Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
Air Force One
Posts: 105
Joined: 6. Oct 2017, 16:54
Primary OS: MS Windows other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows
Location: Germany

Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by Air Force One »

Hi,

I have Windows 10 host with Windows 10 or 11 guests. Sometimes, if I forget to save the state of the guest before running the monthly Windows updates, I got the exception dialog. It sometimes happens during the saving phase or during the restore of VM. But mostly it runs as it should.

Probably some changes in kernel causes this. I know, this isn't a big problem, but I ask anyway: could it be fixed or is this just so by design and one should just think about it?

I put some logs from the last host update. It is from the current beta, but it also happens with a release versions.
Attachments
Vbox_logs_update_16092022.7z
Logs from update
(33.12 KiB) Downloaded 9 times
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by scottgus1 »

Typically, I never let VMs be running while the host is doing updates, and I also try not to save state unless truly necessary, as in an unexpected UPS-backed power outage shutdown.

Both of the logs appear to show the Virtualbox process crashing while restoring a VM. One thing I find in the logs:
00:00:18.507091 00007ffe79c60000..00007ffe79c6ffff 631f2649 D:\PortableApps\Portable-VirtualBox\app64\VBoxSharedClipboard.DLL
Are you using 3rd-party Portable Virtualbox on your host?
Air Force One
Posts: 105
Joined: 6. Oct 2017, 16:54
Primary OS: MS Windows other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows
Location: Germany

Re: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by Air Force One »

scottgus1 wrote:Typically, I never let VMs be running while the host is doing updates, and I also try not to save state unless truly necessary, as in an unexpected UPS-backed power outage shutdown.
I use save state feature for example if I need to restart the host, not just because of updates. Normally, if I apply some updates, I don't forget to shut down or save the state of the guest. But sometimes, this happens to me and I have to save the state of VM during the update or just before the host reboot.

And as I already wrote, then this error happens. Sometimes during the save part of the process, then you simply have no saved state. Or during the restore part; then you have to drop the saved state. But in most of the cases with host updates and saved state everything works fine.

So, my question is still: could it be improved, or is it so by design and couldn't be corrected?
scottgus1 wrote:Are you using 3rd-party Portable Virtualbox on your host?
I checked this with my installed version and got the same results. So, it isn't a portable issue.
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by scottgus1 »

Please reproduce this with 6.1.38.
Air Force One
Posts: 105
Joined: 6. Oct 2017, 16:54
Primary OS: MS Windows other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows
Location: Germany

Re: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by Air Force One »

Let us wait till the next MS Update...
Air Force One
Posts: 105
Joined: 6. Oct 2017, 16:54
Primary OS: MS Windows other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows
Location: Germany

Re: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by Air Force One »

scottgus1 wrote: 25. Sep 2022, 21:37 Please reproduce this with 6.1.38.

Here are the fresh logs from fresh version. Can't restore the state after the reboot. Saved the state just after the updates were applied and before the actual restart.
Anyway, I just opened the ticket.
Attachments
VBox_708_crash_win_update.7z
(25.25 KiB) Downloaded 1 time
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by scottgus1 »

Air Force One wrote: 20. Jul 2023, 14:12 Can't restore the state after the reboot. Saved the state just after the updates were applied and before the actual restart.
Saved states often don't survive a Virtualbox version change.

Saved states may depend on a particular thing that got changed during a host update.

It is best not to use saved states when changing something on the host, such as running updates or changing Virtualbox versions.
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: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by fth0 »

FWIW, the VirtualBox version is 7.0.8 and the Saved State was also created by VirtualBox 7.0.8. The exception takes place in the VMSVGA FIFO thread, so it's probably graphics related.

Since there have been many graphics related bugfixes in VirtualBox 7.0.10, I doubt anyone is interested in log files from VirtualBox 7.0.8. Note that you've also provided the same "wrong" log file in 21767. It's not enough to name the 7z file correctly. SCNR ;)
Air Force One
Posts: 105
Joined: 6. Oct 2017, 16:54
Primary OS: MS Windows other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows
Location: Germany

Re: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by Air Force One »

scottgus1 wrote: 20. Jul 2023, 14:40 Saved states often don't survive a Virtualbox version change.
This one is understandable. If some internal structures of VBox, which are used in saved state, were changed / added / deleted between some versions - this would explain the error.
scottgus1 wrote: 20. Jul 2023, 14:40 Saved states may depend on a particular thing that got changed during a host update.
This one is also can be comprehended. Good example - I put a VM with saved state on the host with different graphic card or drivers. This one wouldn't work. Or I updated the graphic card drivers on the same host - nearly the same situation. Here one can understand, why here is an error on restoring the saved state, especially in the graphic thread (see the next replay after yours).
scottgus1 wrote: 20. Jul 2023, 14:40 It is best not to use saved states when changing something on the host, such as running updates or changing Virtualbox versions.
Normally, one wouldn't expect that something was changed in Windows GDI during the Windows update. But sometimes it could happen. This is why I opened this topic and ticket - to understand the cause of the error. And the possible mitigation ways.

The rest is in my replay to the fth0 replay.
Air Force One
Posts: 105
Joined: 6. Oct 2017, 16:54
Primary OS: MS Windows other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows
Location: Germany

Re: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by Air Force One »

fth0 wrote: 20. Jul 2023, 22:38 FWIW, the VirtualBox version is 7.0.8 and the Saved State was also created by VirtualBox 7.0.8. The exception takes place in the VMSVGA FIFO thread, so it's probably graphics related.
Thank you for extra analysis! I once again took some look into the logs here, and all the exceptions are in this thread. So it should be graphic related thing.
fth0 wrote: 20. Jul 2023, 22:38 Since there have been many graphics related bugfixes in VirtualBox 7.0.10, I doubt anyone is interested in log files from VirtualBox 7.0.8. Note that you've also provided the same "wrong" log file in 21767. It's not enough to name the 7z file correctly. SCNR ;)
Let me explain something, even if it is not some kind of defense against your completely rightful critic about my version manipulation ;-). To me, it looks like Oracle has silently adopted the same release schedule for VBox as they use for the rest of their products. Previously they released new version randomly, as it was somehow ready to be released. Now it is the same three-month period and the same date as for Java, RDBMS and other products. Maybe there was some announcement, but I missed it.

BTW, since the release of 7.0, the Beta / Development releases also became rarer, or is it just me, who feels that way?

So this leads us to the situation, which we have this month: there were some Windows updates as usual on the second Thursday of the month. And here I could manage to provoke the exception situation, Or it was Microsoft, who did it ;-) . But I already knew, that just one week later there would be new VBox version, so what I have to do?

At the end, if you are right, and this log has not so much value because of all the graphic changes in the 7.0.10 - then all I can do is to wait till another Windows Update, which would trigger this. And to hope, that this wouldn't happen just before the release of the next VBox version.

On the other hand: somebody could take a look on this. If the source of this exception wasn't changed between 7.0.8 and 7.0.10 - then it could be still possibly here. And could be corrected.
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: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by fth0 »

Air Force One wrote: 22. Jul 2023, 14:06 To me, it looks like Oracle has silently adopted the same release schedule for VBox as they use for the rest of their products. Previously they released new version randomly, as it was somehow ready to be released. Now it is the same three-month period and the same date as for Java, RDBMS and other products. Maybe there was some announcement, but I missed it.
First of all, VirtualBox release updates have never been officially announced beforehand AFAIR. If you've been monitoring Oracle's Critical Patch Updates, Security Alerts and Bulletins website, you'll have noticed that VirtualBox received security patches in most quarters of the previous years. And since VirtualBox release updates are a lot of work (at the expense of further development), it seems natural to adapt the release update schedule to the security updates. That's how I usually "guess" the date of the next release updates. ;)
Air Force One wrote: 22. Jul 2023, 14:06 But I already knew, that just one week later there would be new VBox version, so what I have to do?
Simply state the versions used nonetheless. Otherwise, dependent on the reader it could be considered either as mistake or as cheating, and the latter is definitely not what you want.
Air Force One wrote: 22. Jul 2023, 14:06 On the other hand: somebody could take a look on this. If the source of this exception wasn't changed between 7.0.8 and 7.0.10 - then it could be still possibly here. And could be corrected.
Let's hope for the best!
Air Force One
Posts: 105
Joined: 6. Oct 2017, 16:54
Primary OS: MS Windows other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows
Location: Germany

Re: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by Air Force One »

fth0 wrote: 22. Jul 2023, 16:46 First of all, VirtualBox release updates have never been officially announced beforehand AFAIR. If you've been monitoring Oracle's Critical Patch Updates, Security Alerts and Bulletins website, you'll have noticed that VirtualBox received security patches in most quarters of the previous years. And since VirtualBox release updates are a lot of work (at the expense of further development), it seems natural to adapt the release update schedule to the security updates. That's how I usually "guess" the date of the next release updates. ;)
I think we are talking about the same thing but using the different ways. ;-)
If you take a look at the changelog of the 6.1 version, you'll see, that even last year there were more than 4 releases, so it was released not only on the Critical Patch Updates date. And these version was already 3 years old last year! But from the last October, and this means for all official versions of the 7.0, the versions started to be published only on these days.

It may also explain a premature and quick release of original 7.0.0 - they just wanted to catch the October date.
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: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by fth0 »

Air Force One wrote: 24. Jul 2023, 17:07 If you take a look at the changelog of the 6.1 version, you'll see, that even last year there were more than 4 releases, so it was released not only on the Critical Patch Updates date.
You're right, and I probably can explain that, too:

Some of the quarterly VirtualBox 6.1.x release updates had issues that affected many users, and I really mean many users (I know that because I was partially involved in the diagnosis of several of them). So it probably made sense to provide intermediate release updates.

To give you a counter example: The VirtualBox Guest Additions 6.1.44 and 7.0.8 have a bug that you only get a blank screen when running Windows XP VMs. But since there are not that many Windows XP users, only test builds with the bugfix were released. Now imagine that every Windows 10/11 VM would have been affected ... ;)
Air Force One
Posts: 105
Joined: 6. Oct 2017, 16:54
Primary OS: MS Windows other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows
Location: Germany

Re: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by Air Force One »

fth0 wrote: 24. Jul 2023, 22:10 You're right, and I probably can explain that, too:
I can't completely agree with you, and I want to tell you why. ;-) I just have my thoughts about it. You are not wrong because you have your experience from involvement and your statistics. And I have no statistics, only my feelings from my own experience with this software and what I read here about some similar problems. But here is what I think about it:

Here are the release dates of version 6.1 in 2022:

January 18, 2022
March 22, 2022
July 19, 2022
September 02, 2022
October 11, 2022

Only January, July, and October are the Critical Patch Update dates; the other two are not. So, if the issues were so severe and so many users were affected, why did they still wait for 1.5 or 2 months for release?

I agree with you that there could be some big issues that caused some releases outside the band. But on the other side, you see that the March date replaced the April date. And what I mean and why I used 6.1 in the comparison with 7.0 - this is mature software that is 3 years old, so releases because of critical issues should be more rare than with a new software version. But of course, this could also happen with an old version.

I'm a software developer myself, and something here looks familiar to me. Even if I could be wrong. For me, it looks like Oracle is in some state here, like Microsoft was at the beginning of Windows 10. Release dates (twice a year) were more important than working products, so a new version was released with well-known massive problems. After this happened two times in 2018 and the versions had to be withdrawn, MS started to test more deeply. And two years ago, they moved to the "one release a year" schema, especially with Windows 11. Even if they try to break this with their "phase" releases during the year. ;-)

So, for VBox 7.0, it just looks the same to me. The problems with video were reported after the first beta, but only the severe ones (like reboots and black screens) were resolved before the release. Normaly, there are some RC's before the release in December, but not this time. It has to be released in October, with an emergency release just a week later.

I personally have tried to convince somebody who reported these problems and saw no immediate fix for them to stay here, not abandon the product, and give developers another chance. But now, 11 months later, I'm also not so optimistic about such things. It would be better if developers would communicate a bit more.

Like in the case of the graphics in version 7 and Windows 11, it looks like they set on some OpenGL functions, which are not available on every hardware. So my hardware isn't that old—just 10 years—but some of the functions could be missing. It would be better if this were communicated directly, so people would know the cause and that somebody was somehow working on it. Right now, communication goes mostly one way: from the users.

And now, with version 7.0, the releases come only on certain days. I can't tell you how severe the situation with video and Windows 11 is. It just looks like management would like to have only these four releases a year, no matter how. And I know the management games too well. Something would be ignored just because "only 3% is affected", and so on. ;-)

The test releases also became rarer. Maybe there are simply fewer resources at Oracle working on this product; who knows? I just don't want to even start to talk about my major PITA here: the sound subsystem. It has been broken for over 5 years and mostly worked after the last rewrite over two years ago. But some issues have remained unfixed since that exact time. I have to understand that sound virtualization isn't a big priority for this product. ;-(

Another example is missing DLLs in the Windows development version. Is here for 4 weeks already; 3 last versions were affected. But still no reaction; the pipeline just releases the versions for all platforms, including the Windows one. ;-(
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: Windows host updates cause troubles on saving or restoring the VM state, sometimes

Post by fth0 »

Air Force One wrote: 30. Jul 2023, 23:10 Only January, July, and October are the Critical Patch Update dates; the other two are not. So, if the issues were so severe and so many users were affected, why did they still wait for 1.5 or 2 months for release?
Regarding the March 2022 release update, you can check that the April 2022 Critical Patch Update mentions several CVEs. Perhaps somebody reported a security vulnerability and didn't provide the usual 90 days (common Responsible Disclosure practice), but that's just a guess. Regarding the September 2022 release update, perhaps the issue with the Recording settings was big enough. Additionally, creating a release update takes some time and effort, and the availability of test builds allows for sensible planning.

Regarding the comparison between Oracle and Microsoft, you would perhaps be surprised if you knew how few people are working on Oracle VirtualBox in comparison to how many people are working on Microsoft Windows. I won't give any numbers (I don't have them anyway), but VirtualBox was initially developed by a small German company called InnoTek.
Air Force One wrote: 30. Jul 2023, 23:10 Normaly, there are some RC's before the release in December, but not this time.
Well, there were three BETAs and admittedly no RC1. You can easily see all release dates of the past on Index of /virtualbox. The 7.0.0 release was not that different from 6.1.0, though.

Generally speaking, the majority of VirtualBox users probably do not have big issues with VirtualBox 7.0.x. Otherwise, enough of the paying customers would complain and get their bugs fixed. Note that they do get the same version of VirtualBox as the non-paying users coming to the VirtualBox forums.
Post Reply