Virt-manager fails to connect after recent updates

Issues & Assistance
1

I have had to run sudo systemctl start libvirtd.serviceto get the service running before (enabling it didn’t get it to run on startup - separate issue) but now opening that as well as right clicking “QEMU/KVM" - Not Connected” and clicking connect results in an error. Here is the terminal output for sudo systemctl start libvirtd.service:

Job for libvirtd.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See “systemctl status libvirtd.service” and “journalctl -xeu libvirtd.service” for details.

As for the GUI, it prints:

Unable to connect to libvirt qemu:///system.

Verify that an appropriate libvirt daemon is running.

Libvirt URI is: qemu:///system

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/connection.py”, line 940, in _do_open
self._backend.open(cb, data)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^
File “/usr/share/virt-manager/virtinst/connection.py”, line 173, in open
conn = libvirt.openAuth(self._open_uri, [valid_auth_options, authcb, cbdata], open_flags)
File “/usr/lib/python3.14/site-packages/libvirt.py”, line 148, in openAuth
raise libvirtError(‘virConnectOpenAuth() failed’)
libvirt.libvirtError: Failed to connect socket to ‘/var/run/libvirt/virtqemud-sock’: No such file or directory

As for the terminal output, it’s 520 lines. Here’s the pastebin:

2

This can happen on updates or failed autostart, this usally dose the trick for myself.

 systemctl enable --now virtlogd.service 

 systemctl enable --now virtlogd.service

Now I’ll check on the status:



● libvirtd.service - libvirt legacy monolithic daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/libvirtd.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/libvirtd.service.d
             └─10-secret.conf
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2026-05-07 06:41:41 MDT; 4h 59min ago
 Invocation: 93c0e42553ee4a0aaa3c8f0d397bb31b
TriggeredBy: ● libvirtd.socket
             ● libvirtd-admin.socket
             ● libvirtd-ro.socket
       Docs: man:libvirtd(8)
             https://libvirt.org/
   Main PID: 1234 (libvirtd)
      Tasks: 23 (limit: 32768)
     Memory: 2.4M (peak: 86.4M, swap: 59.1M, swap peak: 59.1M)
        CPU: 1.492s
     CGroup: /system.slice/libvirtd.service
             ├─1234 /usr/bin/libvirtd --timeout 120
             ├─1522 /usr/bin/dnsmasq --conf-file=/var/lib/libvirt/dnsmasq/default.conf --leasefile-ro ->
             └─1523 /usr/bin/dnsmasq --conf-file=/var/lib/libvirt/dnsmasq/default.conf --leasefile-ro ->

Back in bussiness…. And Welcome @MikeRL

And sudo is not needed on sudo systemctl start libvirtd.service it should prompt for your password.

3

Try:

sudo systemctl enable --now libvirtd
4

Thank you both for the quick response - sadly neither command resolves the issue - same error in the terminal.

5

Dang i missed the important bits here:

May 07 12:42:32 cachyos-cppc libvirtd[39981]: ERROR:esys:src/tss2-esys/api/Esys_Load.c:112:Esys_Load() Esys Finish ErrorCode (0x0000>
May 07 12:42:32 cachyos-cppc (libvirtd)[39981]: libvirtd.service: TPM key integrity check failed. Key most likely does not belong to>
May 07 12:42:32 cachyos-cppc (libvirtd)[39981]: libvirtd.service: Failed to set up credentials: Object is remote

Are you dual booting with Windoze? Something has tripped your TPM Lockout.

Are you a member of libvirt?

groups | rg libvi ─╯
me sys network libvirt realtime nopasswdlogin rfkill users video storage lp audio wheel

6

Yeah I dual boot. Unfortunately I don’t have GPU passthrough on my motherboard, so for certain games (blame kernel anti cheat and lazy devs) I’m sadly stuck with Windows 11. My username appears under groups | rg libvi

7

Please copy the whole output, and paste it back in your next reply.

Your user name is not what I wanted to see.

8

groups | rg libvi
mike sys network vboxusers openrazer libvirt nopasswdlogin rfkill users video storage lp kvm audio wheel

I forgot to mention I recently updated my BIOS. I wonder if that caused something to break.

9

Strong Possible…but I’m not a Windoze user so I’m unsure how to advise you. :frowning:

It dose sound like re-setting the TPM keys are needed though.

10

Clearing the TPM keys appears to have done nothing.

11

VMware Workstation also will not start. Something related to the TPM must have been set off. It won’t even work from a live USB.

12

I fixed it using the commands here on the second post. [Solved] libvirtd not starting after clearing TPM / Newbie Corner / Arch Linux Forums