syzbot


INFO: rcu detected stall in pcpu_balance_workfn

Status: upstream: reported on 2026/02/12 10:37
Reported-by: syzbot+1d22c8733c47a1225458@syzkaller.appspotmail.com
First crash: 1d21h, last: 1d21h
Similar bugs (3)
Kernel Title Rank 🛈 Repro Cause bisect Fix bisect Count Last Reported Patched Status
upstream INFO: rcu detected stall in pcpu_balance_workfn (2) mm 1 1 209d 209d 0/29 auto-obsoleted due to no activity on 2025/10/17 19:49
upstream INFO: rcu detected stall in pcpu_balance_workfn kernel 1 1 448d 448d 0/29 auto-obsoleted due to no activity on 2025/02/20 11:26
android-6-1 BUG: soft lockup in pcpu_balance_workfn 1 1 214d 214d 0/2 auto-obsoleted due to no activity on 2025/10/12 11:08

Sample crash report:
rcu: INFO: rcu_preempt detected stalls on CPUs/tasks:
rcu: 	Tasks blocked on level-0 rcu_node (CPUs 0-1): P4270/1:b..l P5162/1:b..l
	(detected by 0, t=10502 jiffies, g=33241, q=44 ncpus=2)
task:kworker/1:8     state:R  running task     stack:21712 pid:5162  ppid:2      flags:0x00004000
Workqueue: events pcpu_balance_workfn
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 context_switch kernel/sched/core.c:5245 [inline]
 __schedule+0x11d1/0x40e0 kernel/sched/core.c:6562
 preempt_schedule_irq+0xbb/0x160 kernel/sched/core.c:6874
 irqentry_exit+0x63/0x70 kernel/entry/common.c:439
 asm_sysvec_apic_timer_interrupt+0x16/0x20 arch/x86/include/asm/idtentry.h:691
RIP: 0010:lock_acquire+0x225/0x4a0 kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5666
Code: f7 84 24 80 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 43 c6 44 3d 04 f8 0f 85 f0 00 00 00 41 f7 c6 00 02 00 00 74 01 fb 48 c7 44 24 60 0e 36 e0 45 <4b> c7 44 3d 00 00 00 00 00 43 c7 44 3d 08 00 00 00 00 65 48 8b 04
RSP: 0018:ffffc90002fb78a0 EFLAGS: 00000206
RAX: 0000000000000001 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 40e076cbaa3a0b00
RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: ffffffff8a8c23a0 RDI: ffffffff8adf0d20
RBP: ffffc90002fb79a8 R08: dffffc0000000000 R09: 1ffffffff215ea48
R10: dffffc0000000000 R11: fffffbfff215ea49 R12: 0000000000000001
R13: 1ffff920005f6f20 R14: 0000000000000246 R15: dffffc0000000000
 rcu_lock_acquire include/linux/rcupdate.h:350 [inline]
 rcu_read_lock include/linux/rcupdate.h:791 [inline]
 page_ext_get+0x3a/0x2a0 mm/page_ext.c:157
 __page_table_check_zero+0x134/0x4b0 mm/page_table_check.c:146
 page_table_check_free include/linux/page_table_check.h:46 [inline]
 free_pages_prepare mm/page_alloc.c:1487 [inline]
 free_pcp_prepare mm/page_alloc.c:1536 [inline]
 free_unref_page_prepare+0x8c4/0x9a0 mm/page_alloc.c:3413
 free_unref_page+0x2e/0x3f0 mm/page_alloc.c:3508
 pcpu_free_pages mm/percpu-vm.c:65 [inline]
 pcpu_depopulate_chunk+0x40f/0x4c0 mm/percpu-vm.c:330
 pcpu_reclaim_populated mm/percpu.c:2193 [inline]
 pcpu_balance_workfn+0x384/0x11a0 mm/percpu.c:2250
 process_one_work+0x8a2/0x1160 kernel/workqueue.c:2292
 worker_thread+0xaa2/0x1270 kernel/workqueue.c:2439
 kthread+0x29d/0x330 kernel/kthread.c:376
 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:295
 </TASK>
task:syz-executor    state:R  running task     stack:22064 pid:4270  ppid:4264   flags:0x00004004
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 context_switch kernel/sched/core.c:5245 [inline]
 __schedule+0x11d1/0x40e0 kernel/sched/core.c:6562
 preempt_schedule_common+0x82/0xd0 kernel/sched/core.c:6731
 preempt_schedule+0xbc/0xd0 kernel/sched/core.c:6755
 preempt_schedule_thunk+0x16/0x18 arch/x86/entry/thunk_64.S:34
 unwind_next_frame+0x1892/0x20b0 arch/x86/kernel/unwind_orc.c:629
 arch_stack_walk+0x10c/0x140 arch/x86/kernel/stacktrace.c:25
 stack_trace_save+0xa6/0xf0 kernel/stacktrace.c:122
 save_stack+0x121/0x230 mm/page_owner.c:127
 __reset_page_owner+0x51/0x1a0 mm/page_owner.c:148
 reset_page_owner include/linux/page_owner.h:24 [inline]
 free_pages_prepare mm/page_alloc.c:1486 [inline]
 free_pcp_prepare mm/page_alloc.c:1536 [inline]
 free_unref_page_prepare+0x8b4/0x9a0 mm/page_alloc.c:3413
 free_unref_page_list+0xbb/0x8e0 mm/page_alloc.c:3554
 release_pages+0x1fa6/0x2220 mm/swap.c:1035
 __pagevec_release+0x6d/0xe0 mm/swap.c:1055
 pagevec_release include/linux/pagevec.h:71 [inline]
 folio_batch_release include/linux/pagevec.h:135 [inline]
 shmem_undo_range+0x7c2/0x20c0 mm/shmem.c:946
 shmem_truncate_range mm/shmem.c:1062 [inline]
 shmem_evict_inode+0x25b/0xa80 mm/shmem.c:1171
 evict+0x4c9/0x8d0 fs/inode.c:705
 do_unlinkat+0x388/0x580 fs/namei.c:4405
 __do_sys_unlink fs/namei.c:4446 [inline]
 __se_sys_unlink fs/namei.c:4444 [inline]
 __x64_sys_unlink+0x45/0x50 fs/namei.c:4444
 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/common.c:46 [inline]
 do_syscall_64+0x4c/0xa0 arch/x86/entry/common.c:76
 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x68/0xd2
RIP: 0033:0x7fe87039b067
RSP: 002b:00007ffd709e5128 EFLAGS: 00000206 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000057
RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 00007fe87039b067
RDX: 00007ffd709e5150 RSI: 00007ffd709e51e0 RDI: 00007ffd709e51e0
RBP: 00007ffd709e51e0 R08: 00007ffd709e61e0 R09: 00000000ffffffff
R10: 0000000000000100 R11: 0000000000000206 R12: 00007ffd709e6270
R13: 00007fe870431c3b R14: 000000000006ae8d R15: 00007ffd709e62b0
 </TASK>
rcu: rcu_preempt kthread starved for 10562 jiffies! g33241 f0x0 RCU_GP_WAIT_FQS(5) ->state=0x0 ->cpu=1
rcu: 	Unless rcu_preempt kthread gets sufficient CPU time, OOM is now expected behavior.
rcu: RCU grace-period kthread stack dump:
task:rcu_preempt     state:R  running task     stack:28016 pid:16    ppid:2      flags:0x00004000
Call Trace:
 <TASK>
 context_switch kernel/sched/core.c:5245 [inline]
 __schedule+0x11d1/0x40e0 kernel/sched/core.c:6562
 schedule+0xb9/0x180 kernel/sched/core.c:6638
 schedule_timeout+0x184/0x2d0 kernel/time/timer.c:2168
 rcu_gp_fqs_loop+0x303/0x1340 kernel/rcu/tree.c:1706
 rcu_gp_kthread+0x99/0x3b0 kernel/rcu/tree.c:1905
 kthread+0x29d/0x330 kernel/kthread.c:376
 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:295
 </TASK>
rcu: Stack dump where RCU GP kthread last ran:
Sending NMI from CPU 0 to CPUs 1:
NMI backtrace for cpu 1 skipped: idling at native_safe_halt arch/x86/include/asm/irqflags.h:51 [inline]
NMI backtrace for cpu 1 skipped: idling at arch_safe_halt arch/x86/include/asm/irqflags.h:89 [inline]
NMI backtrace for cpu 1 skipped: idling at default_idle+0xb/0x10 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:741

Crashes (1):
Time Kernel Commit Syzkaller Config Log Report Syz repro C repro VM info Assets (help?) Manager Title
2026/02/12 10:36 linux-6.1.y 8ce36b2849ef 76a109e2 .config console log report info [disk image] [vmlinux] [kernel image] ci2-linux-6-1-kasan INFO: rcu detected stall in pcpu_balance_workfn
* Struck through repros no longer work on HEAD.