virtualbox.org

Hi Folks,

I have VirtualBox 3.2.8 r64453 installed on Ubuntu 9.10, my system is based on the M3A78-CM motherboard. When I try to start a VM I get the error message below.

Virtual Box Error Message
VT-x/AMD-V hardware acceleration has been enabled, but is not operational. Your 64-bit guest will fail to detect a 64-bit CPU and will not be able to boot.

Please ensure the you have enabled VT-x/AMD-V properly in the BIOS of your host computer.

Now after searching online and trying every single suggestion I can find I am still unable to resolve this problem and Im at my whits end. I have tried the following to get this error to SPAM_SEARCH off.
- Updated BIOS to latest version
- Confirmed that the virtualization setting was enabled in the BIOS (cold booting / powering off each time)
- Disabled and re-enabled virtualisation settings in BIOS

All of the posts I have found seem to refer to older versions of VirtualBox that had this issue however I can find nothing similar related to the most recent version (bar people not having virtualisation turned on in their BIOS). But with the posts I have found it seems that it worked with a version of VBox that didnt check for for virtualisation being enabled at all. Also if I look in my log files I see the following error:

HWACCM: No VT-x or AMD-V CPU extension found. Reason VERR_SVM_IN_USE
HWACCM: VMX MSR_IA32_FEATURE_CONTROL=0

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Dave

Hi,

... Reason VERR_SVM_IN_USE

are you running a xen kernel, xen or kvm modules loaded, VMWare or another virtualizer installed ...?

The honest answer is I don't know I will check if I have any other virtualisation apps installed and uninstall them. Is there any way I can check what is using VERR_SVM?

Just removed the KVM module I think. I ran

lsmod | grep KVM

which showed up KVM and KVM_AMD. I removed these using the methods found in this post

used method descibed here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KVM

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-824795.html

first remove kvm

sudo apt-get remove --purge kvm

then to stop module from loading

sudo rm -rf /etc/kvm/ /etc/udev/rules.d/45-kvm.rules /etc/init.d/kvm

I rebooted and did lsmod again to find no KVM running. However I still get the same error message when I go to run VirtualBox.

Any other suggestions for this? I really need to get this sorted, can someone tell me if there is anywhere that offers commercial support for VBox on an ad-hoc basis?

See http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/5639

@Sander - Thanks a million for the link, I had come across it before but then couldn't find my way back to it. I have to say I am a little confused though. The version of VBox mentioned in the bug report/documentation is v3.1.0 and the error/defect is marked as fixed. I am however running v3.2.8 so does this bug even apply? From the documentation it would appear that the issue is KVM however the last statement does not clarify exactly what the problem is and how Oracle/VBox plan to address it in the future:

1. 3.0 and before had a bug that ignored the AMD-V in-use bit set by either KVM or buggy BIOSes
2. 3.1 corrected this to prevent complete system reboots when using other hypervisors at the same time (read Windows 7 XP compatibility mode or KVM for that matter)

The fact that KVM refused to work, just by being installed and not even active, with any other hypervisor for many years until Dec. last year IS NOT OUR FAULT.

- Is this bug still an issue in the latest version of VBox (v3.2.?
- Will removing KVM from a Linux Host resolve this issue?
- You mentioned "for many years until Dec. Last year" - Does this mean that VBox and KVM now play nice together or how are we to interpret this?
- Can you tell me if Oracle is willing to leave the laxy dazy workaround of using an environment variable as a permanent solution to a serious problem?

The workaround/hack is there only for people with a broken BIOS for which no updates are available. If you get the same error after removing KVM, then your BIOS is broken.

To summarize: it's not a VirtualBox bug.