Ubuntu 14.04 won't login (hangs) after upgrade to v4.3.20

[HGohel-ADS]

I had an Ubuntu 14.04 guest VM working very well for months on VirtualBox 4.3.12. Then I upgraded to VirtualBox v4.3.20, and booted into the OS without issues. However after I upgraded the Guest Additions and attempted to reboot, I have not been able to log in successfully. VM fires up, Ubuntu login screen appears, I can type in my name/password, but then it just hangs. I've left it for minutes upto several hours and it never responds. "Shutdown" from the menu doesn't do anything, so all I can really do is choose "Close".

Attaching a log of a session from this morning which was basically: boot, attempt login, wait (only a few minutes), Close. My host OS is Windows 7.1 SP1 Enterprise, with Nvidia Quadro 2000 driver v341.21; antivirus is Microsoft System Center Endpoint Protection. Other Windows OS guest VMs continue to run under this same setup.

This has happened to me on a completely different machine (PC with different hardware) with a completely different installation of Unbuntu 14.04 VM as well. Where I upgraded from 4.3.16 to 4.3.20. Can anyone diagnose the log to see if they spot something? Thanks,

[mpack]

See the security issues discussion in Windows Hosts, and it's antecedents for all VBox versions since 4.3.14.

[loukingjr]

Try reducing the number of cores for your guest to 2. Also reduce the RAM to 2GB. I see you have plenty of Cores but it seems you have 2 6 core Xeons and there might be an issue with multi-CPUs.

Your vbox.log is somewhat confusing to me.
It says you have this processor…

Code: Select all

00:00:08.772231 Full Name:                       Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           X5650  @ 2.67GHz

Which according to intel has 6 cores and 12 threads. X5650

The vbox.log says…

Code: Select all

00:00:08.771782 Logical host processors: 12 present, 12 max, 12 online, online mask: 0000000000000fff
00:00:08.772111 Physical host cores: 12

Which is why I thought you may have 2 CPUs.

[HGohel-ADS]

See the security issues discussion in Windows Hosts, and it's antecedents for all VBox versions since 4.3.14.

@mpack

Thanks for your reply; I looked at the long 12-page thread (again). I do not have KB3004394 on my system (is there anything in my log that indicates otherwise?), nor do I have the follow-up, KB3024777. In that thread, the issue many people have is about not being able to launch the VM. In my case the Windows guests continue to launch and run, but an Ubuntu VM I have launches, lets me log in, but then proceeds to hang. My logs do not contain any of the keywords "hardened", "uxtheme", "WinVerify" etc., so perhaps my issue is different. One thing I need to try based on that long thread is to reinstall VirtualBox which as you pointed out, some users have insisted does the trick.

[HGohel-ADS]

Try reducing the number of cores for your guest to 2. Also reduce the RAM to 2GB. I see you have plenty of Cores but it seems you have 2 6 core Xeons and there might be an issue with multi-CPUs.

@loukingjr - thanks for looking into the log! Yes, I believe my system has 2 physical CPUs (see output of coreinfo below.). Regarding this being a bug with multi-CPUs...on a second system I have where I see a similar problem, is a much older single, quad-core CPU.

Per your suggestion, I reduced the #CPUs to 2, and also reduced memory allocated to the VM to 2GB, but the behavior did not change, i.e. I'm still seeing the VM boot and I can attempt to log in, but it hangs at that point. I'd appreciate any other suggestions you have.

Coreinfo.exe -s -c

Coreinfo v3.31 - Dump information on system CPU and memory topology
Copyright (C) 2008-2014 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals

Logical to Physical Processor Map:
*-----------  Physical Processor 0
-*----------  Physical Processor 1
--*---------  Physical Processor 2
---*--------  Physical Processor 3
----*-------  Physical Processor 4
-----*------  Physical Processor 5
------*-----  Physical Processor 6
-------*----  Physical Processor 7
--------*---  Physical Processor 8
---------*--  Physical Processor 9
----------*-  Physical Processor 10
-----------*  Physical Processor 11

Logical Processor to Socket Map:
******------  Socket 0
------******  Socket 1

[socratis]

@HGohel-ADS: I'm with you on this one, I don't believe it's a security hardening issue or a resource related issue. If it were your guest wouldn't start.

What I didn't see is any sign of installed Guest Additions in your guest. Are you sure they got installed? And secondly, is there a way to start in a text-mode and re-install them? Or uninstall them completely?

[mpack]

I do not have KB3004394 on my system

The referenced thread has nothing to do with KB3004393, though a lot of people have also raised that issue there.

A VM, on a Windows host, that works in 4.3.12 but fails in 4.3.20, is quite like to be related to the hardening issues discussed in the linked topic. If you want me to be sure then post the VBoxStartup.log file (zipped).

[HGohel-ADS]

As @socratis hinted, I suspected that something went wrong during the update of the Guest Additions on the Ubuntu VM I'm having trouble logging into. So I created a new Ubuntu VM and it's been working well for 2 days over several updates, and Guest Additions installed. I'll be more reserved and careful with upgrades/updates in the future, and post here if this happens again. Thanks for all the replies.