Ubuntu 16.04 Guest Random Freezes

[yurtesen]

I had a strange problem for a while. I am using Ubuntu Server Edition with SLIM/xfce installed on an AMD Carrizo laptop. It kept randomly freezing many times. I tried things like changing IDE to SATA vice versa, disable enable 3D, try full 128MB GPU memory, try 1/2/4 core settings. disable audio/usb/serial ports. But nothing helped. The guest completely freezes and virtualbox log shows that it stopped sending heartbeats (that was the only significant message when that happened)

Now I changed operating system from Ubuntu 64bit to Other Unknown 64bit and so far it seems to be working, unless it gets jinxed now0. Unfortunately I don't have the vbox.log from the crashes (because I was stupid and did not copy it). I will take the vbox.log right away when and if it freezes again. (or I will go back to ubuntu 64bit setting after a few days to test it but I am kind of busy using the vm so...). I will update the post right away when I have more information.

Is anybody else having similar problems?

[YourBestFriend]

Do you have enough RAM memory? (Setting > System > Motherboard > Base memory) Try to add some

[yurtesen]

Yes, the host has 16GB ram and I allocated 8GB for the guest. Also a low memory solution would not freeze the guest totally.
In either case, now the machine has been working perfectly for several days with Other 64Bit option selected instead of Ubuntu (therefore memory can't be a problem). I will try Ubuntu again to see if it will crash and if it does, I will be back with the log file.
Thanks.

[mpack]

Please post a VM log file. With the VM fully shut down, right click it in GUI. Select "Show Log" and save "VBox.log" (ONLY) to a zip file. Attach the zip here.

[yurtesen]

Hello MPACK
You are right, I was facepalming myself about why I didnt save the log. But now I had time again and I switched the operating system setting back to Ubuntu 64bit and yes, it crashed as I expected (that was the only setting I changed). Previously it was set to Unknown 64bit and it seemed to work so much better with that setting. (at least no crashes, I will go back to that setting now).
The log file is attached. I can let you know if it crashes in Unknown 64bit also, but earlier I used it for 3 days and it did not crash.
I attached both the frozen state and fully shutdown state logs.
Thanks,

[mpack]

Two problems. First is that you have a dual core host and you assigned both cores to the VM, leaving 0 cores for the host. That alone can cause glitches and stability problems.

Second, you have the Ubuntu fork GAs installed. Not good. If you want to use VirtualBox you need to use the VirtualBox GAs, not someone elses soundalike.

00:00:35.514718 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 5.0.24 r108355 '5.0.24_Ubuntu'

This topic from yesterday discussed the same issue:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=79676

p.s. I see no sign of a crash, and the topic title mentions freezes (hangs), which is a very different thing.

[yurtesen]

It is an AMD processor with 2 modules with 2 cores each with some shared units. If using all the cores can cause problems, you should fix virtualbox so it suggests n-1 cores or do not tell people that using all can cause problems...choose one In addition it shouldnt cause the guest to freeze completely to assign all cores anyway. Look it works fine with VMWARE even when I assign 4 cores! In either case, assigning any number of cores SHOULD NOT cause freezes and it would simply point to a bug in VirtualBox. (so it would need to be fixed instead of telling people to use less cores. It is not a solution!) In either case, I even tried 1 core and guest still freezes sometimes. Actually I tried 1, 2 and 4 cores all ends up same...

Mpack, can you tell me the link to the so called Ubuntu "fork" of the code? It is just packaged for Ubuntu (actually debian), they do not change the code or anything. It is same thing as using a script to do actions instead of doing it manually. If you can't show me that they are modifying the code, then do not blame it as being "soundalike".

Anyway, just to make you happy. I did this:

Code: Select all

$ sudo apt-get --purge remove 'virtualbox-guest-*'

Then this:

Code: Select all

BOXADDITIONS_5.0.26_108824# ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run 
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox 5.0.26 Guest Additions for Linux............
VirtualBox Guest Additions installer
Copying additional installer modules ...
Installing additional modules ...
Removing existing VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules ...done.
Removing existing VirtualBox non-DKMS kernel modules ...done.
Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel modules ...done.
Doing non-kernel setup of the Guest Additions ...done.
You should restart your guest to make sure the new modules are actually used
#

I will try again, but I am pretty sure that it will have no effect... I will return back when it crashes...

[mpack]

It is an AMD processor with 2 modules with 2 cores each with some shared units.

It's an AMD processor with 2 cores. The rest is marketing.

It is impossible for VirtualBox to "fix it" so that 2-2 <> 0.

[Perryg]

they do not change the code or anything

yurtesen, Your statement is just not accurate. They do in fact change the code ( ask their maintainers ). If not then they would have the standard code available, oh wait they do, or did anyway as a stand alone iso. Whether this will or will not fix an issue is not for us to determine we simply do not support anything other than the official builds. Even the self compiled versions of the official builds do not have complete support because it is the up to the user that builds their own to do so. As for your assertion that other virtualizers work, I would suggest that you use them instead since you are happy with the way they work and are somewhat negative with VirtualBox.

[yurtesen]

@Perryg, you are right this time. They have some patches. But then in the source package, there is only a dozen patches and none seem to be related to guest add-ons. (and all are superficial anyway).

In either case, ubuntu was providing version .24 and virtualbox now installed version .26 of the guest addons and it seems to work. Perhaps the issue was fixed in between versions. I will let you know if it happens again.

[yurtesen]

Apparently I talked too soon. It crashed again, the log attached...

[zap150]

Same problem here, using VirtualBox 5.0.22, lubuntu 16.04. Tried updating VirtualBox to 5.0.26 and guest additions to 5.0.26, will post log if freeze occurs again.

EDIT: OK, that was fast. Attaching logfile.

[Martin]

Same problem here, using VirtualBox 5.0.22, lubuntu 16.04. Tried updating VirtualBox to 5.0.26 and guest additions to 5.0.26, will post log if freeze occurs again.
EDIT: OK, that was fast. Attaching logfile.

You don't have enough free RAM to run a 5GB guest:
00:00:01.264733 Host RAM: 8192MB total, 3160MB available
00:00:01.389818 RamSize <integer> = 0x0000000164400000 (5 976 883 200, 5 GB)

[zap150]

Why couldn't I use 5700 GB for the virtual OS, when I have 8192 GB available at the host side? I have used this setting for lubuntu 15.04 for more than a year without any problem... I have EXACTLY the same setting for both versions (15.04, 16.04) with only the latter freezing...

[socratis]

Why couldn't I use 5700 GB for the virtual OS, when I have 8192 GB available at the host side?

Because you do not have 8192 MB available at your host. That's the total installed. Your host needs memory. The memory that remains is the available memory. At the time you launched, you had 3160 MB available. MB, not GB.

I have used this setting for lubuntu 15.04 for more than a year without any problem...

It's a matter of circumstances that you didn't have this problem before. If you reboot your host, I bet that you're going to have 5700 MB available. If you launch Firefox with 150 tabs open and a couple of large databases in LibreOffice, while doing image analysis in Gimp on the collection of those 12 megapixel pictures, you won't have 5700 MB available.