Kernel Panic when transferring files from HDD to USB stick

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Hi everyone.

I’ve been using KDE neon for over a month, and it didn’t give me any problems until now, with my first Kernel Panic in all the time I’ve used Linux.

I have an external HDD which I use to do backups, save files, etc. (formatted in NTFS).

Also, I have some USB sticks which I use to save those files and have them on the go. (All my usb sticks are formatted in exfat).

First, I transferred almost 50 GB of data to a Sandisk 128GB usb stick, and it went all good.

However, a kernel panic ocurred while I started the second transfer to a Kingston 64 GB stick. I transferred the same 50 GB of data. It was slower compared to the Sandisk USB, but I thought it was normal. After some time, while I was during a Teams meeting (in Vivaldi browser) I had a Kernel Panic which stated:

stack-protector: Kernel stack is corrupted in: __blk_flush_plug+0x138/0x140

I rebooted the PC and everything was normal, so I thought maybe the problem was caused because of me using the PC for the meeting. I made the transfer again and to my surprise, the same kernel panic happened again.

I don’t know if the Kingston USB stick is bad or something like that, but in a Windows laptop I have it works fine. I’ve completed the transfer there with no problems. The HDD is good too.

Have anyone here had this problem before?

My system settings:

Operating System: KDE neon User Edition
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.19.0
Qt Version: 6.9.2
Kernel Version: 6.14.0-33-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 8 × AMD Ryzen 5 3400G with Radeon Vega Graphics
Memory: 9 GB of RAM (7,2 GB usable)
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Vega 11 Graphics

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Well this is out-of-scope of Neon maintenance and KDE as a whole.

Kernel panics are bugs in the kernel likely in drivers, triggered by your hardware it seems (your particular stick). So the bug can be reported to Ubuntu LTS, since that’s neon’s base and it provides its Linux kernel.

Kernel Version: 6.14.0-33-generic (64-bit)

Usually neon/Ubuntu LTS has a not very recent kernel version (they are ~4 Linux releases a year).

Try to test with different USB sticks, if you can isolate one compared to the other.

It could be a your ram that’s faulty you can do a memtest to check.

The condition of your meeting using a webcam as the same time as transferring large amount of data might be an important factor.

You can try to get a kernel stack trace. How I Made My Linux Kernel Panic | Ettore Ciarcia or Using the tracer for debugging — The Linux Kernel documentation .

That’s where my knowledge stops. There might better resources, use your favorite search engine.

I do have some issues with my graphic drivers on my desktop myself occurring with games on my Radeon RX 7800XT. But at least that’s not too common. I’d need to report it or check…

We are fortunate to face this kind of issues rarely.

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Thank you for your explanation. :slightly_smiling_face:

So, I might need to downgrade my kernel? I have been receiving kernel updates through discover so should I go back to LTS kernel and try again?

I have tried with other USB sticks and they do not have that problem, transferring the same data. It’s odd that just the Kingston USB makes a kernel panic. (while in Windows all of them work good, I suspect it is a kernel fault).

I’ll try to test my RAM too but I don’t think it’s the culprit if other USB sticks work fine with the same amount of data.

I thought that too at first but I tested it again with some other USB sticks and the same data, in a meeting, same ports, and there was no failure, except when using the Kingston stick.

I’ll have to put a tag on it calling it the “kernel panicker”. :sweat_smile:

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