Lots of problems with 6.1.36 so far...consider holding off updating

[T4nkcommander]

Really regretting updating to 36 so far. Worked okay for a bit, but then my VM crashed and I couldn't start it nor could I start Manager. Instead, the Vbox background process would memory leak very fast, requiring it to be killed in Task Manager. Then, if I tried to launch anything Vbox related, it would come up and memory leak again.

Uninstalling to 34 fixed that problem, but broke my VM. I ended up having to rebuild the VM from a backup and reinstall 36 to get everything working again.

Today I noticed I cannot start my [rebuilt] VM in any mode other than Normal. Headless and Detachable immediately fail without writing anything to the logs, only giving the following error message:

Detached start.png (14.21 KiB) Viewed 1390 times

Rolling back to 34 means none of my VMs will successfully launch at all (could not find memory), even if recreated new in 34. 36 they will launch in normal only.

Back to the service portal for me....any ideas in the meantime?

[mpack]

0xC0000005 (memory access error) usually means a hardening problem, and that means it has to do with a recent update on the host, not on VirtualBox or the VirtualBox version.

See FAQ: Diagnosing VirtualBox Hardening Issues.

[scottgus1]

One other thing: if you go to find that hardening log in the error message and it isn't there, or it's only a few lines long instead of pages and pages, it could be a corporate antivirus that got over-aggressive, like Cylance Protect or such. Be sure to let us know if you're in a corporate environment and what antivirus the computer has if you need further help after checking Mpack's link.

BTW:

I ended up having to rebuild the VM from a backup

Major props for having a backup!

[T4nkcommander]

0xC0000005 (memory access error) usually means a hardening problem, and that means it has to do with a recent update on the host, not on VirtualBox or the VirtualBox version.

See FAQ: Diagnosing VirtualBox Hardening Issues.

I did read the hardening article. Upon re-review, I didn't try disabling audio, so I'll give that a shot. My only other guess is the following....

One other thing: if you go to find that hardening log in the error message and it isn't there, or it's only a few lines long instead of pages and pages, it could be a corporate antivirus that got over-aggressive, like Cylance Protect or such. Be sure to let us know if you're in a corporate environment and what antivirus the computer has if you need further help after checking Mpack's link.

BTW:

I ended up having to rebuild the VM from a backup

Major props for having a backup!

I am in a corporation, and remoting in to my work laptop (that is the host). Perhaps that is why? I did test headless launch through RDP on my other computers running 34 and had no problems, but that was through my internal network. Potentially the RDP gap through Zscaler to my primary machine is the issue? I'm not sure I have ever tried headless before in this configuration.....

[scottgus1]

RDP, if implemented through Microsoft Windows RDP, can interfere with running a VM, but not this way that I know of. MS RDP ties heavily into the user account, and when disconnecting might kill the running VMs, since Virtualbox is also tied heavily into the user account. However, I've not seen MS or other RDP cause hardening issues like this.

I am in a corporation

and what antivirus the computer has

What Antivirus does the corporate-controlled laptop use? And did you find the hardening log? If so please zip and post it using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

[T4nkcommander]

RDP, if implemented through Microsoft Windows RDP, can interfere with running a VM, but not this way that I know of. MS RDP ties heavily into the user account, and when disconnecting might kill the running VMs, since Virtualbox is also tied heavily into the user account. However, I've not seen MS or other RDP cause hardening issues like this.

I am in a corporation

and what antivirus the computer has

What Antivirus does the corporate-controlled laptop use? And did you find the hardening log? If so please zip and post it using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

I'm still digging on the antivirus front. I think it is SentinelOne; they were testing it on a few laptops (including mine), but IIRC it got rolled out earlier in the year. Only other one I see is Windows Defender.

I've attached the zipped hardening logs as requested. The first is much smaller, being a VM I'm using to troubleshoot the issue. The second is my main VM. Functionally, the two VMs should be equivalent or close to it.

VBoxHardening.zip

test VM log

(4.11 KiB) Downloaded 3 times

VBoxHardening.zip

Main VM log

(31.32 KiB) Downloaded 5 times

[fth0]

Instead, the Vbox background process would memory leak very fast, requiring it to be killed in Task Manager.

This issue should be fixed in the VirtualBox test builds 6.1.37r152565 and newer. For details, see 21034. For a workaround, see 21034#comment:13.

Address this issue first by using the proposed workaround. Otherwise, the memory eating VBoxSVC process can hit you anytime in any way.