# CVE-2026-43229: media: chips-media: wave5: Fix device cleanup order to prevent kernel panic

> A race condition in the wave5 media driver causes kernel panics during device removal, leading to 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:** 6 May 2026
- **Updated:** 11 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2026-43229, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-43229, GHSA-7vr5-gjv8-9p58, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2026-43229, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-43229

## What is CVE-2026-43229?

CVE-2026-43229 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 6 May 2026. 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:

media: chips-media: wave5: Fix device cleanup order to prevent kernel panic

Move video device unregistration to the beginning of the remove function
to ensure all video operations are stopped before cleaning up the worker
thread and disabling PM runtime. This prevents hardware register access
after the device has been powered down.

In polling mode, the hrtimer periodically triggers
wave5_vpu_timer_callback() which queues work to the kthread worker.
The worker executes wave5_vpu_irq_work_fn() which reads hardware
registers via wave5_vdi_read_register().

The original cleanup order disabled PM runtime and powered down hardware
before unregistering video devices. When autosuspend triggers and powers
off the hardware, the video devices are still registered and the worker
thread can still be triggered by the hrtimer, causing it to attempt
reading registers from powered-off hardware. This results in a bus error
(synchronous external abort) and kernel panic.

This causes random kernel panics during encoding operations:

  Internal error: synchronous external abort: 0000000096000010
    [#1] PREEMPT SMP
  Modules linked in: wave5 rpmsg_ctrl rpmsg_char ...
  CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 1520 Comm: vpu_irq_thread
    Tainted: G   M    W
  pc : wave5_vdi_read_register+0x10/0x38 [wave5]
  lr : wave5_vpu_irq_work_fn+0x28/0x60 [wave5]
  Call trace:
   wave5_vdi_read_register+0x10/0x38 [wave5]
   kthread_worker_fn+0xd8/0x238
   kthread+0x104/0x120
   ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20
  Code: aa1e03e9 d503201f f9416800 8b214000 (b9400000)
  ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---
  Kernel panic - not syncing: synchronous external abort:
    Fatal exception

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-43229?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-43229?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-43229 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-43229 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-2026-43229 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-43229 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 6 May 2026. 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-2026-43229 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-2026-43229/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-43229/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-43229
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-43229
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-43229

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-43229/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.