Short post on how to recovery from “The Windows Subsystem for Linux instance has terminated” with exit code 4294967295 (0xffffffff) which I have had a number of times recently. Usually after taking my notebook on the road without closing sessions then returning and connecting back to my dock.
There are a number of recommendations you’ll find searching how to recover but many also date back to WSL v1. And many indicate terminating services that also require a reboot. That’s not necessary for me. This is what works, and I am documenting it so I can find it quickly next time.
Recovery from WSL terminated with exit code 4294967295
In my case I’m running Ubuntu in WSL2. In a PowerShell window run the following command.
wsl --shutdown
Start a new WSL (Ubuntu) session and you’ll be back up and running.
