VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
fonzamundo
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VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by fonzamundo »

Hello everyone

I think I'm going slighty bananas here...
Yesterday I gave Windows 11 a try by installing it in a new VM. This went fine and the machine booted, several times even after the necessary Windows Updates.

Today I would like to try and keep testing W11, but the VM refuses to start.
It always throws an error about the page file and get stucks at the spinning circle during boot.
The problem has however spread to my other VM's (Win10 and Win Server 2019). These were fine before but now suffer from the same problem (refusing to boot).
Funny thing is that my pfSense VM runs without errors...

What I have tried so far:
- install latest VirtualBox version
- remove Extension Pack and reinstalled it
- checked if Hyper-V is disabled (followed tutorial on this forum)
- tried to change several settings in VM (although they worked yesterday) => virtualisation type, paged nesting on/off, ...

My system is a AMD Ryzen 3 3200G, 16 GB RAM, built in GPU (two displays connected)
As per request in attach the VBoxLogs of this machine

Help is greatly appreciated!
Attachments
VBoxLog.zip
(103.52 KiB) Downloaded 17 times
fonzamundo
Posts: 8
Joined: 18. Aug 2021, 08:33
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win10, Win11, Win Server 2019, Linux

Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by fonzamundo »

Already an update:

For the "fun" of it, just lowered the amount of RAM allocated to the Windows 11 VM from 4096 to 2048 and now the machine boots!
All the other Windows VM's (which are also configured with 2048 RAM) boot too and are - as we speak - all running concurrently.
Total load is 9,3 GB of 16,0 GB according to Windows Task Manager (Win10, Win11, Win Server 2019 + host Win 10)

This really boggles my mind: I do have sufficient memory and when I try to assign more memory to VM (in order to make it more smoothly), the "computer says no!"

Any thoughts are very much appreciated!
mpack
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by mpack »

The guru meditation shows:
00:00:02.418157 Host RAM: 14258MB (13.9GB) total, 10938MB (10.6GB) available
...
00:00:10.844696 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
00:00:10.844696 !!
00:00:10.844696 !! VCPU0: Guru Meditation -27 (VERR_NO_PAGE_MEMORY)
00:00:10.844698 !!
00:00:10.844701 !!
00:00:10.844701 !! {mappings, <NULL>}
00:00:10.844701 !!
00:00:10.844711 !!
00:00:10.844711 !! {hma, <NULL>}
00:00:10.844711 !!
So bulk memory isn't the problem, it's memory in the first 4GB of the host. As I understand it this memory region is precious because physical memory there is accessible to both 32bit and 64bit code, so it's an ideal place to locate device drivers that need to communicate with both.

Host memory reporting is weird here. I've never seen a host report 14258MB total installed RAM before. Typically it would have 16GB (16384MB) installed RAM minus a little for the hardware/BIOS, so if we assume 16GB is it then you seem to be missing 2126MB (i.e. more than 2GB) of low address RAM, the kind needed by device drivers. What gives? Is this a VM? Tell me you didn't allocate a RAM disk out of low mem RAM?

The amount of page memory requested by VirtualBox will I believe be proportional to the total amount asked, which is why the problem is masked by reducing the bulk RAM request.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by mpack »

P.s. my own host is Win10 (64bits) with 16GB installed RAM, so my own host should be comparable to yours. A VM log of mine shows...
00:00:03.420525 Host RAM: 16319MB (15.9GB) total, 12321MB (12.0GB) available
I.e. I lost 65MB to the hardware, which is much more like it.
fonzamundo
Posts: 8
Joined: 18. Aug 2021, 08:33
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win10, Win11, Win Server 2019, Linux

Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by fonzamundo »

Your post had me thinking where the heck the 2 GB were going to...

I'm using the built-in Radeon Vega 8 Solution (IGP) of my Ryzen 3200G and apparently in the MSI Bios the RAM-setting was on Auto.
Turns out that this means that there is a whopping 2 GB being reserved for the IGP! Now tuned it down to 512 MB and voila, more RAM available (15,4 GB available of the 16 GB installed)

But... by default when you make a VM, there is 128 MB assigned to the video card
As a result my VM's wouldn't boot again! So I changed it to 64 MB per VM (Win10, Win11, Win Server 2019) and left it for the Linux (pfSense on 16 MB)
Any thoughts on where you can change the MB assigned for the physical Windows by the way?

Is this the way to go or could I have negative effects on the VM/physical machine of this lowering of IGP RAM?
Was already thinking of going for a separate GPU but when looking at the prices (thanks CoVID!), this has to be put on hold. After all, I'm no gamer so a GPU for > € 500 is crazy

Will try more tomorrow, but thanks for the help so far!
fth0
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by fth0 »

mpack wrote:I've never seen a host report 14258MB total installed RAM before.
The integrated GPU in the "AMD Ryzen 3 3200G with Radeon Vega Graphics " uses up to 2 GB of host memory, see Configuring UMA Frame Buffer Size on Desktop Systems with Integrated Graphics for details. Although this type of UMA (Unified Memory Architecture) is sometimes called "shared" memory, it's not really shared (*), but rather split, so that the GPU memory is not available to the host OS.

(*) The Apple M1 UMA is different, in that the CPU and the GPU really access the same memory.

Edit: fonzamundo was faster.
fth0
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by fth0 »

mpack wrote:So bulk memory isn't the problem, it's memory in the first 4GB of the host.
I beg to differ. ;)

VERR_NO_PAGE_MEMORY is only returned by the host OS specific rtR0MemObjNativeAllocPage() function, which is not restricted to the lower 4 GB of host memory, and which is especially also used to allocate the base memory for the VM. Although this function uses multiple Windows memory allocation functions, unfortunately, VERR_NO_PAGE_MEMORY is the only error returned if anything goes wrong.
VBox.log file wrote:
00:00:34.779805 /GMM/cAllocatedPages               302541 pages
00:00:34.779812 /GMM/cChunks                          591 count
00:00:34.779835 /GMM/cReservedPages               1083045 pages
The VirtualBox GMM (Global Memory Manager) has reserved the configured 4 GB of RAM (~1M 4k pages), and allocated ~1.2 GB of it so far (~300k 4k pages in ~600 chunks of 2 MB). The Windows guest OS is probably in the phase where it touches all the memory, thereby forcing its allocation inside the Windows host OS.
VBox.log file wrote:
00:00:10.819521 PGMR0PhysAllocateHandyPages: rc=-27 iFirst=8 cPages=120
00:00:10.819525 PGM: Failed to procure handy pages; rc=VERR_NO_PAGE_MEMORY rcAlloc=VINF_SUCCESS rcSeed=VINF_SUCCESS cHandyPages=0x8
00:00:10.819529      cAllPages=0x10865c cPrivatePages=0x523cb cSharedPages=0x0 cZeroPages=0xb6259
00:00:10.819557 PGM: aHandyPages[#0x00] = {.HCPhysGCPhys=00000003302d2000, .idPage=0x000238, .idSharedPage=0x000000}
The VirtualBox PGM (PaGe Manager) is procuring the next set of handy pages (128 4k pages), which is a kind of cached pre-allocation, and thereby causes the next 2 MB chunk to be allocated inside the Windows host OS, which fails for some unknown reason. The first eight handy pages were taken from a previously allocated 2 MB chunk and their host physical addresses are above 12 GB.
mpack
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by mpack »

fonzamundo wrote: But... by default when you make a VM, there is 128 MB assigned to the video card
As a result my VM's wouldn't boot again! So I changed it to 64 MB per VM
I don't believe that 128MB is in fact the default. The default is 16MB, which is not enough for a desktop OS.

But that number isn't relevant here. Virtual graphics RAM comes from host PC RAM, not host PC VRAM.

Now that you've discovered where the host RAM is going, I would be worried about starving your host PC of graphics RAM - unless you're certain you won't need it, e.g. you won't be gaming or running 3D CAD.
fonzamundo
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by fonzamundo »

VM's are still acting up every now and then (can't put my finger on it when, sometimes everything is A-OK, and sometimes they just refuses to boot)
None the less, ordered a (temporary) PCIe VGA-card (MSI GEFORCE GTX 1050 Ti 4GT OC) so I can disable the internal GPU. This will free up all reserved memory and used dedicated VRAM for both host and clients.

Will post an update as soon as card has arrived/is installed :D
mpack
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by mpack »

fonzamundo wrote:None the less, ordered a (temporary) PCIe VGA-card (MSI GEFORCE GTX 1050 Ti 4GT OC) so I can disable the internal GPU.
That should make a huge difference. NVidia does good driver, especially on the OpenGL API side which VirtualBox needs: NVidia drivers do sometimes need you to set preferences appropriately though, e.g. power consumption vs performance.

Referring back to when I earlier used my own PC for reference: mine uses an NVidia GeForce GTX 970, so you should end up with memory consumption close to mine.
fonzamundo
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by fonzamundo »

The next episode in this saga...

This morning I received the new GPU: installed the latest drivers from the NVIDIA-site, connected everything up and of course disabled the internal IGP.
Everything boots fine and all monitors work.

However, once I start the Windows 11 VM in VirtualBox the system crashes completely: all screens turn black for a few seconds, vague error appears (sorry no screencap, not possible as system unresponsive) and the display resolution reverts to 800x600 (just on the mail display, other monitors remain "black")

I even tried to restore the Windows 11 VM to a previous (working) snapshot, but no effect.
Also, I tried to set the USB-controller to 1.1 instead of 3.0, but to no avail (and yes, I have installed the latest Extension Pack)

As usual in attachment the latest logs
Any thoughts are welcome!
Attachments
VBoxLog.zip
(115.25 KiB) Downloaded 9 times
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by mpack »

fonzamundo wrote: Also, I tried to set the USB-controller to 1.1 instead of 3.0
Uh... why?? I'm not aware that USB has been involved in the discussion so far.

The guru meditation error is exactly the same (VERR_NO_PAGE_MEMORY), it's like you did nothing.

The hardening log shows a memory protection fault, this usually means that some DLL got rejected by the hardening checks, though I'm not seeing it in the log. No NVidia DLLs are being rejected - I think because they're not even involved (3D acceleration is not enabled).

However, I am still seeing lots of OpenGL mentions in the hardening logs. Did you uninstall the old graphics drivers? I wonder if they're still hanging around, causing trouble.

Do you have any other VMs, and are they working? (preferably a VM that allocates a similar amount of RAM).

Have you run a host RAM test?

Also, what is drive E: ?

The last thing mentioned in the hardening log, right before the error, is multiple attempts to load "shell32.dll". Have you installed a hacked Windows theme?
fonzamundo
Posts: 8
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by fonzamundo »

I have other VM's: Windows 10, Windows Server 2019 and Linux (pfSense)

All crash with the same problem, except for the Linux-machine: this is based on FreeBSD (64-bit) and uses 16 MB VMSVGA as display controller.
I have never had issues with this VM by the way...

The other Win VM's have 2048 MB per default, but they act exactly the same (even when I increase the RAM to 4096 as in the Win 11 VM)
(And yes this is a little low, but I'm making the VM's for other people/devices who don't have a lot of RAM)

I tried to revert back to OHCI because when "back in the days" this used to help to get everything going again (still don't know why)
Can't hurt to try an old trick, can it? :cry:

Old AMD Graphics driver has been uninstalled
Will check again with CCleaner if everything is removed

RAM test has been completed a couple of days ago (MemTest) and resulted in no errors

E-drive is the drive on which the VM's are located. This is an Samsung 970 EVO SSD with no hardware errors

No hacked Windows theme installed, only the "plane theme" from the Windows Store itself
fonzamundo
Posts: 8
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by fonzamundo »

Small update: even after creating a new VM there is a "Guru Mediation"
Even tried an exported VM (that worked before) and this one also crashes...

As for now, no VirtualBox whatsoever can be used :cry:
fth0
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Re: VM's not starting anymore (out of the blue)

Post by fth0 »

Regarding the newer VBox.log file, I come to the same conclusion as previously: The Windows host OS is refusing the allocation of 2 MB of memory, this time after successfully allocating 1.7 GB of 4 GB. Since the host OS reports having ~13 GB available, I wouldn't expect memory shortage or memory fragmentation to be the cause, but it's not impossible. What happens if you reboot the host and start a Windows VM (*) soon afterwards? Can you alternatively try and boot a Windows VM with 1 GB of RAM provided?

The memory protection fault (as reported in the VBoxHardening.log and the VBox.log files) occurs immediately after the Guru Meditation, and inside the Qt5WidgetsVBox.dll. My educated guess: The VirtualBoxVM process wants to display the Guru Meditation dialog, but the host OS memory situation doesn't allow the necessary memory to be allocated. Note that the base memory of the VM is still allocated at this time.

(*) A Windows OS touches all available memory during booting, thereby enforcing the memory allocation by VirtualBox on the host OS. A Linux OS does not do this, which leads to a lazy memory allocation process. If my assessment above is correct or not, that explains why you have no problem with your pfSense VM.
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