Windows Guest Freezes on Ubuntu Host (#16851)

[CapnThudd]

I'm running into a problem whereby my Windows 7 guest VM running on my Ubuntu 16.04 host will freeze and become non-responsive. The VM continues to run and the display locks at the moment the VM froze (including the state the mouse cursor was in), but the guest doesn't respond to keyboard or mouse input. This seems to happen at random. Here are the details of my setup:

Virtualbox 5.1.20
Guest additions installed (same version)
Host is an HP Elitebook Folio 9480m with 16GB of RAM running Ubuntu 16.04 x64
Guest is a Windows 7 x64 VM with 4GB of RAM allocated

lock_VBox.log

(89.79 KiB) Downloaded 21 times

[Perryg]

It looks like a rare situation and very little is known about it but it looks like it may be network related. What happens if you switch the guest to use Bridged?

[CapnThudd]

What happens if you switch the guest to use Bridged?

Not sure. I'm running Virtualbox on a laptop and switch between wired ethernet (when docked) and wifi during the day - this is the primary reason I'm using the NAT network: because it'll seamlessly switch between either host connection without requiring a configuration change on the guest when doing so.

Is there some type of log you'd like for me to produce while attached to a bridged adapter, or is that your recommendation for a work-around to this behavior? Wouldn't mind doing it for awhile, although that usage is likely to wear thin before too long.

[Perryg]

The suggestion was meant as a test to try to isolate the cause but you do what you think best. Like I said it appears to be network related and maybe just the VBox NAT, but AFAIK there are no exact tests to perform. It is also not something that has been reported more than a few times which makes it even harder to diagnose and fix. You can see what the DEVs have to say by creating a ticket at bugtracker with the corresponding log files and a complete description as to what happens and how long it takes to fail. They may have an idea or direction to point you in but I would bet they can not reproduce this since it is so rare.

[CapnThudd]

The suggestion was meant as a test to try to isolate the cause

Ah - in that case, thanks! I've tried to run the virtual NIC attached to this guest with a Bridged Adapter, and while it does work with the ethernet (wired) connection, it does not over wifi - something I suspect has more to do with that pesky Cisco NAC client our security folks have mandated, than with anything configured in Virtualbox or the guest OS.

Part of the problem is that I too have noticed this to be an intermittent issue, but of the last few times it has happened it seems to occur when the VM has been running continuously for long-ish periods of time (4-5+ hours) without the guest being powered off (I usually do this via savestate) or the host's physical network connection changing (stays in the docking station).

You can see what the DEVs have to say by creating a ticket at bugtracker with the corresponding log files and a complete description as to what happens and how long it takes to fail.

I believe I will do this. Once done, I'll report back to this thread with the bugtracker ticket number.

Thanks, again!

[CapnThudd]

Bugtrac Ticket submitted: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/16851