Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Discussions about using Linux guests in VirtualBox.
danielsender
Posts: 58
Joined: 21. Mar 2012, 21:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: centos 7, windows 7
Location: Berkeley, CA

Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by danielsender »

My host is Ubuntu 16.04 (AMD64). My guest is CentOS 7. Everything was running fine with VM 5.0 until I ran an update of the guest (yum update). The VM froze in the middle of the update with a message something like "soft CPU lockup". I was able to resume the update and apparently it was succesful. The problem is that as I start in graphic mode, after choosing the kernel version in grub, a black screen jumps back and forth between two different sizes and it never settles. I inquired on the Ubuntu Virtualisation forum and I was told that 5.0 cannot host CentOS 7, so I installed 5.1.30 directly from virtualbox.org, but I'm getting exactly the same behaviour. I am able to boot in headless mode. I will really appreciate if someone can give me a hand on this. I uploaded the VBox.log file in http://paste.ubuntu.com/25873861/ and the Xorg.0.log in http://paste.ubuntu.com/25873904/.

Many thanks in advance.
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by socratis »

Please attach the image locally in your response (see the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form). Not a lot of people will go to 3rd party sites.

Image
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
danielsender
Posts: 58
Joined: 21. Mar 2012, 21:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: centos 7, windows 7
Location: Berkeley, CA

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by danielsender »

OK - The reason why I uploaded into a pastebin site is because some people don't want to download files. But here we go.
Attachments
log_files.tar.gz
xorg and vbox log files
(33.52 KiB) Downloaded 20 times
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by socratis »

00:00:01.236190 Host RAM: 7907MB (7.7GB) total, 3594MB (3.5GB) available
00:00:01.608739 RamSize <integer> = 0x0000000100000000 (4 294 967 296, 4 096 MB, 4 GB)
You are assigning memory to your guest, that you do not have available. Either close some applications on the host, buy more RAM for the host, or reduce the amount of RAM assigned to the guest.
00:00:01.609373 VRamSize <integer> = 0x0000000000c00000 (12 582 912, 12 MB)
That seems way too low. I would take it to 32, 64 (or my favorite for future use) 128 MB of vRAM.

Finally, you have not installed the Guest Additions in your "vivaldi" (nice name BTW). Follow the instructions in Ch. 4.2 of the user manual to install them in your guest.
danielsender wrote:I am able to boot in headless mode.
Can you also start in "Detachable mode"? You could then show the GUI from within VirtualBox Manager...
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
danielsender
Posts: 58
Joined: 21. Mar 2012, 21:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: centos 7, windows 7
Location: Berkeley, CA

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by danielsender »

I reduced the guest memory to 2048M, increased the VRam to 128MB. I never used the detachable mode, but I did it this time and the situation is not changing at all.

efcharistó
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by mpack »

You probably need to look for advice in the Ubuntu forums. I don't know of anyone else having trouble booting to an Ubuntu desktop with v5.1.30. You might like to simplify matters early on by disabling 3D acceleration: it's pointless to have this enabled before you can boot a guest with Guest Additions installed.
danielsender
Posts: 58
Joined: 21. Mar 2012, 21:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: centos 7, windows 7
Location: Berkeley, CA

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by danielsender »

Looking into the Xorg.0.log I see an error (EE) related to not finding the vboxvideo module. On the other hand, if I do lsmod I see that is installed. The guest additions installation went fine, for example the share folders work OK.
danielsender
Posts: 58
Joined: 21. Mar 2012, 21:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: centos 7, windows 7
Location: Berkeley, CA

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by danielsender »

I did some poking around on another working system that is the same as the one with the problem, and noticed that in /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers there is a symbolic link

vboxvideo_drv.so -> /usr/lib64/VBoxGuestAdditions/vboxvideo_drv_117.so

that is not present in the system with the problem. So after verifying that there are the drivers in /usr/lib64/VBoxGuestAdditions, I manually set a similar link in the system with the problem. I rebooted and the problem didn't go away, and the same error (EE) message appeared in Xorg.0.log. What surprised me (in my ignorance) is that when I checked into the above drivers directory is that the symbolic link had disappeared!!! Just to make sure I repeated the experiment and I got the same result.

What's going on?
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by mpack »

Is this on the host? I can't see what relevance a GAs driver link would have on the host.

In fact I'm not sure that this topic belongs in "Linux Hosts". You seem to be discussing a guest problem exclusively. I will move the topic now to "Linux Guests".
Perryg
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Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
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Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by Perryg »

While the guest is booting and doing this yoyo act, can you press the host+F1 keys and drop to a tty window and log in to text mode?

If so I would first remove the installed guest additions and then reboot to see if the guest actually boots in graphics mode. If that works I would try the guest additions again but be sure that you install the right guest additions that matches your build version of VirtualBox.
danielsender
Posts: 58
Joined: 21. Mar 2012, 21:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: centos 7, windows 7
Location: Berkeley, CA

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by danielsender »

Just to clarify, the host and guest are linux, that is Ubuntu 16.04 and CentOS 7 respectively. And the link I was talking about is in the guest.

I ran the /opt/VBoxGuest.../uninstall.sh and apparently it went OK without any error messages and on the next boot I saw that the folder disappeared. But unfortunately the behaviour didn't change.

Thanks.
Perryg
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Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by Perryg »

Just so I understand you correctly, you did uninstall the guest additions and reboot but the guest still has the same effect, plus you did not install the guest additions again?
danielsender
Posts: 58
Joined: 21. Mar 2012, 21:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: centos 7, windows 7
Location: Berkeley, CA

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by danielsender »

Correct, after un-installing the guest additions I booted the system without installing the guest additions again.
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by Perryg »

Then that suggests something wrong with the OS. Disable 3D acceleration in the guest settings ( if it was enabled ) and see if it boots.
danielsender
Posts: 58
Joined: 21. Mar 2012, 21:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: centos 7, windows 7
Location: Berkeley, CA

Re: Can't boot guest CentOS 7 in graphic mode

Post by danielsender »

I did disable it.
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