# CVE-2026-68222: media: msi2500: Return queued buffers on start_streaming() failure

> A flaw in the msi2500 USB driver causes queued buffers to leak on streaming start failure, potentially leading to resource exhaustion and denial of service.

- **Severity:** High 7.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/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:** 10 Aug 2026
- **Updated:** 19 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2026-68222, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-68222, GHSA-c87f-75wq-m23q, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-68222

## What is CVE-2026-68222?

CVE-2026-68222 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 10 Aug 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: msi2500: Return queued buffers on start_streaming() failure

The vb2 framework hands buffers to the driver via buf_queue() before
calling start_streaming().  If start_streaming() returns an error
without first returning those buffers via vb2_buffer_done(),
vb2_start_streaming() fires WARN_ON(owned_by_drv_count) and the queued
buffers leak.

msi2500_start_streaming() had five error paths that all hit this trap
and were further tangled by ret-overwriting between calls:

  - -ENODEV when the USB device was already disconnected
  - -ERESTARTSYS when mutex_lock_interruptible() was interrupted
  - msi2500_set_usb_adc() failure: ret was silently overwritten by
    the next call (msi2500_isoc_init), so the error was lost entirely
  - msi2500_isoc_init() failure: cleanup_queued_bufs was called, but
    the function then fell through to msi2500_ctrl_msg() and again
    masked the original error by overwriting ret
  - msi2500_ctrl_msg(CMD_START_STREAMING) failure: no cleanup at all,
    leaving isoc URBs submitted with no way for the driver to consume
    them

Consolidate the error paths into a small goto chain.  Every failure
now stops the function, drains the queued-buffer list, and returns
the real error code.  The ctrl_msg failure path also rolls back the
preceding msi2500_isoc_init() via msi2500_isoc_cleanup() before
unlocking and draining.

The cleanup helper takes a vb2_buffer_state argument so that the
start_streaming error paths can pass VB2_BUF_STATE_QUEUED (as
expected by userspace on start_streaming failure) while stop_streaming
keeps its existing VB2_BUF_STATE_ERROR semantics.

This mirrors the uvcvideo fix in commit 4cf3b6fd54eb ("media: uvcvideo:
Return queued buffers on start_streaming() failure").

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-68222?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-68222?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-68222 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-68222 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-68222 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-68222 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 10 Aug 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-2026-68222 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. 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-2026-68222/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-68222/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-68222
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-68222
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-68222

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-68222/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.