https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=209025 --- Comment #3 from muncrief (rmuncrief@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) --- Unfortunately bisect failed, and in a very odd way. I've bisected the kernel numerous times over the decades, but this time it didn't work correctly from the start because of module directories it wanted to delete that weren't there. To make a long story short, after the initial compile of 5.9-rc1 I did the normal bisect start and good/bad version definition. But when making the first bisect it failed during the final phase of the modules process with errors saying it couldn't delete "pkg/linux-bisect/usr/lib/modules/5.9.0-rc1-1-bisect/source" or "pkg/linux-bisect/usr/lib/modules/5.9.0-rc1-1-bisect/build". And when I looked they didn't exist. So I spent a few hours trying numerous things, but could never get bisect to work as expected. In the end I just timed the manual creation of the directories correctly as the modules process was completing, but then bisect complained they were directories. So I tried again but this time just touched to make files instead of directories, and bisect completed. Perplexed but undeterred I installed and ran the bisected kernel, the VM worked, and I marked the bisect as good. But when compiling the next bisect the same thing happened, and I did the same thing to fix it. However this time when I installed and ran the kernel my VM seemed to boot, but actually didn't. Neither the QXL or passthrough GPU displays came on, and I couldn't shut it down. I just had to do a power off. So I rebooted with my working 5.8.3 kernel and was surprised that my entire VM disk was completely erased. There were no partitions at all, it was just blank. Of course I made a backup before doing all this so it was easy to restore, but it's the first time I've ever seen anything like it. In any case, the disk is attached to a passthrough Phison NVME controller, so I assume there was some kind of different, silent, VFIO error that wiped out the disk. In summary, I have no idea what's going on. Of course sometimes bisect works and sometimes it doesn't, and the kernel is the most difficult and dangerous to bisect, but I've never seen actual process errors like this before. Compilation errors yes, but not missing source or package files and directories. I'm hoping, and assuming, this is some kind of pilot error on my part. If so, and someone knows what it is, just tell me what it is and I'll give it another try. By the way, I'm running Arch with all the latest updates. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are watching the assignee of the bug.
