F36 Workstation might not respond to input in virtual machines with the QXL graphics driver

Problem

If you boot Fedora 36 Workstation Live image in a libvirt-based virtual machine (e.g. in virt-manager tool), which uses the QXL graphics driver (the default choice in Fedora 34 and Fedora 35 hosts using virt-manager), there is a chance that the booted Live system will not respond to most keyboard and mouse input. You’ll not be able to control the operating system.

This is a race condition, meaning the problem occurs randomly. If you reboot the virtual machine, it might or might not happen again.

This problem has only been seen with a Live image, and not with an actual installed system, so far.

Cause

Not yet known.

Related Issues

Bugzilla report: 2063156 – Workstation Live is frozen in a VM with QXL video driver (Virtio works OK)

Workarounds

Shut down the virtual machine. In virt-manager, go to virtual machine’s Details view, find the Video device, and if it is set to QXL (or anything else), change it to Virtio. Save the configuration and start the virtual machine again, verify that the problem no longer occurs.

Solution

The Fedora 36 final images shouldn’t be affected by this problem, and QXL should work as expected.

An update has been released to fix this issue.

After you update your system in your usual way (and possibly reboot), you should no longer be affected by this problem. If the problem persists, please start a new discussion topic and we’ll help figure out what’s still wrong.