VirtualBox 3.1.4 & HostMemoryLow

[deanmreed]

Greetings, all. I've been using VirtualBox for some time and for the past few versions I've been having a lot of trouble allocating > 1GB RAM to any guest VM (all Linux or Solaris machines).

First, some stats:
Host CPU: Intel Xeon W3570 (Quad-core @ 3.20GHz, Hyperthreading enabled, virtualization features enabled in bios)
Intel X58 Chipset
6GB DDR3
Quadro FX 580 GPU
Windows 7 x64 Professional

I've of course searched this forum and Google for troubleshooting steps. There are few 3rd party services installed, and I've tried varying them off during some recent attempts at getting around this error. I've tried to restrict VM to 1CPU. I've used a couple RAM checkers and they've so far come up clean. I've not noticed any other 'oddness' with this workstation. A couple of the RAM entries from the top of the VM log:

00:00:00.153 Host RAM: 6141MB RAM, available: 4144MB
00:00:00.153 Executable: C:\dev\VIRTUA~2\VirtualBox.exe

I installed the app to a directory which gets ignored by my virus scanning process (Microsoft Forefront, managed by domain). During the running of the VM I've ensured to keep the load low. This has been occurring for me now on the past few releases of VBox...sorry for the 'fuzziness' there, but I've delayed posting a message to the boards.

The error is reflected in the log as follows. I'm attaching the log file of a recent HostMemoryLow event with Ubuntu 9.10 guest.

00:06:16.022 Guest Additions capability report: (0x5) seamless: yes, hostWindowMapping: no, graphics: yes
00:20:44.922 PGM: Failed to procure handy pages; rc=VERR_NO_MEMORY rcAlloc=VINF_SUCCESS rcSeed=VINF_SUCCESS cHandyPages=0x10
00:20:44.922 cAllPages=0x884d0 cPrivatePages=0x62f28 cSharedPages=0x0 cZeroPages=0x255a8
00:20:44.923 PGM: Failed to procure handy pages; rc=VERR_NO_MEMORY rcAlloc=VINF_SUCCESS rcSeed=VINF_SUCCESS cHandyPages=0x10
00:20:44.923 cAllPages=0x884d0 cPrivatePages=0x62f28 cSharedPages=0x0 cZeroPages=0x255a8
00:20:44.923 VM: Raising runtime error 'HostMemoryLow' (fFlags=0x2)
00:20:44.923 Changing the VM state from 'RUNNING' to 'SUSPENDING'.
00:20:44.996 Changing the VM state from 'SUSPENDING' to 'SUSPENDED'.
00:20:44.996 Console: VM runtime error: fatal=false, errorID=HostMemoryLow message="Unable to allocate and lock memory. The virtual machine will be paused. Please close applications to free up memory or close the VM"

If anyone has any ideas, they'd be appreciated. Thanks for all the hard work on this spectacular piece of tech!

[kpayne]

I'm having the same problem.

Virtualbox Version 3.1.4r57640 PUEL
Host - Windows 7 (64)
6 GB DDR3
Core i7 720QM
Guest OS - Windows Vista 32

Task manager and process explorer both report 2.8 GB of physical memory "available" (and task manager reports 1.6 GB of physical memory "free").

The VM boots and runs with 1411 MB of memory, but with 1412, it only gets past the windows progress bar, changes resolution (as if it's about to give me the colorful login screen) and pauses. With 1415 MB it pauses much earlier in the boot process (with the windows progress bar animation).

Here is the relevant log portion:

Code: Select all

00:00:50.588 Guest Additions capability report: (0x5) seamless: yes, hostWindowMapping: no, graphics: yes
00:00:58.972 OHCI: USB Operational
00:00:58.974 EHCI: USB Operational
00:01:00.125 EHCI: USB Suspended
00:01:00.125 OHCI: USB Suspended
00:01:01.315 PGM: Failed to procure handy pages; rc=VERR_NO_MEMORY rcAlloc=VINF_SUCCESS rcSeed=VINF_SUCCESS cHandyPages=0x10
00:01:01.315      cAllPages=0x5976f cPrivatePages=0x594ed cSharedPages=0x0 cZeroPages=0x282
00:01:01.316 PGM: Failed to procure handy pages; rc=VERR_NO_MEMORY rcAlloc=VINF_SUCCESS rcSeed=VINF_SUCCESS cHandyPages=0x10
00:01:01.316      cAllPages=0x5976f cPrivatePages=0x594ed cSharedPages=0x0 cZeroPages=0x282
00:01:01.316 VM: Raising runtime error 'HostMemoryLow' (fFlags=0x2)
00:01:01.317 PGM: Failed to procure handy pages; rc=VERR_NO_MEMORY rcAlloc=VINF_SUCCESS rcSeed=VINF_SUCCESS cHandyPages=0x10
00:01:01.317      cAllPages=0x5976f cPrivatePages=0x594ed cSharedPages=0x0 cZeroPages=0x282
00:01:01.317 VM: Raising runtime error 'HostMemoryLow' (fFlags=0x2)
00:01:01.317 Changing the VM state from 'RUNNING' to 'SUSPENDING'.
00:01:02.615 Changing the VM state from 'SUSPENDING' to 'SUSPENDED'.
00:01:02.615 Console: VM runtime error: fatal=false, errorID=HostMemoryLow message="Unable to allocate and lock memory. The virtual machine will be paused. Please close applications to free up memory or close the VM"
00:01:02.616 VMR3Suspend:
00:01:02.616  RUNNING -> SUSPENDING, RUNNING_LS -> SUSPENDING_EXT_LS failed, because the VM state is actually SUSPENDED
00:01:02.616 VMSetError: D:\tinderbox\win-3.1\src\VBox\VMM\VM.cpp(3202) vmR3TrySetState
00:01:02.616 VMSetError: SUSPENDED failed because the VM state is RUNNING_LS instead of <NULL>
00:01:02.616 Console: VM runtime error: fatal=false, errorID=HostMemoryLow message="Unable to allocate and lock memory. The virtual machine will be paused. Please close applications to free up memory or close the VM"

This seems to correspond to the same messages in deanmreed's log.

Please let me know if I can provide any further information that would help.

[teazavr]

I had similar problem (host: XP64), and solved it problem by cutting down current cache size.
I used CacheSet http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... 97561.aspx to accomplish that.

I'm not sure why VirtualBox displays HostMemoryLow error message, but does not attempt to reduce cache size (or at least recommends doing so)

Do not trust to what TaskManager tells, it's a lier. There is some discussion over here:
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14928

Host: XP64,
VirtualBox: 3.2.6
Guests: XP+Ubuntu

[faflu]

Lowering cache size value using CacheSet really works! Thanks teazavr for a hint!

[johnnyabc]

I've been having this error, showing a similar log as in the earlier posts. Cacheset didn't seem to do the trick for me.
Host: Windows 7 64-Bit 6GB
Guest: Windows 2003 64-Bit 3GB

If I use cacheset, I can get the cache to go down to 0KB or even 1024KB, and then run the virtual machine. I've also tried applying the settings while the VM boots.

How (or when) did you implement cacheset when you got this to work?

[pnmcosta]

hi guys,

I'm having exactly the same problem see http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 38#p173638

but am not sure how to proceed with cacheset, when I try to clear the current cache I get and error, and am not sure whether I should decrease the max and/or the min.

thanks for any help in advance.

Cheers,
P.