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Fix Windows Server 2022 infinite reboot loop by reverting to Fedora 42#138

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copilot/debug-reboot-cycle-issue
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Fix Windows Server 2022 infinite reboot loop by reverting to Fedora 42#138
Copilot wants to merge 2 commits intomainfrom
copilot/debug-reboot-cycle-issue

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Copilot AI commented Feb 12, 2026

Windows Server 2022 VMs enter an infinite reboot cycle post-migration due to virtio-win driver certificate trust failures in Fedora 44. The smbus.inf driver installation fails with "certificate chain...not trusted by the trust provider", causing firstboot scripts to exit 249 and retry indefinitely.

Root Cause

Fedora 44 ships virtio-win v0.1.285-1 (Sep 2025) with certificate chains incompatible with Windows Server 2022's default trust store. Fedora 42 ships v0.1.248-1 (Feb 2024) with properly trusted certificates.

Breaking change introduced in commit ccdfc8f (Sept 13, 2025).

Changes

  • Dockerfile: Revert base image from fedora:44 to fedora:42 in both build and runtime stages
  • WINDOWS_SERVER_2022_FIX.md: Document root cause analysis, timeline, and certificate trust chain technical details

Error Pattern

Installing: smbus.inf
Adding the driver package failed: A certificate chain processed, but terminated 
in a root certificate which is not trusted by the trust provider.
Failed to install smbus.inf.... exit code 249
Script failed, will retry on next boot

User verified last working image (SHA ead70cfc9efb3163990212f48e56cb347b109cb17a869a1d1c820b1c229700fe) was built pre-Fedora 44 upgrade.

Original prompt

This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>Windows Server 2022 stuck in a reboot cycle post migration</issue_title>
<issue_description>I have a Windows 2022 server that just reboots constantly post migration. Migration completes successfully but the server is stuck in a reboot cycle.</issue_description>

<agent_instructions>Can you look at the comments of this issue and try to identify which commit belongs to the last working image (maybe the labels will show what it is) just to be able to identify what was the change done from that image till now and bisect the change that broke it?</agent_instructions>

Comments on the Issue (you are Copilot in this section)

Mohammed Naser (@mnaser) csecsi1977-design can you please share those logs to help us identify the root cause of this issue so we can fix it?

💬 We'd love your input! Share your thoughts on Copilot coding agent in our 2 minute survey.

The issue was caused by certificate trust problems with virtio-win
drivers in Fedora 44. Downgrading to Fedora 42 resolves the issue
as it uses virtio-win version 0.1.248-1 which has properly trusted
certificates for Windows Server 2022.

Co-authored-by: mnaser <435815+mnaser@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot AI changed the title [WIP] Fix Windows Server 2022 reboot cycle post migration Fix Windows Server 2022 infinite reboot loop by reverting to Fedora 42 Feb 12, 2026
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Windows Server 2022 stuck in a reboot cycle post migration

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