black screen on Slackware with Windows 7 VM

[MarkFoley]

I've done a scratch install of Slackware 14.2. I've installed VirtualBox from the virtualbox.org website, installed the Extension Pack, and done Machine > Add from the Virtual Box Manager. However, all I get is a black screen, forever. I've installed this same VM on this same computer with the same OS before and it ran fine. Does anyone have any idea of what might be wrong? Is there a logfile somewhere? I don't want to have to scratch-install this VM as I've already installed some applications.

The status bar indicates that neither my mouse or keyboard are captured. They were before.

At the top of the screen is the partial message "You have the Auto capture keyboard option turned on. This will cause the Virtual Machine to automatically" - that's it.

THX

[socratis]

I've installed this same VM on this same computer with the same OS before and it ran fine.

While searching your previous posts, you had the exact same problem before. Topic "How to clone?", fourth post:

The VM shows "running", Windows 7 64-bit, which is all correct, but the screen is black.

and then, in your next message:

The VM I restored from must have been corrupted. I tried using an earlier saved version and it worked OK. Thanks.

You seem to be adding VMs from somewhere else. In which case both your old and this thread have misleading titles. Please don't leave important facts out of your description. Your title in this thread could simply have been "Black screen on Slackware when adding Windows 7 VM". Just saying...

Now, based on your last message in the previous thread ("I tried using an earlier saved version"), I have the feeling that you're adding the VM by copying the whole folder from another computer, but not quite properly. The following questions are kind of important:

• Is the VM shut-down before you copy it? Is it paused? Is it saved state?
• Are you in fact copying the whole VM folder?
• What is Host A and what is Host B? Full and exact details please...

You also asked:

Is there a logfile somewhere?

Absolutely. With the VM shut dows (completely, not paused, not saved state, shut down), right-click on the VM in VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log". Save it, ZIP it, attach it to your response. It's actually one of the requirements (Minimum information needed for assistance).

[MarkFoley]

Thanks for serving as my offline memory! I did exactly as you suggested and as I had done previously and ADDED a VM from a previous save and yes, it worked! I will delete the 'bad' VM archive so I don't forget in the future.

I did search for any "black screen" postings and my old one did not come up in the search. Perhaps I should have looked under advanced search.

In any case, thanks for jogging my short-term memory. Problem solved ... again!

LATER ...

I re-searched for my previous "black screen" post and finally found it on page 4. The preceding pages had dozens of posts from the same thread. It might be a nice feature to optionally show only the 1st message of a found thread. I'm not sure how you found that previous post of mine unless you thought to search by author, but good job in any case.

[socratis]

Thanks for serving as my offline memory! I did exactly as you suggested and as I had done previously and ADDED a VM from a previous save and yes, it worked! I will delete the 'bad' VM archive so I don't forget in the future.

I still don't like the way that sounds. As I said, when you copy/move a VM, *or* when you update VirtualBox, always shut down completely the VM down. Not snapshot, not saved state, not paused. Complete shut down. Otherwise you're going to run into problems again.

I did search for any "black screen" postings and my old one did not come up in the search. Perhaps I should have looked under advanced search.

Or under "View your posts"? Top left, under "Board index"?

PS. I loved the URL for this: egosearch

[Martin]

I re-searched for my previous "black screen" post and finally found it on page 4. The preceding pages had dozens of posts from the same thread. It might be a nice feature to optionally show only the 1st message of a found thread.

Using the "Adanced search" you cen select "Display results as Topics".