Gnome shell crashes on clean Ubuntu 22.04 guest, Ubuntu 22.04 host

[alexjacobson]

Thank you for this great forum.

The problem is that my Ubuntu guest logs me out every five minutes or so and I can't get any work done. The cause appears to be that Gnome shell is crashing and I suspect it may be a graphics problem, but I need help with the troubleshooting and this will probably help someone else.

I've been using an Ubuntu 22.04 guest on an Ubuntu 22.04 host with Virtualbox 6.1.34 r150636. Previously I also was running Guest Additions (same version) and a bidirectional shared clipboard, although I uninstalled Guest Additions and disabled the shared clipboard and the problem persists. This is a new computer. I was able to use the VM just fine for a week, and then this started. I have tried the following:

1.

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sudo systemctl stop systemd-ask-password-wall.service

on the guest. The logging out stopped for about 24 hours and then came back. After that restarting this service etc. didn't help.

2. Restore a snapshot from a time when the logging out wasn't happening. No luck. So I inferred the problem was starting from outside the guest.

3. Read lots of forum posts. These problems tend to have to do with graphics issues. I'm using

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VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GA106M [GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile / Max-Q] (rev a1)

4. Found that the most basic behavior that causes the problem was dragging a window around for awhile. Read through /var/log/syslog and journalctl on the guest, and the VirtualBox log on the host, to try to understand what was crashing. Here's what I think is relevant information from the .vbox log:

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00:00:28.842022 Display::i_handleDisplayResize: uScreenId=0 pvVRAM=0000000000000000 w=800 h=600 bpp=0 cbLine=0x0 flags=0x2 origin=0,0
00:00:28.842875 Display::i_handleDisplayResize: uScreenId=0 pvVRAM=00007f5324b97000 w=1920 h=1080 bpp=32 cbLine=0x1E00 flags=0x1 origin=0,0
00:00:28.847634 GUI: UIMachineLogic: Guest-screen count changed

Then I wiggled a window in the guest for 30 seconds, I got a logout, and saw this in the .vbox log:

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00:00:54.499190 Display::i_handleDisplayResize: uScreenId=0 pvVRAM=0000000000000000 w=1920 h=1080 bpp=0 cbLine=0x0 flags=0x2 origin=0,0
00:00:54.500947 Display::i_handleDisplayResize: uScreenId=0 pvVRAM=00007f5324000000 w=800 h=600 bpp=32 cbLine=0xC80 flags=0x1 origin=0,0
00:00:54.502661 GUI: UIMachineLogic: Guest-screen count changed

5. I backed up my VM and uninstalled and reinstalled VirtualBox (same version). No effect.

6. I was using the VMSVGA display and tried other options. No effect.

7. I increased video memory. No effect.

8. I uninstalled Guest Additions and disabled the bidirectional clipboard. No effect.

9. Thinking this may be a mouse issue, I removed the Extension Pack and set my USB controller to USB 1.1 (OHCI) controller. No effect.

10. I read through the .vbox VirtualBox configuration file for my VM and recognized that uninstalling Guest Additions didn't get rid of the configuration file settings stating that I was using Guest Additions and bidirectional clipping. So I backed up the configuration file, created a new Ubuntu VM, compared the two configuration files and deleted the references to the bidirectional clipping and Guest Additions from the configuration file for my VM. That didn't fix the problem.

11. To rule out Guest Additions having an effect completely, I created a new 64-bit Ubuntu VM and booted it from CD with an Ubuntu install .iso with "Try Ubuntu" instead of installing. I repeated the 30-second wiggle and also generated a crash. This time there was no logout since there's no user account apparently. I viewed the /var/log/syslog and the journalctl and saw that Gnome shell is segfaulting. There's an earlier message that may be relevant:

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snapd-desktop-i cannot open display: :0 

. I think this may be an X11 issue?

12. Did more forum searching with my new information and still couldn't get an answer.

13. Posted here.

Here are the .vbox and log files for the clean Ubuntu VM experiencing the seg faulting. I gave the .vbox file a .txt extension so I could upload it. I'll also reply to this post from inside my VM in a moment and attach the journalctl and /var/log/syslog contents.

Thank you very much for your help! I don't want to go to a Windows host.

[alexjacobson]

I'm posting from the Ubuntu guest VM from the last step. As promised, here are the journalctl and system logs. Uploading in parts and through two postings due to size constraints.

[alexjacobson]

Finally, here are the system logs from the guest. Gnome shell crashed and recovered about a dozen times as I was uploading these.

[fth0]

I've been using an Ubuntu 22.04 guest on an Ubuntu 22.04 host with Virtualbox 6.1.34 r150636.

Linux kernels 5.19, 5.18, 5.17.12+ (e.g. Fedora 35 + 36), 5.15.44+ (e.g. Arch Linux 5.15.45-1-lts, Ubuntu 5.15.0-47.51) and 5.10.119+ (e.g. Debian Bullseye 5.10.0-15) and 5.4.200+ (e.g. Ubuntu 5.4.0-126.142) are only supported by VirtualBox 6.1.36 and newer.

10. I read through the .vbox VirtualBox configuration file for my VM and recognized that uninstalling Guest Additions didn't get rid of the configuration file settings stating that I was using Guest Additions and bidirectional clipping.

The GuestProperties section contains mainly status information from previous VM runs, not necessarily from the last VM run. If you convert the UNIX (hint!) timestamp values, you'll see how old they are.

Kudos for the idea to boot the VM from the ISO image, to eliminate installation details from the list of suspects.

[alexjacobson]

Hi @fth0,

I can confirm that upgrading to VirtualBox 6.1.38 fixed the problem! Now I can wiggle terminal windows to my heart's content. There I was thinking that going with the default installation (apt-get install virtualbox) would reduce the chances that I would run into driver incompatibility issues. You live and learn I guess.

Thanks so much for the prompt reply. Also the insight into GuestProperties.

[fth0]

You're welcome, and thanks for reporting back!