Black box with non-blinking underscore

Discussions about using Linux guests in VirtualBox.
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Brotienshake
Posts: 6
Joined: 10. Jul 2021, 07:20

Black box with non-blinking underscore

Post by Brotienshake »

So i tried to read through some posts to figure out the issue but pretty much any common problem didn't seem to do anything. I've checked Hyper-z and 3d acceleration being set to off before starting the machine. I'm also running Ubuntu 20.04 for reference.

Before the black screen i remember sound and videos no longer being able to be played at all, youtube or downloaded. I'm not sure that has anything to do with the issue but that what the initial reason i did the restart, but before restarting it fully i ALSO added in another virtual hard drive since my SSD was getting a bit full and i wanted to see if saving to two different places would work. After the black screen i got rid of the extra drive to see if that would fix anything but now its still not booting properly.

I'm already in the process of getting Ubuntu reinstalled into a new machine file, but i still have the other one around in case i can fix it. My one worry is that i get it far into a project only to accidently touch something and then everything just kind of falls apart again, so if i can avoid making those mistakes I'd really appreciate that. Its likely my fault but knowing what i shouldn't mess around with would sure help in the furture. I also tried to look at the Log attached below but couldn't really read it in a way that really tells me anything i could be doing wrong. If there's any other kind of information needed to help troubleshoot this, let me know. thanks in advance.
Attachments
Ubuntu one-2021-07-10-00-33-32.log
(88.1 KiB) Downloaded 10 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: Black box with non-blinking underscore

Post by mpack »

00:00:03.523199 Host RAM: 16313MB (15.9GB) total, 2292MB (2.2GB) available
...
00:00:03.680217 RamSize <integer> = 0x0000000210500000 (8 863 612 928, 8 453 MB, 8.2 GB)
I don't know what else you're doing on this host, but it's eating up a surprising amount of RAM: and you can't allocate RAM you don't have to a VM.

Same with cores. Allocating 4 out of 4 cores to the VM leaves 0 cores for the host. I guess you must understand that would not be good. Reduce to 2 cores.

The idea with a VM is to find a use for unused host resources. You can't just ignore the question of what resources are available.
Brotienshake
Posts: 6
Joined: 10. Jul 2021, 07:20

Re: Black box with non-blinking underscore

Post by Brotienshake »

mpack wrote:
00:00:03.523199 Host RAM: 16313MB (15.9GB) total, 2292MB (2.2GB) available
...
00:00:03.680217 RamSize <integer> = 0x0000000210500000 (8 863 612 928, 8 453 MB, 8.2 GB)
I don't know what else you're doing on this host, but it's eating up a surprising amount of RAM: and you can't allocate RAM you don't have to a VM.

Same with cores. Allocating 4 out of 4 cores to the VM leaves 0 cores for the host. I guess you must understand that would not be good. Reduce to 2 cores.

The idea with a VM is to find a use for unused host resources. You can't just ignore the question of what resources are available.

That makes sense but i'm not sure if that had a long term effect or not. Things ran fine for a couple days regardless if that was a bad idea to do, and turning them down now doesn't really seen to change anything with the bootup. It'll still pause on that white underscore.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
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Primary OS: MS Windows 10
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Re: Black box with non-blinking underscore

Post by mpack »

I don't see how that addresses any of the points I made. I was not speculating or suggesting, I was quoting definite config errors gleaned from the log. I'll expect you to fix those problems and then let's see where we are, to see whether we need to continue the conversation.
Brotienshake
Posts: 6
Joined: 10. Jul 2021, 07:20

Re: Black box with non-blinking underscore

Post by Brotienshake »

mpack wrote:I don't see how that addresses any of the points I made. I was not speculating or suggesting, I was quoting definite config errors gleaned from the log. I'll expect you to fix those problems and then let's see where we are, to see whether we need to continue the conversation.
ah sorry if i didn't make that clear. I reduced the cores to two and reduced the RAM on the Guest quite a bit a few times to see if making it lower and lower would do anything, but launching the VM still results in a small black screen with the one white mark. I have a different new machine that's able to launch with the 2 cores and a couple gigs for RAM just fine. So I'm not sure how much lower i can make the RAM or cores and expect a result. That's what i was mentioning in my post above, that i changed things but the same result happened.
Attachments
Ubuntu one-2021-07-10-11-04-05.log
log made after reducing cores and RAM
(86.98 KiB) Downloaded 6 times
fth0
Volunteer
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Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Linux, Windows 10, ...
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Re: Black box with non-blinking underscore

Post by fth0 »

Please change Display > Screen > Video Memory to 128 MB. If that doesn't help, post a new zipped VBox.log file, but after closing the VM, so that it also contains the statistics at the end.
Brotienshake
Posts: 6
Joined: 10. Jul 2021, 07:20

Re: Black box with non-blinking underscore

Post by Brotienshake »

fth0 wrote:Please change Display > Screen > Video Memory to 128 MB. If that doesn't help, post a new zipped VBox.log file, but after closing the VM, so that it also contains the statistics at the end.
oops sorry, this should have the end statistics in it. I turned the video memory all the way up and it still returns a black screen
Attachments
Ubuntu one-2021-07-10-12-39-54.zip
file after adding more video memory
(29.35 KiB) Downloaded 6 times
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
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Re: Black box with non-blinking underscore

Post by mpack »

I don't like how long the audio mixer takes to initialize. I would try disabling audio, or choose Intel HD Audio instead of AC'97.

This could be related to other audio problems in 6.1.22, so another option is to install the 6.1.23 test build.
Brotienshake
Posts: 6
Joined: 10. Jul 2021, 07:20

Re: Black box with non-blinking underscore

Post by Brotienshake »

mpack wrote:I don't like how long the audio mixer takes to initialize. I would try disabling audio, or choose Intel HD Audio instead of AC'97.

This could be related to other audio problems in 6.1.22, so another option is to install the (edited out to make quoting work)
I'll try your advice as well but I think I may have found the issue. I saw this screen flash when trying a boot and it says something about the GRUB not working and i think i can probbaly use that as a keyword to look for some fixes for that. the photo is too big to post but the line of code looked like:

Starting GRUB failed boot detection ...
Finished GRUB failed boot detection

I don't know what GRUB is but "Failed boot" seems to fit my issue and i think i can find some other help threads pretty easy now.
Brotienshake
Posts: 6
Joined: 10. Jul 2021, 07:20

Re: Black box with non-blinking underscore

Post by Brotienshake »

actually i think at this point it might just be a good idea just to scrap the old Ubuntu and just, keep my new one and be a lot more careful with making a backup or two i can use in case i accidently touch something i shouldn't, since it seems like the issue at hand is something that requires a lot more fiddling around that i likely know how to do without someone holding my hand for me and taking up a lot of time.

BUT thanks for all the help in trying to figure out the issue with me.
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