systemd update makes the WSL image unstartable

[CdeMills]

Describe the issue
Fresh install, initialize the keys, pacman -Suy. One of the updated source is systemd. During installation, there is a message about systemd upgrade and creating a new group for clock. It leads to the environment failing; any further attempt to restart it fails.

To Reproduce
pacman -Suy

Expected behavior
Update without a hitch

Enviroment:

• Windows 11, latest update
• WSL 2
• ArchWSL from release of March, 19th, 2025

Additional context
Tried to salvage by mounting the vhdx on a debian WSL on the same machine. Tried chroot / proot, nothing worked. Links are not working anymore in debian. Trying to load any from from Arch fails due to differences in glibc version. Salvaging was not possible

[hexh250786313]

Same here.

(71/88) upgrading systemd                                                [########################################] 100%
Creating group 'clock' with GID 972.
/tmp/alpm_rsqZxs/.INSTALL: fork: Cannot allocate memory

[zfogg]

+1

[Pologue]

+1

[katawajojo]

+1

[truckNeo-hes]

+1 tried installing today, and it dies after this:

(71/87) upgrading systemd                                                [########################################] 100%
Creating group 'clock' with GID 972.

[yhweb]

+1

[greasycat]

A temporary workaround:

wsl --system -d archlinux -u root

mount -o remount,rw /dev/sdc /mnt/wslg/distro
cd /mnt/wslg/distro/etc
cp wsl.conf wsl.conf.bak # Backup
rm wsl.conf
cat > wsl.conf <<EOF
[boot]
systemd=false
EOF

Now reboot wsl with wsl --shutdown, then you should be able to log in

Then, downgrade systemd and 2 dependencies, I use downgrade (installed from AUR)

sudo downgrade systemd systemd-libs systemd-sysvcompat

Select 2.257.8 or any previously working version to downgrade.
Last step is to revert the wsl.conf and restart wsl again.

[katawajojo]

@greasycat that worked for me!