Virtualbox guest going to “stuck” state

[rafael-w]

Hello folks,
I am having a problem with some of my VirtualBox guests. It seems that once in a while some Virtualbox guests are switching to a state called “stuck”. I tried to google it, but this state name does not help much. Does anyone have any ideas on what is causing this?
Some details regarding my system:
Kernel: 4.4.0-93-generic #116-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 11 21:17:51 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
O.S.: Ubuntu 16.04
Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2690 v2 @ 3.00GHz
VirtualBox version: Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager 5.0.40_Ubuntu

Any hint would be much appreciated.

[Perryg]

Post the guests log file ( as an attachment ). Right click on the guest in the Main Manager then click show log. Save and post as an attachment. Compress if it is too large to post.

[rafael-w]

Log attached.

[Perryg]

RING0_ASSERTION is never a good thing to have. There are a few things I see in the log that does not help.

• 1) you are running the Ubuntu fork of VirtualBox ( OSE ) and that will need to be addressed with them
  2) XEN server usually does not work well in a virtualizer evident with all the "VERR_INVALID_PARAMETER" and other paging errors.

You can try removing the Ubuntu fork and installing the official version from virtualbox.org and a newer version would not hurt either.

[rafael-w]

I just updated for the latest version of Virtualbox and got the same error
What do you mean by "RING0_ASSERTION" is never a good sign?

Attached is the new log file.

Any other ideas on how to proceed with this problem?

[Perryg]

You should take care of this issue as well.

Code: Select all

00:00:00.025543   Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack (Version: 5.0.40 r115130; VRDE Module: VBoxVRDP unusable because of 'VBoxExtPackRegister returned VERR_VERSION_MISMATCH, pReg=0000000000000000 ErrInfo='VirtualBox version mismatch - expected 5.0 got 5.1'')

See the following for explination or the rings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_ring

Something is trying to do something that is not allowed or is potentially dangerous.

[rafael-w]

The message "VirtualBox version mismatch - expected 5.0 got 5.1", I did not understand because I installed the version 5.1 of virtualbox. Why would it want the version 5.0 for the VBoxVRDP?

I will ready a little bit about the protection ring.
Thanks for the help so far.

[Perryg]

That message means that you still have the 5.0.* extension pack installed and you need to remove it and use the one that matches your installed version of VirtualBox.

Here's the link http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualb ... ox-extpack

[rafael-w]

Perryg, I was reading the log.
I notice the following:

Code: Select all

00:12:59.936193 !!R0-Assertion Failed!!
00:12:59.936193 Expression: RT_SUCCESS_NP(rc)
00:12:59.936194 Location  : /home/vbox/vbox-5.1.28/src/VBox/VMM/VMMAll/PGMAllPool.cpp(2618) int pgmPoolMonitorInsert(PPGMPOOL, PPGMPOOLPAGE)
00:12:59.936210 PGMHandlerPhysicalRegisterEx 0000000407bd8000 failed with -1701
00:12:59.936228 Changing the VM state from 'RUNNING' to 'GURU_MEDITATION'
00:12:59.936238 Console: Machine state changed to 'GuruMeditation'
00:12:59.936498 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
00:12:59.936499 !!
00:12:59.936499 !!         VCPU1: Guru Meditation -2701 (VERR_VMM_RING0_ASSERTION)
00:12:59.936507 !!
00:12:59.936548 !!R0-Assertion Failed!!
00:12:59.936549 Expression: RT_SUCCESS_NP(rc)
00:12:59.936549 Location  : /home/vbox/vbox-5.1.28/src/VBox/VMM/VMMAll/PGMAllPool.cpp(2618) int pgmPoolMonitorInsert(PPGMPOOL, PPGMPOOLPAGE)
00:12:59.936550 PGMHandlerPhysicalRegisterEx 0000000407bd8000 failed with -1701
00:12:59.936561 !! ACTIVE TRAP=0e ERRCD=0000000000000000 CR2=ffff813f92089e38 PC=ffff82d080172d0f Type=0 cbInstr=ff (Guest!)
00:12:59.936581 !!
00:12:59.936581 !! CallRing3JmpBuf:
00:12:59.936582 !!

This is the Ring problem you mentioned. What is virtualbox trying to do when executing that method "pgmPoolMonitorInsert" that caused this problem?

[Perryg]

I believe you will find it is the guest that is trying to inject something and not VirtualBox. Like I said earlier I don't believe XEN runs properly in a virtualizer, but since I don't try to run nested with anything other than VirtualBox I could not say it is a for sure thing. Do you have other guests that are not XEN and do they work properly?

[rafael-w]

Yes I do have other guests, but the interesting thing is that I have 6 XenServer guests, and only one of them is presenting this behavior.
BTW: I am updating that component as you suggested as well.

[Perryg]

The best I can tell you is to compare the ones that work with the one that does not. Like I said I have not tried to run XEN nested. Typically nesting is not supported at all although sometime you can make it work.

[rafael-w]

Hi Perryg,
I changed the amount of memory allocated to the problematic VM. Before it was using 16GB, and now I changed to 8GB. The VM is not going to this "Stuck" state anymore.

Does that make any sense? A limitation on Virtualbox side?

[Perryg]

No idea. Like I said the whole nested virtualization thing is not supported at all so getting it to work is more that expected behaviour especially with a different type of hypervisor being nested.

[rafael-w]

Ok, no problem.
Thanks for the help.

I noticed another problem related to networking. Sometimes the network of a server stops working. Then, to get it working again, I basically can go to the networking tab, and change the promiscuous mode from Deny to Allow or vice versa. It seems that it is a matter of forcing something to work. Do you have some clues regarding this other problem as well?