Infinite Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Discussions about using Mac OS X guests (on Apple hardware) in VirtualBox.
TexasChroi
Posts: 15
Joined: 12. Feb 2022, 19:25

Re: Inifinte Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by TexasChroi »

granada29 wrote:What kind of network are you choosing? Your VM does not have access to WiFi so I hope you are not choosing that.

When you say looping, I am afraid I have have never seen this behaviour. Please check the options on each screen carefully and if there is an opportunity to Skip, then choose that.

As I said earlier, all these settings, other than the user name, can be easily changed in the System Preferences when your setup completes.

Hi @granada,

There are only those three screens, and none have an option to skip.

I'm selecting "Local Internet (Ethernet)" as my connection type, with TCP/IP Connection Type as "Using DHCP".
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granada29
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Primary OS: Mac OS X other
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Guest OSses: Linux, macOS, Windows

Re: Inifinte Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by granada29 »

This loop you mention. Does the VM reboot or simply go back to the first prompt of the 3 you have mentioned.

Clutching at straws now, but have you tried disabling Audio in your VM settings?

Sorry I can't be more help but it's very hard to figure out what is going on here.
TexasChroi
Posts: 15
Joined: 12. Feb 2022, 19:25

Re: Inifinte Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by TexasChroi »

granada29 wrote:This loop you mention. Does the VM reboot or simply go back to the first prompt of the 3 you have mentioned.
It just goes back to the first of the three prompts.

@granada29 Appreciate you giving it a shot. If this turns out to be a dead end. I'll start over from scratch, and figure out how to get over the roadblocks I already overcame in different ways.
granada29
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Re: Inifinte Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by granada29 »

I setup a new High Sierra VM on a 2017 iMac and it 'just worked'.

I did not see a screen asking me for the network connection type and I am not sure why you are seeing this.
I accepted defaults for the various settings and skipped setting up iCloud.

I made a few adjustments to the VM settings before starting the VM.

General->Version->macOS 10.13 High Sierra (64 bit)
System->Motherboard->Base Memory->4096MB
System->Processor->Processor(s)->2
Display->Video Memory->128MB
Audio->Disabled
Network->Attached to: NAT
Ports->USB->USB 3.0 (xHCI) Controller

To set USB 3 you must have the Oracle VirtualBox Extensions installed. The Extensions should be available at the same place you downloaded the VirtualBox installer.
TexasChroi
Posts: 15
Joined: 12. Feb 2022, 19:25

Re: Inifinte Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by TexasChroi »

granada29 wrote:I setup a new High Sierra VM on a 2017 iMac and it 'just worked'.

I did not see a screen asking me for the network connection type and I am not sure why you are seeing this.
I accepted defaults for the various settings and skipped setting up iCloud.

I made a few adjustments to the VM settings before starting the VM.

General->Version->macOS 10.13 High Sierra (64 bit)
System->Motherboard->Base Memory->4096MB
System->Processor->Processor(s)->2
Display->Video Memory->128MB
Audio->Disabled
Network->Attached to: NAT
Ports->USB->USB 3.0 (xHCI) Controller

To set USB 3 you must have the Oracle VirtualBox Extensions installed. The Extensions should be available at the same place you downloaded the VirtualBox installer.
Thanks, I created a new VM from scratch and used the setting you specified. When I started it up, it stalled pretty quickly before it got out of the terminal session with the last statement reading "End RandomSeed".
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granada29
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Re: Inifinte Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by granada29 »

That implies a possible issue with your Install macOS iso file. At the point you stalled your are running macOS from the install image. Where did you get the ISO? In my case I am using an ISO created from the 'Install macOS High Sierra' that I had downloaded from Apple. As I said - this works as expected.
TexasChroi
Posts: 15
Joined: 12. Feb 2022, 19:25

Re: Inifinte Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by TexasChroi »

granada29 wrote:That implies a possible issue with your Install macOS iso file. At the point you stalled your are running macOS from the install image. Where did you get the ISO? In my case I am using an ISO created from the 'Install macOS High Sierra' that I had downloaded from Apple. As I said - this works as expected.
I used the instructions from this site to create the iso file:
https://blog.caffeinesecurity.com/creat ... 67eada27af
TexasChroi
Posts: 15
Joined: 12. Feb 2022, 19:25

Re: Inifinte Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by TexasChroi »

granada29 wrote:That implies a possible issue with your Install macOS iso file. At the point you stalled your are running macOS from the install image. Where did you get the ISO? In my case I am using an ISO created from the 'Install macOS High Sierra' that I had downloaded from Apple. As I said - this works as expected.
At the point that it fails, it is no longer running off of the .iso installer. I've disconnected the .iso file from the optical drive and restarted the vm.

I'm not sure how I could have gone wrong with my install file.

Today I started from scratch, and used the InstallerApp2ISO.sh script that @socratis posted on this page <viewtopic.php?f=22&t=81443> against the "Install macOS High Sierra.app" that I downloaded from the Mac App Store.

I created a brand new vm, only making the settings changes @granada29 specified, and still got the "End RandomSeed" error.

Once that failed, I changed the cpu-profile as @SueF posted in this thread <viewtopic.php?f=22&t=100755&start=15> and that got me through a good bit of the install process, but ultimately wound up at the same place I started from - the three screens (country, keyboard, network) looping infinitely.

I feel like I'm really close, and hoping someone can help me get past this recent hurdle and hopefully get my vm up and running.
granada29
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Re: Infinite Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by granada29 »

Thanks for posting the link to the earlier thread, which I see I participated in.

One thing user @SueF did, that you could try, is to change the VM Type (Settings->General->Basic) to 'MacOS X (64-bit)"
TexasChroi
Posts: 15
Joined: 12. Feb 2022, 19:25

Re: Infinite Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by TexasChroi »

granada29 wrote:One thing user @SueF did, that you could try, is to change the VM Type (Settings->General->Basic) to 'MacOS X (64-bit)"
Thanks for the tip, but no luck. I tried modifying the setting on the existing VM, as well as creating a brand new VM. Either way, it got to the exact same place, with it looping between the three screens.

Interestingly enough, and I'm not sure of this is pertinent or not, with the new VM Type setting, I did not need to modify the cpu-profile to avoid the "End RandomSeed" error.
vboxoracle
Posts: 13
Joined: 19. Jan 2022, 00:21

Re: Infinite Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by vboxoracle »

I'd suggest trying Mac OS 64 bit, though High Sierra says supported. My experience has been that Mac OS 64 bit has been stable, while others were iffy. Sometimes it would install, sometime not, sometimes it'd get stuck at the last minute remaining, or just keep installing and rebooting.

I'd select a USB 2.0 controller and change it to 3.0 after you've completed an installation.

Disable Serial ports (disabled by default)

Disable all audio

You can try setting video to about 10MB, since it will only use 7 or 8MB until the Guest Addition is installed, and then max it out (mine is 128MB now). Disable all copy/paste, and file/directory sharing.

Once you get it installed, Make a Clone, and then start with that. If you mess up, or you change something that you cannot ultimately fix, you can delete the Clone and make another. This is to save time since getting as far as a successful installation is very time consuming.

Selecting your CPU type (does it default to host? I manually set mine to host cpu) has a big time effect. My host CPU did not always work, however, when I did this on my Intel Core i7 8750H cpu with 6 cores, it solved essentially all my installation problems. I did not see Core i7 8750H in the supported list, but a Core i7 6700 is (but that didn't work for me).

I ran the following to get my CPU to function normally, though Apple reports it as an Unknown Model/Type at 2.2Ghz.

VBoxManage modifyvm "macOS" --cpu-profile host
VBoxManage modifyvm "macOS" --cpuidset 80000009 00000898 00001004 00000064 00000000

It worked much better. If the CPU blows up your vbox, you can reset it with this:

VBoxManage modifyvm "macOS" --cpuidremoveall

These are all the values you can play with:

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>vboxmanage list hostcpuids
Host CPUIDs:

Leaf no. EAX EBX ECX EDX
00000000 00000016 756e6547 6c65746e 49656e69
00000001 000906ea 02100800 7ffafbbf bfebfbff
00000002 76036301 00f0b5ff 00000000 00c30000
00000003 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000004 1c004121 01c0003f 0000003f 00000000
00000005 00000040 00000040 00000003 11142120
00000006 000027f7 00000002 00000009 00000000
00000007 00000000 029c67af 40000000 9c002600
00000008 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000009 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
0000000a 07300404 00000000 00000000 00000603
0000000b 00000001 00000002 00000100 00000004
0000000c 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
0000000d 0000001f 00000440 00000440 00000000
0000000e 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
0000000f 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000010 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000011 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000012 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000013 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000014 00000001 0000000f 00000007 00000000
00000015 00000002 000000b8 00000000 00000000
00000016 00000898 00001004 00000064 00000000
00000017 00000898 00001004 00000064 00000000
80000000 80000008 00000000 00000000 00000000
80000001 00000000 00000000 00000121 2c100800
80000002 65746e49 2952286c 726f4320 4d542865
80000003 37692029 3537382d 43204830 40205550
80000004 322e3220 7a484730 00000000 00000000
80000005 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
80000006 00000000 00000000 01006040 00000000
80000007 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000100
80000008 00003027 00000000 00000000 00000000
80000009 00000898 00001004 00000064 00000000


Oracle won't tell me what they do, so I attempted on my own until I found success.
TexasChroi
Posts: 15
Joined: 12. Feb 2022, 19:25

Re: Infinite Loop while Loading High Sierra Guest on Monterey Host

Post by TexasChroi »

vboxoracle wrote:I'd suggest trying Mac OS 64 bit, though High Sierra says supported. My experience has been that Mac OS 64 bit has been stable, while others were iffy. Sometimes it would install, sometime not, sometimes it'd get stuck at the last minute remaining, or just keep installing and rebooting.

I'd select a USB 2.0 controller and change it to 3.0 after you've completed an installation.

Disable Serial ports (disabled by default)

Disable all audio

You can try setting video to about 10MB, since it will only use 7 or 8MB until the Guest Addition is installed, and then max it out (mine is 128MB now). Disable all copy/paste, and file/directory sharing.

Once you get it installed, Make a Clone, and then start with that. If you mess up, or you change something that you cannot ultimately fix, you can delete the Clone and make another. This is to save time since getting as far as a successful installation is very time consuming.

Selecting your CPU type (does it default to host? I manually set mine to host cpu) has a big time effect. My host CPU did not always work, however, when I did this on my Intel Core i7 8750H cpu with 6 cores, it solved essentially all my installation problems. I did not see Core i7 8750H in the supported list, but a Core i7 6700 is (but that didn't work for me).

I ran the following to get my CPU to function normally, though Apple reports it as an Unknown Model/Type at 2.2Ghz.

VBoxManage modifyvm "macOS" --cpu-profile host
VBoxManage modifyvm "macOS" --cpuidset 80000009 00000898 00001004 00000064 00000000

It worked much better. If the CPU blows up your vbox, you can reset it with this:

VBoxManage modifyvm "macOS" --cpuidremoveall
Thanks @vboxoracle, I feel like I had tried a lot of these before, but maybe not all at the same time. But whatever reason, it worked this time. Thanks for your help, as well as @granada29, and the other folks that helped me to get this working.
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