Soft Lockup

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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TomL12953
Posts: 38
Joined: 16. Mar 2012, 03:15
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Commodore OS, Win 8

Soft Lockup

Post by TomL12953 »

I have Win 11 build 22000.466 and VB ver. 6.1.32 r149290. When I try to run an Ubuntu 20.10 client I'm getting:

[2860.136595] watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#1 stuck for 23s! [systemd:1]

The bold numbers change as it counts up.

*** NOTE ***

The problem goes away if I reduce the number of CPUs to 1 rather than the 2 I had originally.
AndyCot
Posts: 296
Joined: 29. Feb 2020, 03:04

Re: Soft Lockup

Post by AndyCot »

Try 6.1.30 and post here if it works or not. 6.1.32 has issues.
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Soft Lockup

Post by scottgus1 »

If you still have 6.1.32 installed, please let us see a VM log:

Start the VM from full normal shutdown, not save-state. Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the VM from within the VM's OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window for the VM with the Power Off option set.

Right-click the VM in the main Virtualbox window's VM list, choose Show Log. Save the far left tab's log, zip it, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

And if you then revert to 6.1.30 and the VM starts running again, please post a log from that run too, for comparison.
hollowsquare
Posts: 1
Joined: 26. Jan 2022, 04:05

Re: Soft Lockup

Post by hollowsquare »

Reduce your virtual CPU count to 1 and try again. Not a real fix but it should at least let you boot.

This pops up in tickets going back years. See #19561 for example.
vavy
Posts: 3
Joined: 16. Feb 2022, 15:21

Re: Soft Lockup

Post by vavy »

I noticed the same.
The 6.1.32 introduced some bug.

Yesterday I upgraded Virtualbox from 6.1.30 to 6.1.32 and saw this "BUG: soft lockup - CPU#1 stuck for 23s".
My guest machine became almost into an unusable state.
Very unresponsive.
I saw in the Windows Task Manager, that the VirtualBoxVm.exe process on the host OS consumed too much RAM. Gigs of extra RAM, that I didn't observe with 6.1.30.
Host hardware: Lenovo Yoga Gen3, Intel i7, 16 GB RAM, NVMe hard drive;
Host OS: Windows 10 Pro x64 21H2 build 19044.1526;
Guest Machine: 6 GB vRAM, 4 vCPU; USB 1.1; Centos 7.9.2009, kernel 3.10.0-1160.53.1.el7.x86_64.

Today I returned back to Virtualbox 6.1.30 and now I am happy!
It returned back to the usable state as before! Responsive and quick! No any stuck!

And I didn't change any of VM's settings.
Only the VirtualBox' version.
Last edited by vavy on 16. Feb 2022, 16:34, edited 1 time in total.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Soft Lockup

Post by mpack »

Let's see the evidence (the zipped VM log) before we jump to conclusions. Tickets from years ago are almost certainly not relevant.

The most obvious reason for a "CPU lockup" is only providing one core to the VM, and then running a task such as Windows Update that hogs that core. I don't care how many years pass, that one will not be "fixed", because it's user error.
vavy
Posts: 3
Joined: 16. Feb 2022, 15:21

Re: Soft Lockup

Post by vavy »

In my case, it was obvious, that something is wrong with VirtualBox 6.1.32
I have logs from 6.1.32 and then from 6.1.30 from the same VM with the same settings.
In the log from 6.1.32 I see a lot of events:

01:04:12.065467 VMMDev: vmmDevHeartbeatFlatlinedTimer: Guest seems to be unresponsive. Last heartbeat received 4 seconds ago
01:04:17.073224 VMMDev: GuestHeartBeat: Guest is alive (gone 9 012 550 966 ns)

In the 6.1.30's log there are no such events.

And I gave enough vCPUs for the guest VM.

If someone wishes to analyze the logs, please say where should I send the logs to?
(200 kb each)
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Soft Lockup

Post by scottgus1 »

vavy wrote:(200 kb each)
mpack wrote:(the zipped VM log)
Zipped logs fit.

Start the VM from full normal shutdown, not save-state. Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the VM from within the VM's OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window for the VM with the Power Off option set.

Right-click the VM in the main Virtualbox window's VM list, choose Show Log. Save the far left tab's log, zip it, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.
vavy
Posts: 3
Joined: 16. Feb 2022, 15:21

Re: Soft Lockup

Post by vavy »

the logs:
vbox6.1.32-and-vbox6.1.30-logs.zip
Attachments
vbox6.1.32-and-vbox6.1.30-logs.zip
(72.84 KiB) Downloaded 68 times
fth0
Volunteer
Posts: 5668
Joined: 14. Feb 2019, 03:06
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Linux, Windows 10, ...
Location: Germany

Re: Soft Lockup

Post by fth0 »

vavy wrote:I saw in the Windows Task Manager, that the VirtualBoxVm.exe process on the host OS consumed too much RAM. Gigs of extra RAM, that I didn't observe with 6.1.30.
How much was too much RAM?
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Soft Lockup

Post by mpack »

vavy wrote: I saw in the Windows Task Manager, that the VirtualBoxVm.exe process on the host OS consumed too much RAM. Gigs of extra RAM, that I didn't observe with 6.1.30.
That's an old story.

What you are seeing is the host OS caching VDI file accesses. The VM itself is not actually using that RAM, it will be using about as much RAM as you configured it to.
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