BSOD when booting after restoring Windows 10 Snapshot

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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Goz97
Posts: 4
Joined: 2. Sep 2022, 11:33

BSOD when booting after restoring Windows 10 Snapshot

Post by Goz97 »

Hello,

I am currently trying to set up a testing framework which is structured in this way: from my local machine I connect over a VPN to a GUI-less Linux host, on which I create and then run multiple Windows 10 virtual machines. Each VM is meant to execute a startup script, which launches a H-T-T-P server, forever listening, to which the Linux host can connect and interact with.

For now I am testing the setup with only a single VM and I am using a VNC viewer to actually see the desktop of the VM. If I boot the VM, normally it works fine; however, it takes about 2 minutes to fully boot and start the H-T-T-P server, and for my testing reasons this is quite a long time, so I reasonably decided to take a snapshot of the VM while the H-T-T-P server is already running and boot it after the restoring.
The shapshot is restored succesfully,then I start the VM and I can see through the VNC viewer that it takes like 15 seconds to boot and show me the Windows desktop with the cmd line window showing the H-T-T-P server running; however, the screen is frozen and cannot be interacted with and after like 20 seconds that the machine has been started BSOD happens and the machine automatically reboots, after which it work fine and can be used as if it were started with a normal boot. This is a problem for me because this process takes even more time than booting the VM normally, more than 2 minutes.

I really do not understand the reason of this issue: I managed to see the error message on the BSOD, it says "MEMORY MANAGEMENT", suggesting the VM ran out of memory and crashed, but I don't get how this can be possible, since the VM works when booting without the snapshot and its settings are exactly the same.

Here's what I tried that didn't work:
- Lowered the RAM to 2 GB (which is the minimum for Windows 10 64-bit to work) and the number of CPUs to 1
- Delete and take again the snapshop (checking each time to load the snapshot with the corresponding amount of memory and cpus)
- Updated Virtualbox to the latest version
- Avoid using the VNC viewer, but checked with repeaed POST requests to see how much does it take for the server to be ready, and this time corresponds to the time of the BSOD case

I attach the Vbox.log of the BSOD crash and the file containing the VM info.

Other info:
- VirtualBox version: 5.2.42_Ubuntur137960
- Extension Packs installed: VNC version 5.2.42
- No Guest Additions installed on the VM
- Host is Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.15.0-191-generic x86_64), with 23 GB of RAM and 8 GB of Swap space.

I'd be glad if anyone could help me, if I missed some information that I had to give please tell me, thank you
Attachments
Log_and_VM_info.zip
(28.63 KiB) Downloaded 4 times
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: BSOD when booting after restoring Windows 10 Snapshot

Post by mpack »

5.2.42 is way too old to expect support here, and in any case you are using the Ubuntu fork (5.2.42_Ubuntu) rather than genuine VirtualBox so you can't get support here anyway.

On the other you installed brand new Guest Additions into the guest.
00:00:42.805219 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 6.1.36 r152435 '6.1.36'
Having GAs newer than the host software is a huge no-no. Clearly it would be impossible for those Guest Additions to be compatible with host software that predates it by about 2.5 years.
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: BSOD when booting after restoring Windows 10 Snapshot

Post by scottgus1 »

Once you clear up Mpack's suggested changes, if the BSODing continues, does 10 BSOD if the http server was not running when the VM was restored? Please try the process without leaving the http server running through the live snapshot.
Goz97
Posts: 4
Joined: 2. Sep 2022, 11:33

Re: BSOD when booting after restoring Windows 10 Snapshot

Post by Goz97 »

mpack wrote:5.2.42 is way too old to expect support here, and in any case you are using the Ubuntu fork (5.2.42_Ubuntu) rather than genuine VirtualBox so you can't get support here anyway.

On the other you installed brand new Guest Additions into the guest.
00:00:42.805219 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 6.1.36 r152435 '6.1.36'
Having GAs newer than the host software is a huge no-no. Clearly it would be impossible for those Guest Additions to be compatible with host software that predates it by about 2.5 years.
Thank you, my bad I did not try to Ctrl+F the log for "Guest Additions". I simply run the "showvminfo" command with the VM turned off and they were not showing, so I thought they were not installed; then I discovered that that piece of information is visible only when running "showvminfo" when the VM is up and running. However, even after unistalling them with "uninst.exe" in C:\Program Files, the BSOD keeps happening. (I attached another log)
The reason why the Guest Additions version 6.1.36 were installed is because I actually imported the VM from another machine, where it was already configured. Should I try instead to install a new Windows 10 VM from scratch?
scottgus1 wrote:Once you clear up Mpack's suggested changes, if the BSODing continues, does 10 BSOD if the h-t-t-p server was not running when the VM was restored? Please try the process without leaving the h-t-t-p server running through the live snapshot.
Yes it happens anyway, even if the server is not running.
Attachments
VBox2.log
(117.66 KiB) Downloaded 4 times
Goz97
Posts: 4
Joined: 2. Sep 2022, 11:33

Re: BSOD when booting after restoring Windows 10 Snapshot

Post by Goz97 »

UPDATE: I followed the suggestion about the mismatch between the Guest Additions version and the Vbox version and proceeded to install a new Windows 10 VM from scratch. After setting everything up as before, I took the snapshot, restored it and run the machine and it worked correctly. So now the problem is solved.

I did not understand why the info about the installed GAs can be seen only when running the command "showvminfo" when the VM is on and it does not show up if instead the machine is turned off. Since I did not see the GAs in the info I did not think about looking for some related messages in the error log.

Anyway, thank you very much for the quick support!
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