Host & Guest freeze (lock up) randomly

[robisaks]

Hey All,

Been having this issue for a couple months. Hoping each new release would fix it but so far it has not been resolved.

Host:
Dell Precision m6500 (Laptop)
i7, 8gb RAM
Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.35-23-generic, 64bit
*edit
Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9250410ASG - 250 GB - SATA-300

Guest:
Windows 7 Pro 64bit
(I've also tried Mac OSX and Win XP, similar results)

The Problem:
When I start the guest it will run reliably for a seemingly random amount of time. After a while it will lock up the host and guest systems. It seems the lockup starts by preventing input (Mouse and keyboard become unresponsive, even to unplugging and replugging). If I have a command line open, the curser will continue to blink for a small amount of time before that too locks up. It requires a hard reboot of the machine to recover from this.

I'm pretty sure I can reliably reduce the amount of time it takes for the freeze to happen by opening up youtube on the guest and letting it run through a random playlist.

What I've Tried:
I can't remember all the things I've tried, but I've done a complete reinstall a couple times. Checked a few things I found googling for compatibility issues (KVM comes to mind, not sure about others).

I've tried various configurations, including disabling network, usb, audio, anything non-essential. Hasn't seemed to help.

The Solution:
Whenever we find one...


Has anyone else encountered this? Any ideas?

[Piilen]

I can report having similar problems.
I use a dual-core Core 2 duo with 4 GB of RAM.
I run Linux Mint 9 64 bit (almost the same as Ubuntu 10.04) as my host
I find that sometimes upon starting my WinXP client after a few minutes my hard disk indicator light will go almost permanently on, locking up the whole system - It stays that way a couple of minutes and then normally returns to a normal state.
I have a feeling that if I have a browser open with at lot of tabs it's more prone to happening.
I also have a feeling that this problem started happening after I got an Intel SSD as my primary system-drive. I have some of my virtual machines on this drive and some on an older 500 GB normal hard disk.
The problem seems worse with the virtual machines that are stored on the old hard drive.

[robisaks]

I don't have an SSD, so I am unable to report if it runs more smoothly. The drive in my system is:

Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9250410ASG - 250 GB - SATA-300

[robisaks]

Does anyone know any steps I could take to resolve the issue?

[robisaks]

I'm adding a log here, in case it helps. The actual freeze happend ~20-30 minutes after the last item in the log, which was when I set the VM to fullscreen about 30 minutes after i started it.

[oas_public]

Hi,

I have also this problem but the mouse works. Only the keyboard don't work.
It seems that in some cases a sysmodal dialog or something else on guest (Win7) lock the keyboard.
When I was able bring some guest windows (seamless) with the mouse on top then after some seconds
the lock from the keyboard is released.

I also try kill vbox (via ssh) but this doesn't help. After restart X all works well.

This happend in the 3.2.10 release very often (> 2 times per day) and is very frustrating

Might this give someone a hint?

regards
Dietmar

[robisaks]

Tested on 4.0.4 r70112 and I get the same results. Anyone?

[robisaks]

Did I miss something that warrants no response from anyone on the vbox team? How should I go about resolving this issue?

[Perryg]

This should be addressed right away.

Code: Select all

00:00:00.947 SUP: VMMR0EntryEx located at ffffffffa05f7cf0, VMMR0EntryFast at ffffffffa05f6e30 and VMMR0EntryInt at ffffffffa05f6c60
00:00:00.981 File system of '/home/robi/.VirtualBox/Machines/Win7/Snapshots/{da67c5ae-c1bc-46a0-a785-bf1c91311feb}.vdi' is ext4
00:00:00.981 Console: VM runtime error: fatal=false, errorID=Ext4PartitionDetected message="The host I/O cache for at least one controller is disabled and the medium '/home/robi/.VirtualBox/Machines/Win7/Snapshots/{da67c5ae-c1bc-46a0-a785-bf1c91311feb}.vdi' for this VM is located on an ext4 partition. There is a known Linux kernel bug which can lead to the corruption of the virtual disk image under these conditions.
00:00:00.981 Either enable the host I/O cache permanently in the VM settings or put the disk image and the snapshot folder onto a

Turn off nested paging

Code: Select all

00:00:01.643 HWACCM: Enabled nested paging

Update the guest additions to match the version of VirtualBox.

Code: Select all

00:00:00.747 VirtualBox 3.2.12 r68302 linux.amd64 (Nov 30 2010 14:52:32) release log
00:00:34.340 Guest Log: VBoxService.exe: 3.2.10 r66523 started. Verbose level = 0

Another thing to look at is the screen saver and power management in the guest. There are known issues if these are enabled.

[robisaks]

Thanks PerryG! I will make these changes right away, then report my findings.

[robisaks]

I completed the required tasks, it will now consistantly lock after a minute or so, rather than a seemingly random amount of time.

[Perryg]

Can you also try with the 3.2.12 Guest additions? You will need to remove the new GAs first.
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.2.12/

[robisaks]

Notes:
1I am currently running vbox 4.0.4
"Use host I/O Cache" disables itself, I have to enable it prior to starting the machine every time.

Process Taken:
Booted into machine
Uninstall 4.0.4 additions
Reboot
Upon booting, found new hardware, requested another reboot
Reboot
Install 3.2.12 additions
Reboot
Shutdown, take snapshot.
Re-Enable "Use host I/O Cache"
Boot Machine
Install windows updates
Downloading (100.4mb) complete
Crashed while Installing updates

[Perryg]

I have to say at this point, that since I can not touch this myself I don't know. You should post a ticket at bugtracker

[robisaks]

Ticket #8487