Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup (Windows Update?)

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FlexMcMurphy
Posts: 22
Joined: 18. Apr 2021, 01:07

Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup (Windows Update?)

Post by FlexMcMurphy »

Hello,

Host: Ubuntu 20.04 (Mate)
Guest: Windows 10 Pro

Just this morning my Virtualbox has started freezing on me... four times now. Each time the whole screen and laptop freezes up and nothing works anymore so I have to press and hold the power button to do a hard reboot of the laptop.

What things did I change recently? Yesterday I added a share and USB definition to the VM settings. But I have now removed them and the freezing is still happening. The guest Windows 10 Pro updated yesterday and I had to reboot the VM to complete that Windows update. But then Virtualbox continued to work fine for the rest of the day afterwards and I even booted a Manjaro VM and also had no freezing. It is a few days since I last did an apt get update and apt get upgrade on my Ubuntu. Virtualbox has been working fine without freezing since I last did any updates/upgrades to the host.

I have booted up just a Manjaro VM and it has been running fine for half a hour now without any freezing. So the issue may only affect Win 10 Pro guest. Perhaps the Windows Update that I installed yesterday is the cause?

Log attached... Which was when I booted into Win 10 Pro VM and it frooze after a few minutes and I had to press and hold the laptop power button to reset.

Any ideas what is going wrong?

Cheers,

Flex
Attachments
Windows 10 Pro-2021-05-15-13-06-23.log.zip
(23.48 KiB) Downloaded 21 times
Last edited by FlexMcMurphy on 15. May 2021, 20:21, edited 1 time in total.
FlexMcMurphy
Posts: 22
Joined: 18. Apr 2021, 01:07

Re: Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup

Post by FlexMcMurphy »

This issue has gotten even worse for me..

I tried un-installing a Windows update that installed yesterday: Security Update for Microsoft Windows KB5003173

I rebooted the VM and it went back to the Win 10 Guest Desktop.
I then downloaded this tool to block Win 10 updates. Then I clicked on the Youtube video to get instructions about it and as the video was loading everything again frooze and I had to press and hold the laptop power button to restart.

Then when I got back to the Ubuntu mate desktop and started up Virtualbox again.. when I started up the Win 10 VM this time it froze on me immediately. Attached is the log. Once again I could do nothing with the laptop, had to press and hold the power button to boot back up again into Ubuntu mate.

Actually Virtualbox has frozen on me about six times today and almost every time the trigger was clicking on a tab in Firefox in the HOST OS. On another occassion I wasn't doing anything at all except had Win 10 VM running and everything froze.

What has gone wrong? I'm fairly sure this is related to the Windows 10 updates that installed in the Win 10 VM yesterday but now I don't think I can even boot in to the Win 10 VM to un-install and block these updates.

Any ideas?!

Flex
Attachments
Windows 10 Pro-2021-05-15-17-57-16.log.zip
(22.37 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: Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup (Windows Update?)

Post by scottgus1 »

Nothing seems wrong in the two logs posted, aside from them just cutting off, due to the host crashing.

The VM has 3D acceleration enabled, which uses the host cideo drivers to calculate the VM 3D code. Curious that
FlexMcMurphy wrote:almost every time the trigger was clicking on a tab in Firefox in the HOST OS
Maybe coincidence, maybe a video problem.

Please try turning off the VM's 3D acceleration, see if the situation changes (note that the VMs video may change, we just want to see if it stays running.)

FWIW 10 Pro can stop updates natively using the Group Policy Editor:
Run... > gpedit.msc > Local Computer Policy > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > Configure Automatic Updates > set "Configure automatic updating" dropdown to 2 (Notify for download and auto install) or possibly 3 (Auto download and notify for install).
FlexMcMurphy
Posts: 22
Joined: 18. Apr 2021, 01:07

Re: Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup (Windows Update?)

Post by FlexMcMurphy »

Thanks scottgus1

I finally managed to un-install Security Update for Microsoft Windows KB5003173 and set Windows Update to delay installing updates by a week.

My Win 10 VM has been running for a few hours now and so far the freezing has stopped. Uninstalling that update was the only change I made. Six times it froze on me and it always happened within half an hour or so. Maybe that MS Update interferes with Virtualbox 6.1.18 somehow?

If it goes back to freezing again I'll try disabling 3D acceleration and report back.

Cheers,

Flex
FlexMcMurphy
Posts: 22
Joined: 18. Apr 2021, 01:07

Re: Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup (Windows Update?)

Post by FlexMcMurphy »

I'm having this problem again, very frustrating.

I can run the Win 10 VM for about half and hour then everything locks up... keyboard, mouse, applications, nothing works so I have to press and hold the laptop power button to force a reboot.

Attached is the VBox.log file (I think that is the latest one?)

As mentioned earlier in this thread I previously uninstalled a Windows update which seemed to fix things but now the problem is back. Actually before this started happening again there was a moment on bootup of the Win 10 VM I saw a Windows 10 update blue screen message indicating some Windows update had finished installing. But when I went in to view recently added updates in Win 10 I don't see any? So I don't know what I might try to uninstall any update that "might" be causing this latest freezing.

What should I do here and any ideas what has gone wrong? Should I uninstall VB and re-install the latest version?

Cheers,

Flex
Attachments
Windows 10 Pro-2021-05-23-21-31-05.log.zip
(24.06 KiB) Downloaded 7 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: Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup (Windows Update?)

Post by scottgus1 »

3D acceleration is still enabled, and a USB device is inserted. Can you try the VM again, with both of these turned off? This seems to be a host failure, not just a VM crash, and I'm wondering if the extra video or USB interaction may be contributing.

Also, how long will the Manjaro VM stay running? Is it stable all night long, for example?
FlexMcMurphy
Posts: 22
Joined: 18. Apr 2021, 01:07

Re: Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup (Windows Update?)

Post by FlexMcMurphy »

Thanks @scottgus1

I turned off 3d Acceleration now and well I have left the USB key in because I need to use it for something this evening. Another thing I tried was increasing processor cores I gave to Win 10 VM. I have a quad core processor and was only using one of them for Win 10 VM so now I made it two processors. I note that I am using the USB 3.0 Controller but never use any USB 3 devices in this Win 10 VM so maybe I could switch to USB 2 controller?

I'm also wondering, as you say, if the Ubuntu mate host is contributing to my freezing issue. I ended up switching back to my Win 10 Host and installing Virtualbox on there and then setting up a Ubuntu mate VM on it using the exact same ISO file I used to install Ubtunu mate as host on my other drive that has Win10 running as a VM in Virtualbox on it.. I had one example of the Ubuntu mate VM freezing on the Win 10 host not too long after I set it up. This time I was able to force close the VM but the host was unaffected whereas when a freeze happens with the same Ubuntu mate running as the host then I have to force a reboot so is there is something about that Ubuntu mate 20.04.1 ISO that is a bit unstable?

Anyway, I'll report back how it goes.. though I am inclined to switch to Win 10 Host/Ubtunu mate Guest if that is more stable!

Cheers,

Flex
FlexMcMurphy
Posts: 22
Joined: 18. Apr 2021, 01:07

Re: Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup (Windows Update?)

Post by FlexMcMurphy »

Hello,

I'm back again to report that my problem persists. In fact right now the Win 10 Pro VM locks up just a few seconds after I start it up. When it locks up, as always, I can't do anything. I have to press and hold the power button on my laptop and reboot. Log file attached.

I also have another VM with Manjaro and it DOES start up fine and runs ok... well it's kinda slow but it runs without freezing up on me.

Any ideas? Should I try a different Chipset or Extended Features in the VM Settings? Maybe re-install VB to the latest version? Maybe it's my Ubuntu mate host somehow?

Cheers,

Flex
Attachments
Windows 10 Pro-2021-06-04-22-41-29.log
(76.07 KiB) Downloaded 9 times
Martin
Volunteer
Posts: 2560
Joined: 30. May 2007, 18:05
Primary OS: Fedora other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: XP, Win7, Win10, Linux, OS/2

Re: Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup (Windows Update?)

Post by Martin »

Try updating to the current VirtualBox version 6.1.22.
Also try your guest with only 2 CPUs and maybe 4-6GB RAM, not with all of your 4 phyiscal CPU cores.
FlexMcMurphy
Posts: 22
Joined: 18. Apr 2021, 01:07

Re: Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup (Windows Update?)

Post by FlexMcMurphy »

I took your advice and changed the VM settings to 2 of 8 Processors (instead of 4) and 4GB of 16GB memory (instead of 8GB) and now it's running again.

Based on previous experience however I am not confident that it will keep running!

I installed Virtualbox by downloading and double clicking on a .deb file in my Ubuntu mate. How do I upgrade Virtualbox? Just do the same thing and install a matching extension pack version also? Do I need to uninstall anything?

Cheers,

Flex
FlexMcMurphy
Posts: 22
Joined: 18. Apr 2021, 01:07

Re: Virtualbox 6.1.18 freezes shortly after bootup (Windows Update?)

Post by FlexMcMurphy »

My Win 10 VM froze again. I had recently switched from 8GB memory to 4GB Memory and 4 processors 2 Processors. The VM ran OK then for many hours including after a few reboots.

But today it froze again.

Now I will try changing..

Video memory from 256MB to 128 MB
Processors from 2 to 3
Memory from 4GB to 6GB
Graphics controller from VBoxSVGA to VBoxVGA

Log attached.
Is there any other way to debug this?
 Edit:  After applying those changes to the VM settings it froze again within half an hour. 
Attachments
Windows 10 Pro-2021-06-07-12-29-08.log.zip
(19.6 KiB) Downloaded 14 times
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