Error after Power Outages

[Rare]

Hello,

We've had some significant snow fall in our area that has caused two prolonged power outages. In two separate incidents I had the host VM server running Windows Server 2012 power off after the battery backup system ran out of battery backup power. This caused the server to shut off unexpectedly. When power was restored, the server booted back up, but when I run VirtualBox I get an error message that says the following: "The virtual machine has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1)" After searching this error code, I found the article below that basically says to reboot the server, and uninstall VirtualBox and then install it again. This happened two times when the power went off, so I can recreate the issue. The link below DOES solve the problem however, why does VirtualBox break every time the host server is powered off?

https://community.oracle.com/thread/3639877

Is there a solution so that I don't have to keep uninstalling and reinstalling the software? I tested this scenario with Hyper-V and the VM's come right back up like nothing happened to them. I am starting to think that Hyper-V might be the better option for us before I get too many more VM's going on VirtualBox, but I really want to support this project if I can. Help needed. Thanks.

[socratis]

I get an error message that says the following: "The virtual machine has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1)"

That's not all you got, is it? Partial error messages are as good as no messages. Plus the error message would have had more details as to where the error was. Without it, can't offer additional advice. Error 1 is the most generic error there is, a lot of things can cause that...

I found the article below that basically says to reboot the server, and uninstall VirtualBox and then install it again.

That article is from 2014, version 4.3.20. A.k.a. ancient in terms of software. It may have worked in your case because something got corrupted, but generally speaking that's not what happens or what's required.

why does VirtualBox break every time the host server is powered off?

Power off means graceful shut down. Yours didn't shutdown gracefully, it "crashed", it "died". With no chance to properly terminate all processes and close all the files. That's a recipe for corruption...

Is there a solution so that I don't have to keep uninstalling and reinstalling the software?

Don't lose power. Get a UPS that has a working battery. Work on a laptop.

I tested this scenario with Hyper-V and the VM's come right back up like nothing happened to them.

The VMs (data) are fine in your VirtualBox installation as well, from what it seems. It's the program that got corrupted...

[Rare]

Can you explain why after an unexpected shutdown of the host VM, that VirtualBox would crash or become corrupted each time? I have experience in Hyper-V and VMWare in large data center environments, so I am well aware of your suggestions as they are best practices we typically do; however in this scenario that is not the case. Unexpected power outage should never cause your host VM software to crash requiring a complete re-install, so I am trying to identify if this is an expected behavior of VirtualBox or something else. VMWare and Hyper-V have never had this issue in all my years of experience so far.

In one case in 2016 we had a massive storm where we lost power in our data center, the battery backup system went offline after our generators ran out of fuel. Once the system switched to battery only, we started to manually shut down all VM's in the DC, however we couldn't complete the task in time and the system went down before we could properly shut off some of the VM's. In that case after power was restored the VM's came back with no issues (not in all cases, i know) The Hyper-V servers booted the VM's no problem and our servers running VMWare came online with no issues either. In fact I have yet to ever experience a Hyper-V or VMWare server host become corrupted.

If this is to be expected from VirtualBox, then this client will need to take more steps to protect their data. The reality is that not all businesses have the ability to purchase and install elaborate long lasting battery backup solutions and not all can afford to use generators. If that was the case they probably wouldn't be using VirtualBox if you know what I mean

[socratis]

You seem to be confusing the data (VMs, pictures, songs, movies, spreadsheets) with the program (VirtualBox, LibreOffice, iTunes). I can assure you that no program is "designed" to get corrupted and require a reinstall, that's an absurd claim. That's your host OS doing the corruption. The program is mostly in memory, so I don't know what your host OS is doing or not. You're lucky that your VMs are not corrupted, that's the important part. The reinstall takes 3 minutes, maximum. Restoring your VM? Not that fast...

As for "precautions"? I think you got it backwards. If I pull the plug of a computer that is up and running, that's my fault, not the program's. Any program's...

I suggest you review your practices and your fuel reserves. If you want to find scapegoats, on the other hand, you have the right mindset...

[Rare]

Hi socratis,

I'm not sure why your not addressing the actual problem presented. I'll explain it a different way. If I have a VM Host running Hyper-V and I pull the plug on that server. I can boot it back up and Hyper-V loads again normally, it's not corrupted. Windows doesn't go "oh you pulled the power so now you have to uninstall Hyper-V and re-install it again". The same is true for VMWare. I've had lots of cases where a VMWare server had the power lost and VMWare loaded right back up after power was restored, no problems. But in VirtualBoxes case, every time power is lost, it corrupts VirtualBox and you have to uninstall it then reboot then install it again to get it working. I don't care about the actual VM's at this point, they are not part of the discussion right now. What I am trying to figure out is if this is normal for VirtualBox to have to be re-installed anytime power is cut to the host.

[socratis]

I'm not sure why your not addressing the actual problem presented.

I'm not sure why you don't want to understand the problem. If a computer loses power, chances of file corruption are increasing exponentially. That's a fact of life. That's why backup generators, UPS and power surge protectors were invented. I hope you understand that part, because it's the 3rd time I'm trying to explain it to you, not sure what more can I say.

Windows doesn't go "oh you pulled the power so now you have to uninstall Hyper-V and re-install it again". The same is true for VMWare ... it corrupts VirtualBox and you have to uninstall it then reboot then install it again to get it working.

Pure coincidence. There's no guarantee that something will, or will not get corrupted. There's no "known pattern" in corruption.

What I am trying to figure out is if this is normal for VirtualBox to have to be re-installed anytime power is cut to the host.

There is absolutely no normalcy in the situation you're describing. There's absolutely no normalcy in a computer losing power all of a sudden. There is absolutely no normalcy in a computer program getting corrupted.

You make it sound like VirtualBox has an "anti-corruption" feature, and there's a command line option, where you could launch VirtualBox with it enabled, and avoid that, something like:

• VirtualBox.exe --enable-no-corruption

Well... there's not. Once again; that's your host OS doing the corruption, not the coruptee. I hope you understand that part, because it's the 3rd time I'm trying to explain it to you, not sure what more can I say.

[Rare]

Thanks for your time.

[mpack]

This discussion seems to be lacking the most basic of data, like a VM log. That's fine if you want the discussion to be pointless speculation, but not if you want informed responses.

VDI does not show a tendency to be corrupted by power cuts. A log would tell me if that's what you used. OTOH if you elected to ignore the template default and went for VHD for example, then the tendency towards corruption is a natural consequence of the poor design of that container format.

Hyper-v is a bare metal hypervisor, there is no container image format hosted by a parent filesystem, so the situation is not comparable at all. If you configured a Hyper-v VM using VHD files then it would be prone to the exactly the same corruption issues as VHD always is.

[socratis]

mpack,
It wasn't the VM that was corrupted. It was the VirtualBox installation (as in the program) itself that got corrupted. The VMs were fine...