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Sorry in advance for the long post, I am very desperate for help and all info I think is helpful has been provided.

Main Issue:
WSL processes are going crazy and I don't know why.

Here is an example image of my
Problem 1: Processes running RAMPANT

The ONLY way to "resolve" this that I have found so far is to restart my laptop.

This is NOT a fix. But an annoying workaround. And after restarting, every two or three times when I try to run bash it hangs up on me and this happens again. I have been scouring the internet about these issues and this github post is the closest I have come to my problem, but no solution has been found.

My laptop did not have these issues a couple days ago. I did nothing, installed nothing, updated nothing. My laptop has been having other issues as well (browsers shutting down randomly, very slow terminal response time - this is definitely related to Problem 1, occasionally freezing upon boot - this has turned into Problem 2). This one, however, started happening at the same time as the hanging: Occasionally, upon booting my computer I get this:

Problem 2 Boot Errors

I don't know if Problem 2 is related to 1 but my focus is on figuring out 1 for now.

Attempts at solving the problem:
Of course I've tried killing the processes in Task Manager (and with Process Hacker). I've tried running wslconfig.exe /t Ubuntu but wsl just hangs and nothing happens. When these processes come up, my terminals are slow and basically unusable. Any instance of bash hangs forever. Some IT person ran a Windows checkdisk program thing and it did not help. I have tried using Windows repair features to no avail. I think this might be a hard drive issue but I have no idea.

Does anyone have an idea of what I could do to solve this? Is my computer just lost?

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4
  • The first thing I would do is completely nuke the WSL instance. Is that a viable solution? You can nuke the WSL instance from orbit by running wslconfig /unregister Ubuntu in an elevated command prompt. Your other issues are likely the reason WSl is behaving the way it is. However, the reason for those behaviors, is not clear based on the information you have provided. Trying to nuke the configuration from orbit, is one way, to see if the problems are connected ("other issues" is not a helpful description of an issue).
    – Ramhound
    Commented Feb 28, 2020 at 17:38
  • I've tried to kill it a million ways. Nothing works with wslconfig (/unregister /t /l') when Problem 1 is happening. /unregister' outputs Unregistering... and does nothing to the processes. I ran it wit cmd as an admin.
    – Akaisteph7
    Commented Feb 28, 2020 at 21:35
  • I don't see how my other issues are likely the cause... Why that assumption? I have added more information about these (didn't want to write even more but added). I think this might be caused by some hardware failure but I am not sure, everything else works fine... Just WSL. Also, I spilled juice on my keyboard a year ago but it's been fine ever since then until now.
    – Akaisteph7
    Commented Feb 28, 2020 at 21:36
  • Your question didn’t make it clear any wslconfig command would fail. As for the reason I suspect your other issues are the cause that just due to decades of experience with Windows. You can’t unregister the instance while it’s running, figured that was obvious, should have been more clear (by just pointing to my previous answer on the subject)
    – Ramhound
    Commented Feb 29, 2020 at 0:57

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
2

Terminate or Repair the Ubuntu App

  1. Open Windows Settings and click Apps.

  2. Scroll down and single Left-Click on Ubuntu.

  3. Press Advanced Options.

  4. From here, you can choose from one of the four options: "Terminate", "Repair", "Reset", or "Uninstall"

Ubuntu Advanced Options

Disable WSL in Windows Features

1) Open the run command box by pressing Window Key + R. Type in

optionalfeatures

2) Press Enter.

3) Deselect Windows Subsystem for Linux

4) Press Save

Remove Legacy Versions

If your version of the Windows Subsystem for Linux came shipped with your PC, it may be a legacy version.

In order to remove legacy versions of the Windows Subsystem for Linux, run the command

wslconfig /u Legacy

Re-Install WSL

Follow the official steps here.

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0

There is a WSL bug tracking this issue:

https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4936

Several comments on that issue say the problem can be resolved with a work around:

  • Install Windows Insider (slow release track) build 19041.113.
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1
  • I don't have insider but I have version 19041.804 - so newer as described, problem with high CPU usage still exists.
    – MilMike
    Commented Feb 23, 2021 at 9:59
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Having already tried reinstalling Ubuntu and a lot of other things. And since it seems this has been a problem for years now, my band-aid solution to this has been:

to keep the first instance of WSL open

Apparently, this issue happens when you close the first instance you had open and use another after that. Which would explain how I had managed to evade this all this time. So, I have tmux and just keep an instance open and never close it. Problem hasn't happened since.

Like I said, this is not a solution, but the only thing that's helped so far.

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