# CVE-2024-36944: Reapply "drm/qxl: simplify qxl_fence_wait"

> A circular locking dependency in the qxl driver causes a system hang during boot, resulting in denial of service.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 30 May 2024
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2024-36944, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-36944, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-36944

## What is CVE-2024-36944?

CVE-2024-36944 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 30 May 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

Reapply "drm/qxl: simplify qxl_fence_wait"

This reverts commit 07ed11afb68d94eadd4ffc082b97c2331307c5ea.

Stephen Rostedt reports:
 "I went to run my tests on my VMs and the tests hung on boot up.
  Unfortunately, the most I ever got out was:

  [   93.607888] Testing event system initcall: OK
  [   93.667730] Running tests on all trace events:
  [   93.669757] Testing all events: OK
  [   95.631064] ------------[ cut here ]------------
  Timed out after 60 seconds"

and further debugging points to a possible circular locking dependency
between the console_owner locking and the worker pool locking.

Reverting the commit allows Steve's VM to boot to completion again.

[ This may obviously result in the "[TTM] Buffer eviction failed"
  messages again, which was the reason for that original revert. But at
  this point this seems preferable to a non-booting system... ]

Weakness: CWE-667 (Improper Locking)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-36944?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2024-36944?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2024-36944 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-36944 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2024-36944 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2024-36944 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 30 May 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-36944 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-36944/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-36944/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-36944
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-36944
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-36944

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-36944/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.