Issues due to VBoxSVC.exe process

[AdityaM]

Hello,
When creating, deleting or performing any operations on Virtual Machine(s), a process called "VBoxSVC.exe" is started, and with the closing of Virtual Box, the process should be terminated automatically. But sometimes the this process does not gets terminated, which causes problems in next execution cycle.
I am not able to identify the exact cause of this issue, nor it is easily reproducible. Would you like to suggest any fix or solution with regards to this problem? I have also posted regarding this in one of the existing topics at - viewtopic.php?f=6&t=41630

Is it also dependent sometimes on different releases of VirtualBox?
There is some more info related to this at http://superuser.com/questions/744306/e ... xe-process and https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/2274

Thanks

[socratis]

I am not able to identify the exact cause of this issue, nor it is easily reproducible.

Yes. That's what makes it difficult to fix. Here's a query for VBoxSVC in the bugtracker. Only 47 open bugs: https://www.virtualbox.org/query?status ... r=priority

Would you like to suggest any fix or solution with regards to this problem?

If it was that easy, there wouldn't be 47 open bug reports

[noteirak]

When creating, deleting or performing any operations on Virtual Machine(s)

Please be precise on what you are doing:
- Code sample
- Exact step by step of what you are running, when, under which credentials. Precises commands is the best...
- Be precise in terms of security context - are running under a regular session, under elevated credentials (sudo / UAC), under admin/root account?

sometimes this process does not gets terminated

Without knowing how what you are doing, it's not clear if VBoxSVC should remain in memory or not - any API client (including the VirtualBox binaries like vboxwebsrv) will keep itrunning.

which causes problems in next execution cycle

What problems exactly? Can you describe what you mean by "next execution cycle"?

I have also posted regarding this in one of the existing topics at - viewtopic.php?f=6&t=41630

That topic is from 2011 for a 4.0.x version - That should definitely not be used as the basis for any diagnostics.

Is it also dependent sometimes on different releases of VirtualBox?

Different versions behave in different ways, bugs got fixed, etc... Also, the code between 4.x.x and 5.x.x is basically totally different, so you should never rely on old version posts by default.

[AdityaM]

Thanks for your response, I will try to provide you relevant information for what you have asked, as soon as possible
Regards

[StoneHenge]

I have the same issue, and I wrote up a pretty good description of how to reproduce this bug, but I can't post it because "You must be a member for 1 days and have 1 posts before you can post urls"

I really can't figure out what it thinks in my writeup is one. I guess I'll try posting it tomorrow.

[socratis]

and I wrote up a pretty good description of how to reproduce this bug

Last time there were 47 open tickets on this, now there are 50 (https://www.virtualbox.org/query?status ... r=priority). None of them covers your case?

I really can't figure out what it thinks in my writeup is one.

Usually even the word URL gets filtered out. Or anything that contains something.com|org|etc.

[StoneHenge]

Well, it seems my 24 hours are up, so here is my writeup.

Here are some bug reports that seem relevant (none of the 47 appear to match my specific problem):
https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9983 - Relevant because https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9983#comment:7 mentioned drag and drop sharing does not work, although clipboard sharing of text data (have not tried files, just text data, usually links) has worked just fine for me to and from (in bidirectional mode on) my XP SP3 guest.
https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/14172 - Relevant because if I disable the host only network connection, I can kill vboxsvc.exe without using "taskkill /F /IM vboxsvc.exe" in an admin command prompt - I can just kill it via task manager. However, doing this does not solve the issue I am about to describe.
https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/14711 - Relevant because it involves dragging and dropping, albeit with text, not files.

I think I have the same issue as OP, which seems to have multiple causes. I will detail the cause I have identified here.

I run Virtualbox 5.1.18r114002 (according to vboxmanage -v) under my normal (non-admin) user account, and have stumbled across a bug that makes me unable to use any VMs or launch Virtualbox until I reboot.
The one common factor I have noticed is that I have to try to drag and drop a file in to my guest VM from the host. If I recall correctly, I used to be able to drag and drop files just fine (and that was one of the reasons I used it over VMWare, even though Workstation is available through my university), but if I drag and drop files from host to guest now, it fails. It usually also messes up Windows Explorer in the guest VM somehow (freezes for a bit, and I think I have seen my cursor disappear once).

I have experienced this bug under Windows 2000 and XP SP3 VMs, but I figured it was just a problem with my XP SP3 VM because I had hacked up a custom driver to mod a Razr V3i that made it somewhat unstable. I just recently (sometime in the past week) created the 2000 VM and noticed this problem after installing guest additions (no other software), so it must be a problem unrelated to my VMs themselves.

To reproduce this:

1. Launch a VM with guest additions installed (2000 and XP SP3 work in my experience, but I have a feeling other OSs would probably work as well).
2. If drag and drop is disabled, enable it (I always used bidirectional, have not tested the other options).
3. Drag a file in from Windows Explorer on the host to Windows Explorer on the guest VM (have not tried it the other way around).
4. Windows Explorer will probably act weird for a bit. I have noticed several behaviors for the guest OS, but no side effects for the host OS (except the cursor might still have the drag/drop icon until you hit esc I think). The guest OS might experience:
   • OS lockups
   • Windows Explorer freezing
   • Windows Explorer crashing
   • Chrome no longer going to domains (if you type a new domain/search term in the currently active tab, the favicon changes but the actual page will stay, e.g. if you are on google.com, drag and drop a file, and then go to yahoo.com, the favicon, URL bar, and tab title is Yahoo, but I'm still on the Google search page)
   • Guest additions might crash
   ^These are just what I have noticed on XP SP3, because I just created my 2000 VM and haven't installed anything besides Guest Additions (I actually noticed it when attempting to drag and drop in a Firefox installer).
5. Now, close the VM (I know this happens with shutdown, haven't tried halting/powering off the VM).
6. Close the Virtualbox window.
7. In task manager, Virtualbox Interface will remain active indefinitely (I've seen it last an entire week until Windows Update "intervened").
8. Launching Virtualbox causes Virtualbox Manager to appear in task manager, but no GUI, tray icon, etc. I can kill Virtualbox Manager in task manager, but Virtualbox Interface will not close, no matter how many times I try. This does not happen if I do not try to drag and drop files in - if I do not drag/drop stuff in, Virtualbox will relaunch normally.
9. Running "taskkill /F /IM vboxsvc.exe" in an admin command prompt (normal command prompt does not work, and leaving off /F also makes it not work) will kill the Virtualbox Interface, but when you relaunch Virtualbox, there is still no GUI, tray icon, etc. (it's the same situation as the last step). At this point, the only way to relaunch Virtualbox is to restart the host (I have read you can also just logout and log back in, but I just reboot because I don't like being caught by Windows Update).
   Also, as mentioned above, disabling the host only adapter in network connections allows me to kill it from task manager, no command prompt needed, but that does not do anything to fix this issue. Disabling the host only adapter does not cause vboxsvc to close on its own, either.

I am not running any other VMs when this happens, so it is not a headless VM running in the background preventing vboxsvc from terminating.
Also noteable is that after I shut down the VM after trying to drag and drop files, most vboxmanage commands (e.g. "vboxmanage.exe list vms") hang - it's just blank output with a blinking cursor until I hit CTRL+C to stop the command. "vboxmanage.exe -v" works, but that is the only command I have found that actually works (albeit with very limited testing). And since vboxsvc is supposed to shutdown if there are no Virtualbox instances, I would suspect that dragging and dropping files causes the Interface to stall or hang, but that is a shot in the dark because I know nothing about the code base.

Specs:
Windows 10 Pro x64 host OS
i5-6600 CPU
Gigabyte GA-H170N-WIFI motherboard
16 GB RAM
Asus R9-280 GPU
1 TB SSD, 5 TB HDD

The workaround to this is to not use drag and drop file transfers (and use shared folders instead), but if I forget, I have to reboot the host to gain access to my VMs again, which is always annoying.

[socratis]

Moving to "Windows Hosts" from "The VirtualBox API".