Proxmox 9.1 Upgrade Reports: Kernel, Network, and GPU Issues

Proxmox 9.1 dropped recently with a lot of anticipation from the virtualization and homelab community. New features, kernel updates, and performance optimizations tend to get the crowd excited—until something breaks. And that's exactly what happened to one unlucky user just a day after updating. A hard crash, an obscure netdev watchdog error, and no clues in the logs. Welcome to the wild west of open-source upgrades. This isn't just a one-off story. Dig a little deeper and you'll see multiple users reporting instability after moving to 9.1—ranging from mysterious crashes and network card meltdowns to GPU-related failures that bring down entire systems. So what gives? Let's unpack the fallout from the 9.1 upgrade and what it means for Proxmox users both at home and in production. ## A Crash with No Trace The original post came from a user who upgraded to Proxmox 9.1, only to have their system crash the very next day. The logs? Empty. The only real clue: a snapshot from the console showing a netdev watchdog issue tied to a Mellanox ConnectX-3 Pro card. The reaction was a roll-back to the previous kernel and a hopeful pause, but the uncertainty lingered. Was it the kernel? The network driver? A fluke? Turns out, others are seeing similar instability—and some are already jumping ship. ## You're Not Alone: A Pattern of Failures Another user chimed in with a sobering comment: same issue, different scale. On a production system with 20 nodes and a petabyte of NVMe storage, the same netdev crash reared its head. Their solution? Nuke the upgrade and go back to 8.4. "I'll wait another month or two," they said. That's not confidence—it's damage control. Yet another user pointed to a potential culprit: frigate_capture, a GPU-based component for video processing. The logic? A GPU crash took out the CPU, which in turn sent the NIC spiraling. When hardware acceleration is in the mix, things get spicy fast—especially if you're passing through an iGPU like the Intel 8600 series. ## iGPU, LXC, and Crashes—Oh My The original poster revealed they were using an iGPU with Frigate, a popular NVR platform. Initially, it was tied to an LXC container with Docker inside—a setup that, while functional, often walks the fine line between elegant and cursed. Eventually, after multiple redeployments (ten, to be exact), they moved Frigate into an unprivileged OCI container. Since then, things have been more stable—but the damage was done. Kernel crashes, sudden reboots, hours of recovery and troubleshooting. This is the sort of friction that turns enthusiasts into skeptics. One commenter's take? Brutally honest: "Not ready for prime-time… This 9 won't even run as a sandbox. Epic fail." ## Digging Into the Kernel Side Several users have already found a workaround: rolling back to the latest 6.14 kernel. One user reported that after reverting, things returned to normal. Their crash journey started with TPM issues, involved Tailscale weirdness, and ended in a boot loop they didn't catch in time. All of this from a point upgrade. That's the kind of hidden landmine that makes sysadmins question every "update now" button. It's not just Mellanox NICs having issues either. Others flagged problems with Intel NICs, offloading bugs, and BIOS compatibility quirks. A helpful link to a NIC offloading fix script made the rounds, but that's more of a patch than a solution. ## What This Means for Proxmox Users So what's the takeaway here? **Don't upgrade blindly.** Especially with point releases. Test it in a sandbox first. If you're running Frigate, GPU passthrough, or custom LXC setups, you're at higher risk. **Keep a rollback plan ready.** Whether it's reverting to an earlier kernel or snapshotting your nodes before the jump, prepare for the worst. **Watch out for GPU configs.** Frigate is fantastic, but it's also finicky when you're doing hardware acceleration in containers. Make sure you're isolating those workloads cleanly. **Check your BIOS and firmware.** An outdated BIOS might be fine on older Proxmox versions but can trigger unpredictable behavior on newer kernels. **Separate config and data volumes.** This one was a lifesaver for the OP. If you can redeploy your services by just reattaching volumes, recovery is exponentially easier. ## Should You Avoid 9.1 Altogether? Not necessarily. There are users who've reported clean upgrades and stable performance. But if you're running a homelab with edge-case configurations—or worse, you're in production—tread carefully. Early adopters are the testers whether they like it or not. The golden rule here: if your system isn't broken, don't rush to fix it with a shiny update. Especially not when the stability of your entire virtual infrastructure hangs in the balance. ## What Could Proxmox Do Better? A few things stand out from this community incident: **More transparent kernel update notes.** Users were caught off guard by behavior changes that weren't clearly documented. **Better regression testing with real-world configs.** LXC with Docker, hardware-accelerated Frigate, Mellanox cards—these aren't niche anymore. **More granular rollback options.** Making it easier to revert not just kernels but entire node environments would be a massive help. ## Final Thoughts Proxmox is one of the most powerful and flexible open-source hypervisors out there. But power comes with complexity, and with complexity comes risk. The 9.1 upgrade brought new features—but it also brought kernel panics, NIC crashes, and a wave of uncertainty. Until these issues are ironed out, the safe bet is to either wait or isolate your upgrade to a non-critical node. Upgrades are exciting—but in the world of virtualization, stability is king.