Last night I was notified that the WIN 11 VM running on my backup unraid server had a windows up waiting (which has happened many times before last night) so I logged in and ran the update like always. But this time after the windows updated I can no longer VNC into the VM. When I do I see this:

I have not been able to get past this screen. I have tried multiple time stopping / starting the VM and even so far as to stop/start the severs and still get nowhere past this screen. I know the service is running because I can go to the GUI for the video recorder which is running in the VM and everything this is still recording, but I just cant VNC in the VM. Any suggestions?

The VM is clearly booting, since the recorder keeps working, so this looks like a display problem rather than Windows failing to start. The screen you see is from the VM firmware. Normally the Windows loading circle appears right after it on the same screen, so Windows doesn't seem to be using the VNC display at all since the update.

Some things to check:

1. Does this VM have a GPU or iGPU passed through, for example for the recorder's hardware encoding? If so, connect a monitor to it. Windows may now be using it as the main display.

2. Try connecting with Remote Desktop to the VM IP address (if it's enabled in Windows). Once in, open Device Manager > Display adapters and check for a warning or error code on the virtual display adapter. If there is one, reinstall the display driver from the latest virtio-win ISO, or use Roll Back Driver if that option is available.

3. If you can't get in with RDP, shut down the VM, copy the current XML somewhere safe, and temporarily change the VNC Video Driver in the VM settings (for example from QXL to Virtio, or the other way round). Then start it again and see if the display comes back.

Please also post the diagnostics (Tools > Diagnostics) with the VM running, and the VM XML (Edit VM, then toggle to XML view).