Fresh Win11 & Fresh WSL2 Ubuntu install, no X apps work, Xwayland process runaway (Nvidia)

Windows build number:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.22621.1265]

Your Distribution version:

Ubuntu 22.04

Your WSL versions:

C:\Users\xasmo>wsl --version
WSL version: 1.0.3.0
Kernel version: 5.15.79.1
WSLg version: 1.0.47
MSRDC version: 1.2.3575
Direct3D version: 1.606.4
DXCore version: 10.0.25131.1002-220531-1700.rs-onecore-base2-hyp
Windows version: 10.0.22621.1265

Steps to reproduce:

1. Install Windows 11
2. Install Nvidia drivers
3. reboot
4. Install/Configure WSL2 per https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/gui-apps
5. reboot
6. Install Ubuntu in WSL2 with wsl --install Ubuntu
7. Launch Ubuntu
8. Configure first time username/password
9. sudo apt update
10. sudo apt install x11-apps
11. xeyes - observe that xeyes attempts to launch, but hangs, no GUI window ever appears, and no message appears

WSL logs:

stderr.log
versions.txt
weston.log
wlog.log
pulseaudio.log

WSL dumps:

No dumps generated

Expected behavior:

xeyes launches and a new window appears in Windows containing the xeyes GUI application

Actual behavior:

xeyes and all other X11/Wayland apps attempt to launch but either hang or never attach to any socket suitable for displaying graphical windows. Opening wsl --system and then top shows that process /usr/bin/Xwayland :0 -rootless -core -listen 38 -wm 39 -terminate -nolisten local -ac is pegging one CPU core at 100%

Diagnostic Logs

Show GPU hardware in Ubuntu

nvidia-smi:

Sun Feb 26 21:30:18 2023
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 525.89.02 Driver Version: 528.49 CUDA Version: 12.0 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA GeForce ... On | 00000000:00:09.0 On | N/A |
| 29% 33C P8 20W / 250W | 1494MiB / 11264MiB | 0% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 N/A N/A 23 G /Xwayland N/A |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Notice that Nvidia GPU card is correctly identified and we even see the XWayland process running

strace

strace -ff xeyes :

sysinfo({uptime=1668, loads=[65536, 65536, 58304], totalram=25200570368, freeram=24596684800, sharedram=2478080, bufferram=24899584, totalswap=6442450944, freeswap=6442450944, procs=187, totalhigh=0, freehigh=0, mem_unit=1}) = 0
socket(AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM|SOCK_CLOEXEC, 0) = 3
connect(3, {sa_family=AF_UNIX, sun_path=@"/tmp/.X11-unix/X0"}, 20) = -1 ECONNREFUSED (Connection refused)
close(3) = 0
socket(AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM|SOCK_CLOEXEC, 0) = 3
getsockopt(3, SOL_SOCKET, SO_SNDBUF, [212992], [4]) = 0
connect(3, {sa_family=AF_UNIX, sun_path="/tmp/.X11-unix/X0"}, 110

Notice strace appears to hang on the last line forever

Xwayland is running away

From Elevated cmd: wsl --system, then top

Xwayland process starts immediately after wsl --shutdown and a re-launch of Ubuntu, even without attempting to run a GUI app in Ubuntu, xwayland will peg 100% cpu after about 2 seconds

/tmp/.X11-unix is mounted and shared with WSL core

mount | grep .X11:

none on /tmp/.X11-unix type tmpfs (ro,relatime)

touch /tmp/.X11-unix/something
ls -lah /tmp/.X11-unix

total 4.0K
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 80 Feb 26 21:00 .
drwxrwxrwt 3 root root 4.0K Feb 26 20:47 ..
srwxrwxrwx 1 xasmodeanx xasmodeanx 0 Feb 26 20:58 X0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 26 21:00 something

ls -lah /mnt/wslg/.X11-unix

total 0
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 80 Feb 26 21:00 .
drwxrwxrwt 7 root root 280 Feb 26 20:58 ..
srwxrwxrwx 1 xasmodeanx xasmodeanx 0 Feb 26 20:58 X0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 26 21:00 something

wsl --system shows we can read/write files between Ubuntu and WSL Core

Ubuntu environment variables are unremarkable

printenv

SHELL=/bin/bash
WSL2_GUI_APPS_ENABLED=1
WSL_DISTRO_NAME=Ubuntu
NAME=win11gaming
PWD=/tmp/.X11-unix
LOGNAME=xasmodeanx
HOME=/home/xasmodeanx
LANG=C.UTF-8
WSL_INTEROP=/run/WSL/9_interop
LS_COLORS=...
WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-0
LESSCLOSE=/usr/bin/lesspipe %s %s
TERM=xterm-256color
LESSOPEN=| /usr/bin/lesspipe %s
USER=xasmodeanx
DISPLAY=:0
SHLVL=1
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/mnt/wslg/runtime-dir
WSLENV=
XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/local/share:/usr/share:/var/lib/snapd/desktop
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/usr/lib/wsl/lib:/mnt/c/Windows/system32:/mnt/c/Windows:/mnt/c/Windows/System32/Wbem:/mnt/c/Windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0/:/mnt/c/Windows/System32/OpenSSH/:/mnt/c/Program Files (x86)/NVIDIA Corporation/PhysX/Common:/mnt/c/Program Files/NVIDIA Corporation/NVIDIA NvDLISR:/mnt/c/Users/xasmo/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps:/snap/bin
HOSTTYPE=x86_64
PULSE_SERVER=/mnt/wslg/PulseServer
OLDPWD=/home/xasmodeanx
_=/usr/bin/printenv

Other diagnostic info

cat /mnt/wslg/versions.txt

WSLg ( x86_64 ): 1.0.47+Branch.main.Sha.77aa1e2f49e1253cde9ceb9124ca0873eb3eadf2
Mariner: VERSION="2.0.20221010"
DirectX-Headers:
mesa:
pulseaudio: 2f0f0b8c3872780f15e275fc12899f4564f01bd5
FreeRDP: c574044a10003e50453acb4cf42801c5833fb572
weston: e7e91e17f370702f386c843cf9014cc4bcef4179

Start by reproducing the xeyes hang in the stated Windows 11, Ubuntu 22.04, WSL2, and Nvidia setup, then inspect stderr.log, weston.log, wlog.log, pulseaudio.log, versions.txt, and the provided strace output. Use wsl --system and top to confirm the Xwayland CPU behavior; done means X11 and Wayland apps open normally without a runaway Xwayland process.