This topic describes the causes of and solution to the issue of the "virtio_net: probe of virtio2 failed with error -16" error message that appears in the system log file when the network interface controller (NIC) cannot be configured or cannot be read or displayed after a Linux Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance is started.
Problem description
After a Linux instance starts, its NIC cannot be configured or displayed correctly. The system log reports the error message "virtio_net: probe of virtio2 failed with error -16". This error indicates that the NIC failed to load.
The issue occurs during system startup or the hot swapping of the network interface controller.
For information about how to view the system logs, see View system logs and screenshots.
Causes
The preceding issue may occur due to the following reasons:
Low system memory
Softlockups in the system
Deadlocks in the system
Solution
The preceding issue may occasionally occur. We recommend restarting the instance and check whether the NIC settings are loaded as expected. For more information, see Restart an instance.