New .vbox file automatically created?

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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Mats62
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New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by Mats62 »

Hi.
For reasons unknown to me, when starting a Linux guest on my Win10 host in the office this morning, a new .vbox file was created. The notable difference between the newly created .vbox and the original one is the VirtualBox version noted in the very beginning. (there are other differences too but I can't really judge what they tell me, if anything) I started that same VM at home this morning, and again after arriving in the office, on the same Dell 7280 laptop. (obviously without changing VBox version in between;-)

The attached archive contains the two .vbox files, the previous log file (from the start at home this morning) and the log file + hardening log from the most recent start, which created that other .vbox file.

I don't know if this is related or not, but it's surely suspicious: While starting the VM here in the office, I had Microsoft Teams started. My now also has an issue that it did NOT have before. That issue (severe sluggishness inside the guest) was NOT present while using it this morning at home. I have seen that same issue on one other similar VM, I kept troubleshooting that one only to give up and making a new copy instead. That other VM, that had performance problems did NOT show these performance problems when someone else imported it and ran it, it was slow only on my computer. (I am trying to get VBox 6.1.12 installed on another PC in the office so I can try the current VM on a different host with the same VBox version. The thought about Microsoft Teams being significant in this case is a hunch, nothing more.

Having an explanation for this would seem very helpful so if anyone has a clue, plse let me know. Thx in advance:-)
Mats
Attachments
whyWin116toWin117info.zip
(90.76 KiB) Downloaded 8 times
Mats62
Posts: 70
Joined: 23. Apr 2018, 08:06
Primary OS: MS Windows other
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Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by Mats62 »

Hi. I just added the setup log from when I installed the GuestAdditions, as it does complain and the version number 1.17 looks eerily familiar.

My GAs seem to work fine so I never thought much of it. Surely the complaint in there about X.Org Server 1.17 modules is just a concidence and has no relevance to the 1.17 vs 1..16 difference in my two .vbox files, right?
(on the other hand, what's the probability of these number actually matching if they're indeed independent?;-)
thx + BR / Mats
Attachments
vboxadd-setup.log
(100 Bytes) Downloaded 4 times
mpack
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Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by mpack »

.vbox files are recreated on every run of the VM. The previous file is renamed ".vbox-prev".
Mats62
Posts: 70
Joined: 23. Apr 2018, 08:06
Primary OS: MS Windows other
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Guest OSses: CentOS 7.6,7.2, 6.2,AlmaLinux 9.1

Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by Mats62 »

Hi mpack, thx, I am aware of that.

What I am asking is why a second .vbox file was created in addition to the "proper one", the newly created one has a version number 1.16. In the meantime I am convinced tha this has to do with what I am showing in the second post, the GA-installatoin complains when trying to install X.Org 1.17. With "proper .vbox" file I am referring to A.vbox, where "A" is the name of the VM. If you look at the attachments you will see the additional file I am talking about. thx + BR / Mats
mpack
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Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by mpack »

That's a backup created when you upgrade VirtualBox, particularly if the new version has .vbox format changes. It provides a way to revert to the old VBox version.
Mats62
Posts: 70
Joined: 23. Apr 2018, 08:06
Primary OS: MS Windows other
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Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by Mats62 »

Hi mpack, just for reference, a directory listing with the automatically created file in bold face:

Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d----- 2020-09-03 6:16 Logs
-a---- 2020-09-02 6:47 3948 newCO72vbox6112-1.16-windows.vbox
-a---- 2020-09-03 6:19 3968 newCO72vbox6112.vbox
-a---- 2020-09-03 6:19 3969 newCO72vbox6112.vbox-prev
-a---- 2020-09-03 6:19 33270267904 newCO72vbox6112.vdi
-a---- 2020-09-02 9:07 159954 VBox.log
-a---- 2020-09-02 7:05 160281 VBox.log.1
-a---- 2020-09-02 9:07 482697 VBoxHardening.log
-a---- 2020-09-02 9:32 92934 whyWin116toWin117info.zip
The GA installation complains about problems when installing version 1.17 of X.org, 1.17 is the VBox version shown in newCO72vbox6112.vbox and 1.16 is the VBox version shown in newCO72vbox6112-1.16-windows.vbox. No changes in between, merely a change in the location of the host laptop. BR / Mats
Mats62
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Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by Mats62 »

mpack wrote:That's a backup created when you upgrade VirtualBox, particularly if the new version has .vbox format changes. It provides a way to revert to the old VBox version.

Hi mpack, thx.
Well, the VBox version did not change, it was 6.1.12 all along, started on the same physical host. The VM itself has only ever seen 6.1.12, it was created specifically in that version to help troubleshoot the issue I am describing in a recent post in "Linux Guests". (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=99636)

The VBox version is 6.1.12 but the two versions listed in the .vbox files are 1.16 and 1.17. How do these version numbers correlate?
To me it seems interesting that my GA installation error happens to mention a version 1.17 of some package, that's the only spot I where I can see a correlation between numbers.

For a brief period I was back on VBox 6.1.2 but I created this particular VM on 6.1.12 after re-installing it when 6.1.2 did not resolve my other issue. Looking at file/directory creation dates, this VM can never have seen anything but 6.1.12.
Any thoughts?
Thx + BR / Mats
Mats62
Posts: 70
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Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by Mats62 »

Hi mpack, just thought of one possibility: It's not very likely but it is theoretically possible that at the time the extra .vbox file got generated, the VM had not yet been run again after installing the GAs. It's unlikely since they ususally get installed right away and for troubleshooting purposes, my VMs have recently seen very frequent reboots. Unfortunately I can't trace that based on file modification dates.... If that is what happened here, the X.Org v 1.16 was initially in place and the GA installation brought with it the v 1.17.
Could that be what happened?
thx + BR / Mats
scottgus1
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Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by scottgus1 »

Mats62 wrote:Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
...
-a---- 2020-09-02 6:47 3948 newCO72vbox6112-1.16-windows.vbox
These files show up all the time. I have them too. As Mpack said, they are made when a version change in Virtualbox's XML format is needed. They may also be made when Virtualbox thinks they need to be made, which may cover why your "only-6.1.12" host's guest now has one. They don't get made often.
Mats62 wrote:6.1.12 ... 1.16 and 1.17. How do these version numbers correlate?
They don't correlate. The .vbox XML format version could get used for dozens of Virtualbox versions.

These files don't cause problems. They never get used again unless a Virtualbox downgrade happens (and maybe not even then), and they won't damage or influence your existing guests that have them show up.

You can safely ignore them.
Last edited by klaus on 28. Jul 2023, 16:11, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Nick change
fth0
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Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by fth0 »

Just out of curiosity:
Mats62 wrote:the same Dell 7280 laptop
Did you use a docking station at one place and not the other?
Or a 'Jabra EVOLVE LINK' headset? ;)

A timeline from 2020-09-02 in CEST:

Code: Select all

2020-09-02 06:47  Last change of old newCO72vbox6112.vbox, later renamed to newCO72vbox6112-1.16-windows.vbox
2020-09-02 06:59  VM start
2020-09-02 07:05  VM stop
2020-09-02 08:54  VM start
2020-09-02 09:07  VM stop
2020-09-02 09:28  Last change of new newCO72vbox6112.vbox
The VM configuration file (.vbox) is automatically modified when the VM is started and stopped, and when the VM configuration is modified by the user (e.g. with VirtualBox Manager or VBoxManage). Did you change the VM configuration after the last run? Did you change it between the runs?

Modifying the VM configuration is one way of implicitly converting the .vbox file. The conversion (including increasing the settings version) is only done if necessary, and in my experiments doesn't create the versioned backup file. I don't really know (yet) what other ways trigger the conversion and creating the versioned backup file. In your case, the differences between the old and new newCO72vbox6112.vbox files consist only of the usual conversion changes and the GA timestamps, without any additional modified setting. The GA update could have been the trigger, but I don't understand the reason for the conversion.
Mats62 wrote:what's the probability of these number actually matching if they're indeed independent?;-)
That's probably higher than one might think, because the XServer version numbers and the VirtualBox Settings Version are both slowly increasing, and VirtualBox is catching up. ;)
Last edited by klaus on 28. Jul 2023, 16:10, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Nick change
Mats62
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Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by Mats62 »

Hi mpack, scottgus1 and fth0, thanks for your inputs and explanations.

I apologize for not having been able to spend much time on the VBox stuff lately. The origin of the filename appears to be this line:
VirtualBox xmlns="http://www.virtualbox.org/" version="1.12-windows"> in VirtualBox.xml which lives in .VirtualBox under my Windows homedir. (somewhat odd to me that it's showing 1.12 at this point, my VBox version is 6.1.12, still)

I am not worried about that file being automatically created and I can happily ignore it. Due to the apparent coincidence with X.Org version numbering it caught my interest originally though, since I do have errors when installing the GAs. Yesterday I looked more closely and found that there's a more relevant backup logfile in /var/log after installing the GAs. (the GA install script points to the current file but the info is in the previous one). My GA installation is indeed going wrong in the area of X-stuff, I'll experiment more with that but it's not unlikely that will result in a new post in the Linux guest forum. My GAs seem fully operational though, which is why I've not paid much attention to that so far.

Back to the auto-generated file:
fth0, yes indeed, one difference between the two starts was "not docked" and "docked", and yes indeed, in the office I do have a Jabra EVOLVE LINK headset.
Can you elaborate a bit on why you were able to hit two home-runs in a row like that? :-)
Thx + BR / Mats
fth0
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Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by fth0 »

Mats62 wrote:fth0, yes indeed, one difference between the two starts was "not docked" and "docked", and yes indeed, in the office I do have a Jabra EVOLVE LINK headset.
Can you elaborate a bit on why you were able to hit two home-runs in a row like that? :)
Sure. You were stressing the fact that it was the same laptop, and I was looking for some unknown differences. The docking station was an obvious guess, because it's very common in business environments and it adds hardware to the laptop. Regarding the headset, take a look inside the VBox.log files you provided. ;)

The audio configuration is a good candidate for the cause of the settings version change, because it's format has changed in the settings files.
Last edited by klaus on 28. Jul 2023, 16:09, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Nick change
Mats62
Posts: 70
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Re: New .vbox file automatically created?

Post by Mats62 »

Hi fth0, thanks, understood.

I guess I'm all set with this topic, thanks fth0 et al:-)
BR
Mats
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