Guest Additions Problems on Windows 10 Guest(s)

[Old Newbie]

I use Windows 10 Pro and I also run a couple of Win 10 Guests. The Guest machines were created when I was running VB 5.0.16 and were running without incident.

After upgrading to VB 5.0.18 (updated extensions as well), I started to notice that applications would sometimes start to become unresponsive. Slide bars wouldn't slide, keyboard became sluggish, and menu items couldn't be selected (well not exactly - when the menu opened, the first item in the menu list is what would open). Usually, restarting the VM would clear this stuff up - for a while anyway.

Thought that 5.0.20 + new extensions would clear this up, but it has only gotten more frequent. Today, when it occurred again, I opened the Task Manger and found that VBoxTray.exe was using 50% of the CPU. Monitored the situation for about 5 minutes. CPU utilization varied in a range from 45% to 65%. See attached Screen shot:

CPU Usage

Windows _10 CPU.jpg (24.79 KiB) Viewed 9539 times

I have no idea why this is so, but other Windows Guests (7 Ultimate and 8.1.1 Pro) do not exhibit this behavior. EDIT: Spoke too soon. the same thing just occurred in the Windows 8.1.1 Pro Guest with VBoxTray using 55% of CPU.

I am at a loss about what to do about this and actually feel silly posting this, but I've attached the log and vbox file in the attached ZIP file.

Can I go back to 5.0.16? If so, is it as easy as installing 5.0.16 over 5.0.20 and then installing the 5.0.16 extensions?

O.N.

[mpack]

Well, as it happens a convenient download link for the 5.0.16 GAs was recently made available, so you might want to try that first.

http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualb ... 5.0.16.iso

And a terminology issue: there's no such thing as an extension pack problem in the guest. There are addons for both host and guest. To distinguish them we refer to the host addons as the "extension pack", and guest addons are "the Guest Additions".

[Old Newbie]

Thanks for the update on the terminology. I'll try to get it straight in the future.

Being the Old Newbie, I'm a little confused about the link to the ISO you provided. Are you suggesting I install the Guest Additions 5.0.16 over version 5.0.20, or that I install 5.0.16 first and use the ISO to install the guest additions?

Sorry, but when you get to be well over 70, one gets confused more often.

O.N.

[socratis]

Are you suggesting I install the Guest Additions 5.0.16 over version 5.0.20, or that I install 5.0.16 first and use the ISO to install the guest additions?

Having mpack pointing you just to the GAs ISO, I would assume that he wants you to install the GAs 5.0.16 over version 5.0.20.

[mpack]

The point is to see if downgrading just the GAs will affect your problem, rather than reinstalling VirtualBox entirely.

[Old Newbie]

Following the suggestions, I installed the 5.0.16 GAs from the ISO in two of the VMs that were exhibiting the VBoxTray CPU problem.

The first, running Win 8.1.1 as a guest ran yesterday for about 4 hours without the problem occurring. Encouraged, I installed the GAs into one of the two Win 10 guests that were also having the problem. It ran for about 40 minutes before VBoxTray.exe suddenly tied up the system using 60+% of the CPU. Have been watching the task manager for the last 15 minutes and the CPU usage has varied between 45% and 80%.

Screenshot:

Task Manager Details

Windows _10 CPU (1).jpg (22.89 KiB) Viewed 9481 times

O.N.

[mpack]

Well, I guess it's now time to revert the host VirtualBox software to 5.0.16. The fact that the GAs have already been reverted should simplify matters.

This will be the acid test. Frankly I'm wondering if it was a Windows Update (in host or guest) that caused this, rather than a VirtualBox update.

[Old Newbie]

Certainly can't rule out Windows 10 be at fault here.

Can I just install VirtualBox 5.0.16 over 5.0.20, or must I uninstall VirtualBox first?

Many thanks,

O.N.

[mpack]

I guess uninstalling the newer version first is slightly safer, but actually I don't think it should matter. Don't worry, you can't lose your VMs.

[Old Newbie]

After testing all of the VMs that were showing the errant behavior for several hours across the past two days, none of them have had a recurrence since going back to 5.0.16 and installing the GAs from the ISO.

What could I provide to help chase down the cause?

O.N.

[mpack]

I suggest opening a BugTracker ticket for the problem. You'll need a much better description of the problem - I would suggest "VBoxTray.exe eats CPU in 5.0.18 guest", and also provide a link to this discussion.

Note that BugTracker is on a different system, so there's a separate login memory for it. Your Oracle login will still work, as it's also an Oracle site. However on first login you'll be asked to choose a nickname for the BugTracker pages - it's probably less confusing if you use the same nickname as on the forums.

It also wouldn't hurt to have raised this issue in the "Discuss the 5.0.18 release" or "... 5.0.20 release" topics, as those topics are much more visible to the devs.

[imbs]

I am currently seeing almost exactly the same symptoms with a LinuxMint 18 host running a Windows 7 guest. I am running the current 'official' Ubuntu version of Virtualbox, i.e. 5.0.24-dfsg-0ubuntu1.16.04.1

The guest runs fine for quite awhile, but from time to time it gets into a state where I can't resize windows, and if I call up a drop-down menu then merely moving the mouse across the dropped-down list causes it to select the first item immediately, without me clicking. I can still click _buttons_ just fine, alt-tab through apps, close windows, type, etc.

I ran procexp and it shows VBoxTray.exe running continuously at or near 100% CPU. If it's possible to run anything from the Windows Start menu I haven't stumbled onto it; if I pop up the Windows Start menu, as soon as I move the mouse in the direction of anything on that menu it starts the shutdown of the guest, as if I had clicked the Shutdown button (I had not).

I've also noticed (at other times), that keys seem to 'stick'... I am typing and the guest is responding very slowly, then suddenly I get dozens of the last key I pressed. It can be rather disconcerting if I was editing and it does that on a delete line command.

I am attempting to manually install the latest 5.1.12-112440-Ubuntu-xenial_amd64 from the VirtualBox site, but the last time I tried upgrading VirtualBox manually on this machine Bad Things Happened(tm) so I reverted back to the official Ubuntu version. (No, I don't remember what the bad things were, just that it was unacceptable).

I will update on the success/failure of running 5.1.12

[socratis]

I changed the tile of the whole thread to "Guest Additions Problems on Windows 10 Guest(s)" from "Extension Pack Problems on Windows 10 Guest(s)".

@imbs
Keep in mind that if you're using the distro's fork version of VirtualBox, you can either ask in their forums for help, or completely remove their version and install the official version from the Downloads section of VirtualBox (https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads). We can't support the forks as well as the main branch, mainly because we've seen nasty things creep up in the modified forks...

[imbs]

Thanks, socratis.

I have successfully installed the latest 5.1.12 Ubuntu version from the VirtualBox dot org site. (I had to do an sudo apt-get purge virtualbox* before I could successfully install/run the newer version). So far, no problems, but it was fairly rare on the older version, so if it does happen again it could be several days or more.

This is a developer's favorite kind of bug (NOT), because it has only shown up five or six times, and usually after the VM has been up for a long time (days in some cases), meaning it may be difficult to reproduce.

I might point out that my guest is Windows 7, not Windows 10...

[imbs]

Okay. It's doing the same thing again using the 5.1.12 Ubuntu version downloaded from virtualbox dot org.

Mouse 'Automatically' clicks first entry in drop-down menus, VBoxTray.exe continuously at or near 100% cpu.

Again, LinuxMint 18 host, Windows 7 guest.