# Kibana 9.5.4 / Node 24 V8Worker triggers Linux kernel NULL pointer dereference and RCU stall

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-9-5-4-node-24-v8worker-triggers-linux-kernel-null-pointer-dereference-and-rcu-stall/390830>\
**Category:** Kibana\
**Created:** [October 5, 2026, 2:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-9-5-4-node-24-v8worker-triggers-linux-kernel-null-pointer-dereference-and-rcu-stall/390830 "2026-10-05T02:26:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Beta](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/beta/32/148320_2.png) [@Beta](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Beta)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2026, 2:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-9-5-4-node-24-v8worker-triggers-linux-kernel-null-pointer-dereference-and-rcu-stall/390830/1 "2026-10-05T02:26:56Z")

</div>

I'm experiencing a recurring kernel crash on a Debian 13 VM running Kibana 9.5.4 (I have had this issue for a while now and have upgraded Kibana and the Linux kernel multiple times). The crash occurs in the Linux kernel while a Kibana V8 worker is exiting, and leaves the VM partially unresponsive.

### Environment

- Debian 13
- Linux kernel: `6.12.107+deb13-amd64` (`6.12.107-1`)
- Kibana: `9.5.4`
- Node.js: `24.19.0` (Kibana's bundled Node runtime)
- V8: `13.6.233.17-node.51`
- Elasticsearch: `9.5.4`
- VM: 4 vCPUs, 32 GiB RAM
- Proxmox/QEMU virtual machine
- `virtio-scsi` storage
- x86-64

Kibana is running with its bundled Node executable:

```auto
/usr/share/kibana/node/default/bin/node

```

`process.versions` reports:

```auto
node: '24.19.0'
v8: '13.6.233.17-node.51'
uv: '1.52.1'
openssl: '3.5.7'

```

### Failure

The first significant kernel error is:

```auto
Oct 01 03:32:03 elkstack kernel: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000650
Oct 01 03:32:03 elkstack kernel: #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
Oct 01 03:32:03 elkstack kernel: #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page
Oct 01 03:32:03 elkstack kernel: Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI

```

The process was:

```auto
CPU: 2 UID: 102 PID: 1747 Comm: V8Worker

```

The fault occurred here:

```auto
RIP: __lruvec_stat_mod_folio+0x60/0xd0

```

The relevant call trace was:

```auto
__lruvec_stat_mod_folio
folio_remove_rmap_ptes
unmap_page_range
unmap_vmas
exit_mmap
__mmput
do_exit
do_group_exit
get_signal
arch_do_signal_or_restart
irqentry_exit_to_user_mode

```

The kernel then reported:

```auto
note: V8Worker[1747] exited with irqs disabled
note: V8Worker[1747] exited with preempt_count 1
Fixing recursive fault but reboot is needed!

```

Immediately after there was an RCU warning:

```auto
Voluntary context switch within RCU read-side critical section!
WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 1747 at kernel/rcu/tree_plugin.h:331

```

and approximately 20 seconds later:

```auto
rcu: INFO: rcu_preempt detected stalls on CPUs/tasks:
rcu: Tasks blocked on level-0 rcu-node (CPUs 0-3): P1747/2:b..l

```

The RCU stall then repeated approximately every 63 seconds with the same task/generation and t increases by ~15,755 jiffies each time. This has persisted continuously since October 1st.

### Resulting behaviour

The VM remained reachable by ICMP/ping, but SSH stopped responding and the console became unusable. The VM remained in this state until it was rebooted.

This appears consistent with the kernel Oops occurring first and the subsequent RCU stalls being a consequence of the kernel being left in an unrecoverable state.

### Resource usage

This does not appear to be a conventional CPU or memory exhaustion issue.

At the time of investigation, the Proxmox host had approximately:

- 128 GiB RAM
- 105 GiB free
- ~85% CPU idle
- negligible I/O wait
- ~8 GiB swap configured, almost entirely free

The VM itself has 32 GiB RAM and 4 vCPUs.

The Proxmox host also showed no obvious CPU, memory, or I/O pressure associated with the VM.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RainTown](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/raintown/32/140206_2.png) [@RainTown](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/RainTown)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2026, 1:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-9-5-4-node-24-v8worker-triggers-linux-kernel-null-pointer-dereference-and-rcu-stall/390830/2 "2026-10-05T13:28:48Z")

</div>

An interesting puzzle. Welcome to the forum  
@Beta

Do you get this issue every time ? On every Kibana V8 worker exit ? Do you need to  
“do something special” to trigger the behaviour?

Does the issue occur on multiple Proxmox hosts? Identically ?

Which other kernel / Kibana combinations have you tried that gave the same (was it exactly the same?) behaviour ?

Putting as politely as possible, what’s your expectation here? Unless someone has a Eureka moment, this is sort of issue that would require a fair bit of effort to reproduce.
