespace+0x78/0x2b8
[    0.451369]  kernel_init_freeable+0x3b4/0x428
[    0.451597]  kernel_init+0x2c/0x200
[    0.451818]  ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20
[    0.451977] SMP: stopping secondary CPUs
[    0.452605] Kernel Offset: 0x261f85430000 from 0xffff800080000000
[    0.453021] PHYS_OFFSET: 0xffff96f440000000
[    0.453306] CPU features: 0x0,00000001,50024643,1501faa3
[    0.453584] Memory Limit: none

kernel-panic-1770394334-{89bdb396-0910-4787-9f8e-9241af403353}.txt