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This document describes how to troubleshoot vCPU soft lockups. A soft lockup occurs when a virtual machine (VM) instance's vCPU is unable to run a new task for more than 20 seconds. Most soft lockups are caused by bugs in application software.
Soft lockups can cause VMs to become unresponsive for short periods of time, disrupt SSH access to VMs, and trigger application timeouts or failover. VMs that are experiencing a soft lockup might also have unusually high or unusually low CPU utilization, depending on the exact cause of the soft lockup.
Identify soft lockupsTo identify whether your VM is experiencing a soft lockup, do one of the following:
/var/log/messages
) for a soft lockup stack trace.Example soft lockup stack trace
watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#3 stuck for 22s!
To detect future soft lockups, you can do the following:
Create a log-based alerting policy for the following log:
resource.type="gce_instance" log_id("serialconsole.googleapis.com/serial_port_1_output") textPayload=~"watchdog.*lockup"Note: When you test the query, it is likely that no logs appear. This is expected behavior.
After you've identified that a soft lockup is occurring, try the following troubleshooting steps to resolve the issue:
If the proceeding troubleshooting steps didn't resolve the issue, file a support case and include all of the information you gathered from troubleshooting.
Best practices to avoid soft lockupsTo help prevent your VMs from experiencing soft lockups, we recommend implementing the following best practices:
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2025-08-07 UTC.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-07 UTC."],[[["Soft lockups occur when a VM's vCPU cannot run a new task for over 20 seconds, often due to application software bugs."],["Soft lockups can cause VMs to become unresponsive, disrupt SSH access, and trigger application timeouts or failovers."],["Soft lockups can be identified by reviewing serial port output or operating system logs for a soft lockup stack trace, such as `watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#3 stuck for 22s!`."],["Troubleshooting soft lockups involves checking for OS vendor known issues, identifying patterns with high load or environment changes, and evaluating maintenance events."],["Preventive measures include using redundant components, compute-optimized machine families for intense workloads, testing with simulated maintenance events, and keeping the OS up to date."]]],[]]
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