diff --git a/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c b/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
index b438dc2ce1b8..5c169fbb418a 100644
--- a/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
+++ b/drivers/virtio/virtio_ring.c
@@ -3233,6 +3233,14 @@ bool virtqueue_enable_cb_delayed(struct virtqueue *_vq)
 {
 	struct vring_virtqueue *vq = to_vvq(_vq);
 
+	/*
+	 * When the device is broken there is no point in polling used->idx,
+	 * the backend will never update it. Return true to let callers
+	 * exit their cleanup loops instead of spinning forever.
+	 */
+	if (unlikely(vq->broken))
+		return true;
+
 	if (vq->event_triggered)
 		data_race(vq->event_triggered = false);