If the qemu process is explicitly killed while guestfish is running then you will get this error repeatedly. It is caused because of the setting of SIGPIPE to SIG_IGN in this changeset: http://git.et.redhat.com/?p=libguestfs.git;a=commitdiff;h=88da5cf8a32e683ed1d78419fcde609a389a2f65;hp=d164ae963297a99e2222bc32b11928c1635c45d8#patch1
The following cset fixes this: http://git.et.redhat.com/?p=libguestfs.git;a=commitdiff;h=ad475104ec7fae456d3309cbf4261b893ed160bb $ ./fish/guestfish --ro -a ~/Fedora-11-i686-Live.iso -m /dev/sda Welcome to guestfish, the libguestfs filesystem interactive shell for editing virtual machine filesystems. Type: 'help' for help with commands 'quit' to quit the shell ><fs> ls / EFI GPL LiveOS README isolinux ><fs> ls / libguestfs: error: write: Broken pipe libguestfs: error: send failed, see earlier error messages ><fs> ls / libguestfs: error: guestfs_ls: call launch() before using this function
libguestfs-1.0.54-2.fc11 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 11. http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/libguestfs-1.0.54-2.fc11
libguestfs-1.0.55-1.fc11 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 11. http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/libguestfs-1.0.55-1.fc11
libguestfs-1.0.58-2.fc11 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 11. http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/libguestfs-1.0.58-2.fc11
libguestfs-1.0.54-2.fc11 has been pushed to the Fedora 11 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
libguestfs-1.0.58-2.fc11 has been pushed to the Fedora 11 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
Long fixed upstream.