WSL1: launching powershell.exe from WSL hangs

[kpengboy]

Windows Version

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.4170]

WSL Version

0.0.0.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

No response

Distro Version

Debian 11

Other Software

Browserpass and Firefox

Repro Steps

1. Set up a password store using pass inside WSL. You will need to set up a GPG key with a passphrase and all that.
2. Install the Browserpass extension
   • I used Firefox (on Windows) as the browser
   • To install the native messaging host, I followed these instructions: https://github.com/browserpass/browserpass-native?tab=readme-ov-file#install-on-windows-through-wsl
3. Install this script: https://github.com/diablodale/pinentry-wsl-ps1 per the first two steps listed at https://github.com/diablodale/pinentry-wsl-ps1#setup. This script uses Powershell to open a "type the passphrase to your GPG key to decrypt the stored password" dialog.
4. Open a WSL terminal
5. Use Browserpass to autofill a password on some website. This should open an authentication dialog asking you for the passphrase to your GPG key. Enter it in. Browserpass should autofill the password.
6. Close the WSL terminal you opened in step 4
7. Wait ~10 minutes for the GPG agent to forget the password you entered in step 5.
8. Try to use Browserpass to autofill a password on some website again.

Expected Behavior

It should open another dialog asking you for the password to your GPG key.

Actual Behavior

The pinentry-wsl-ps1 tries to launch powershell.exe to open the authentication dialog, but /init /mnt/c/Windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/1.0/powershell.exe <long argument containing powershell code to open the dialog> hangs on the ioctl(3, _IOC(_IOC_NONE, 0, 0x2f, 0x22) call after opening /dev/lxss.

(Can PM full strace upon request)

Diagnostic Logs

No response

[github-actions]

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Otherwise please attach logs by following the instructions below, your issue will not be reviewed unless they are added. These logs will help us understand what is going on in your machine.

How to collect WSL logs

Download and execute collect-wsl-logs.ps1 in an administrative powershell prompt:

Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/WSL/master/diagnostics/collect-wsl-logs.ps1" -OutFile collect-wsl-logs.ps1
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force
.\collect-wsl-logs.ps1

The scipt will output the path of the log file once done.

Once completed please upload the output files to this Github issue.

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Please view the issues below to see if they solve your problem, and if the issue describes your problem please consider closing this one and thumbs upping the other issue to help us prioritize it!

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This issue has been automatically closed since it has not had any author activity for the past 7 days. If you're still experiencing this issue please re-file it as a new issue.

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