Discuss the 4.3.6 release

[frank]

Discuss the 4.3.6 release here.
You can download it from here.

[robatino]

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads does not indicate that the Fedora 18/19 version of 4.3.6 also works for F20, although that's what http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualb ... fedora/20/ has.

Edit: It would free up some space to get rid of the Fedora release names on those lines. The vast majority of Fedora users never use those, for good reason. (The number, unlike the release name, is actually meaningful, since it determines the approximate release date - 2 releases per year.)

[Infosec instructor]

I teach a class using VirtualBox and my students have been having a terrible time using 4.3.6 on their computers. When they try to open a VM from VBox, they get an error telling them they don't have a 64-bit processor when they do--I think VBox claimed that they had an i686 processor. This happened to two students in a class of 11. One was using VBox on a Mac and another on Windows. I told them to downgrade to 4.3.4, and everything worked fine.

[Perryg]

@Infosec instructor,

1) 64-bit guests need hardware-virtualzation enabled in the hosts bios.
2) when creating the 64-bit guest you must select 64-bit in General -> Basic -> version.
3) If running Windows as host you must make sure hyper-v or xp mode is not enabled on the host. MS does not play well and want it all.

[Infosec instructor]

Perryg,

Checking the virtualization in the BIOS was my first troubleshooting step, and both the students had virtualization enabled. Also, we selected 64 bit OSes when setting up the machine, if that's what you mean by the second point. We got the error both on Mac and Windows, so it wasn't the Windows issue that you mention. The real question here, which you don't deal with, is why 4.3.4 worked without problem for them, but 4.3.6 failed.

[Perryg]

Without the guests log file of a guest that produces this error ( as an attachment ) very little more can be determined.

[z hopa]

First thing I noticed upon upgrade to 4.3.6 was that it did not recognize # of CPU cores in my Phenom II and the settings indicated that there was 1 CPU only.
Downgraded to previous version. Is this a bug or this is intentional?

It correctly enumerated cores on my Core-i5 laptop though.

[frank]

First thing I noticed upon upgrade to 4.3.6 was that it did not recognize # of CPU cores in my Phenom II and the settings indicated that there was 1 CPU only.
Downgraded to previous version. Is this a bug or this is intentional?

It correctly enumerated cores on my Core-i5 laptop though.

Is this a Windows host? Windows seems to count the physical cores a bit differently. Recent AMD CPUs share a lot of units between different cores. Can you provide the exact name of the AMD CPU?

[z hopa]

First thing I noticed upon upgrade to 4.3.6 was that it did not recognize # of CPU cores in my Phenom II and the settings indicated that there was 1 CPU only.
Downgraded to previous version. Is this a bug or this is intentional?

It correctly enumerated cores on my Core-i5 laptop though.

Is this a Windows host? Windows seems to count the physical cores a bit differently. Recent AMD CPUs share a lot of units between different cores. Can you provide the exact name of the AMD CPU?

1. Yes, this is a Windows XP 64 bit host.
2. This is not a recent AMD CPU.
3. I have provided you with exact name of the CPU: Phenom II. Specific model is 955. It's 5 year old and every version of Vbox worked on it just fine until 4.3.6. Even 4.3.4 works fine.

[klaus4040]

There was a ticket about this some days ago (not mine) and it was closed as invalid with a reference to HyperThreading. Maybe this is intentional but it is also a bit weird to do so in a maintenance release. My i7-2670QM (quad code with HT -> 8 virtual cores) now also only shows 4 cores.

[mpack]

My i7-2670QM (quad code with HT -> 8 virtual cores) now also only shows 4 cores.

You have a quad core processor, and VBox now agrees you have a quad core processor. What's the beef? Intel page for i7-2670QM. Are you really complaining that you can't assign cores to a VM without regard to how many you actually have?

z_hopa's situation seems to be different, at least as claimed so far.

[klaus4040]

I guess the communication of the reason of only showing the physical cores now wasn't great, http://wahlnetwork.com/2013/09/30/hyper ... pu-sizing/ explains it quiet a lot better for me.

The question you as to why I'm "complaining that I can't assign cores to a VM without regard to how many I actually have" begs the question why the host OS shows 8 logical cores at all if HT could be done completely transparent (thread parking). So by seeing these 8 core at the host people like me without reading the document above start to think, that with only allowing the amount of physical cores the additional typical 20 or so % performance gain from HT get lost due to the changes in VB. (Which I now know doesn't)

This was quiet confusing to write, I hope you understand what I mean

[mpack]

I could go into a long diatribe about HT being a marketing scam that certainly should not be confused with actual additional compute resources... but any such discussion would be off-topic here. IMHO it's enough to say that VirtualBox does distinguish, and that's pretty much all there is to it.

[Brutalizer]

I have installed a fresh Solaris 11.1 and VirtualBox 4.3.6. I have no VM, everything is clean. I try to install the extension pack - it does not work. It exits with error message 255. I have created a Windows 7 virtual machine and try to install the extension pack - same error message. Here is more information, he gets the same error as I have.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... 3QOiiD4T54


# VBoxManage extpack install ./Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.6-91406.vbox-extpack
0%...
Progress state: NS_ERROR_FAILURE
VBoxManage: error: Failed to install "/export/home/seme/Downloads/./Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.6-91406.vbox-extpack"
VBoxManage: error: Extension pack 'Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack' is already installed. In case of a reinstallation, please uninstall it first
VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component ExtPackManager, interface IExtPackManager
VBoxManage: error: Context: "int handleExtPack(HandlerArg*)" at line 1143 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp
# VBoxManage extpack uninstall ./Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.6-91406.vbox-extpack
0%...
Progress state: NS_ERROR_FAILURE
VBoxManage: error: Failed to uninstall "./Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.6-91406.vbox-extpack"
VBoxManage: error: Invalid extension pack name specified
VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component ExtPackManager, interface IExtPackManager
VBoxManage: error: Context: "int handleExtPack(HandlerArg*)" at line 1183 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp
# VBoxManage extpack uninstall ./Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.6-91406
0%...
Progress state: NS_ERROR_FAILURE
VBoxManage: error: Failed to uninstall "./Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.6-91406"
VBoxManage: error: Invalid extension pack name specified
VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component ExtPackManager, interface IExtPackManager
VBoxManage: error: Context: "int handleExtPack(HandlerArg*)" at line 1183 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp
# VBoxManage extpack uninstall ./Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.6-91406.vbox-extpack
0%...
Progress state: NS_ERROR_FAILURE
VBoxManage: error: Failed to uninstall "./Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.6-91406.vbox-extpack"
VBoxManage: error: Invalid extension pack name specified
VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component ExtPackManager, interface IExtPackManager
VBoxManage: error: Context: "int handleExtPack(HandlerArg*)" at line 1183 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp

[Brutalizer]

Any advice on how to install the extension pack? Work arounds?