Help: Failing boot on updated kernel

[urilabob]

The instructions under the announcements tab work well (in fedora 12) for configuring X11 so that the screen becomes visible in later stages of the guest boot process. Thanks Sasquatch. Unfortunately they don't seem to help in the early stages - the screen stays unreadable, without the text-only messages one would normally see on a console before X11 comes up. Which doesn't matter while everything is working perfectly, but...

Does anyone know any tricks to get X11 (or any other kind of display) working early in the boot process, so I can get to see the diagnostics being issued about my currently-unbootable guest? (I can get in and edit the guest filesystem by booting from a livecd, but I don't know what to edit to fix the display problem; just fixing xorg.conf doesn't seem to help).

Thanks for any help
Bob

Update:
Changed title to reflect actual content of the thread (main content turned out to be the unbootable guest - still unsolved).
However the lack of boot trace was my mistake, I had left the fedora defaults of quiet and rhgb set as kernel boot options; turning these off at least gives me a boot trace, but doesn't solve the underlying problem of lack of trace for the unbootable guest on kernel update, because it crashes before the first message I assume - nothing comes up on the display.

[Perryg]

Press the Esc key once the splash screen start.

[urilabob]

Press the Esc key once the splash screen start.

But that's the problem, the splash screen never comes up...

[Perryg]

What version of VirtualBox are you using?

[urilabob]

What version of VirtualBox are you using?

I'm using 3.1.4, with Fedora 12 guest. If I use a version of F12 updated to 14 Feb, after the Virtualbox splash screen, it goes straight to the usual F12 bootup screen (the three bars racing across the bottom). However if I boot a version updated to 26 Feb, straight after the virtualbox splash screen it goes to a plain black screen with a cursor, then doesn't respond to anything. This happens even if I keep hitting esc continuously from the time I boot the system.

[Perryg]

It sounds like the kernel was updated and now you are not able to run the guest due to conflicts.
Make sure that the headers are in sync with the latest kernel then from a terminal window run /etc/init.d/vboxadd setup

Also with F12 and the latest versions of VBox you should not need to even have an xorg.conf file. What does the file say? Post it here so I can take a look at it.

[urilabob]

Thanks for your help, Perry,

It sounds like the kernel was updated and now you are not able to run the guest due to conflicts.
Make sure that the headers are in sync with the latest kernel then from a terminal window run /etc/init.d/vboxadd setup

I'm not sure if that is a possible explanation. I tried disabling the new kernel that came with the updates (by editing grub.conf while booted from a liveCD), and that didn't help. Because I can't boot the system, I can't see how to run vboxadd to test it out. One thing I did do after updating, and before rebooting the system, was to re-install vbox guest additions from the virtual CD. That didn't seem to help. I've tried reverting to my latest working snapshot and re-updating maybe half a dozen times now in various combinations (with and without doing a guest additions reinstall, with and without multi-cpu etc) before rebooting. None have succeeded in rebooting.

Also with F12 and the latest versions of VBox you should not need to even have an xorg.conf file. What does the file say? Post it here so I can take a look at it.

Ohhh, I guess that's my misunderstanding of the Howto. I'll try deleting it and see if that helps.
Current xorg.conf is below

# VirtualBox generated configuration file
# based on /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
# Default xorg.conf for Xorg 1.5+ without PCI_TXT_IDS_PATH enabled.
#
# This file was created by VirtualBox Additions installer as it
# was unable to find any existing configuration file for X.

# Section "Device"
# Identifier "VirtualBox Video Card"
# Driver "vboxvideo"
# EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor[0]"
ModelName "VirtualBox Virtual Output"
VendorName "Sun Microsystems Inc"
EndSection

Section "Device"
BoardName "VirtualBox Graphics"
Driver "vboxvideo"
Identifier "Device[0]"
VendorName "Sun Microsystems Inc"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "1280x1024"
EndSubSection
Device "Device[0]"
Identifier "Screen[0]"
Monitor "Monitor[0]"
EndSection

[urilabob]

Ohhh, I guess that's my misunderstanding of the Howto. I'll try deleting it and see if that helps.
EndSection

Deleting xorg.conf had _absolutely_ no effect on behaviour, so I guess it isn't needed, as you said.

[Perryg]

You know I check my F12 and the newest I have is Feb19th. I tried to update just to see if there was a newer version and it said no way.
I know that sometime they release a version update (depending on your repo) and do not include all of the dependencies sometimes and if you snag it too early you need to wait a few days to get the rest of the file via yum update or upgrade. I wonder if that is not what has bitten you since you say yours is Feb26th.

[urilabob]

Hi Perry; well, I tried all your suggestions, also tried again reverting to the previous kernel by editing the grub.conf file, and tracked down a couple of problems that seemed to have been thrown up by selinux :

SElinux prevented mount from mounting to /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-3.1.4/lib/VBoxGuestAddtions
because its type was usr_t rather than mnt_t.

/opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-3.1.2/lib/VBoxOGL.so uses relocation (so I changed to permit relocation)

Neither of these fixed the problem. I don't think it's a temporary out-of-sync problem; I have been trying to update from 18th Feb till now, repeatedly dropping back to my 14th Feb state and attempting to update. Every try, no matter how I vary it, results in an unbootable system.

[Perryg]

Since you can revert to the previous kernel and it works stresses the point that it has something to do with the F12 build. I think if I were you I would travel to the fedora forum and ask some questions. As I said I do not have this problem and since my copy states the 19th and says there are no new updates I don't know what else to tell you.

[urilabob]

Thanks for all your help, Perry. I have taken your advice and posted questions to fedoraforum. But I also now have further clarification. By installing packages individually, I can now say for certain that the problem lies in the latest kernel, kernel-2.6.31.12-174.2.22.fc12(x86-64), not in any other updates. If I install it, I can't boot (presumably, the kernel crashes). What's weird is that editing grub.conf to use the previous kernel doesn't fix the problem. But reverting the whole system does. You said that the same kernel is working for you. It seems that the difference must lie in some difference in either our virtual machines or the underlying host. It would be useful to try to refine this, to figure out what is actually causing the problem. Please can you list any differences between your setup and mine (and anyone else seeing this who has an up-to-date F12, it would be great if you could also compare)

vbox 3.1.4
cpu intel
host 64-bit centos 5.4
guest 64-bit fedora 12
networking bridged

Thanks and Best Wishes
Bob

[Perryg]

My copy of F 12

Code: Select all

$ 2.6.31.12-174.2.22.fc12.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Feb 19 18:55:03 UTC 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

This is running on Ubuntu 9.10 x86_64 but I have a special kernel due to SMP issues with the standard kernel for 9.10

Code: Select all

$ 2.6.32-02063209-generic #02063209 SMP Wed Feb 24 10:09:53 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

You didn't turn on the test updates repo did you? That might be your problem. Go to add/remove software then system then software sources. If you did then I can see where you would have this problem.

[urilabob]

Thanks Perry,

You didn't turn on the test updates repo did you? That might be your problem. Go to add/remove software then system then software sources. If you did then I can see where you would have this problem.

I'm running:
Fedora 12 - X86_64 - updates
RPM Fusion for Fedora 12 - Free
RPM Fusion for Fedora 12 - Free - Updates
RPM Fusion for Fedora 12 - Nonfree
RPM Fusion for Fedora 12 - Nonfree - Updates
only.

I'm quite sure only the first would be supplying a kernel. I'm thinking that the problem might be one of the statically loaded kernel modules. Of course, my suspicion is falling very heavily on networking because bridged networking is really pretty much the only unusual thing I am doing (though I'm having some trouble working out which kernel modules in Fedora are statically vs dynamically loaded, in particular it's not clear to me how the networking modules are loaded). Are you using bridged networking, or some other form?

But none of this would explain why configuring out the new kernel in grub.conf, and booting from the old after updating to the new, would still crash. That's got me completely fooled.

[Perryg]

Humm I am not using rpm fusion on this build. I do on my I686 build and they are both working and totally up to date. I wonder if the files from RPM is creating a dependency conflict ? That seems to be the only thing that I can see that would be different enough to cause you to have problems and not me.