Guest Windows 10 slowing down during uptime of host

[bn]

Hello,

I have the following problem:

My windows10 guest on my ubuntu host is slowing down during the uptime of the host. I have no idea why.

The slowing-down process seems to be linked to the uptime of the host, and not necessarily to the uptime of the guest

1. On a running Host, I start the guest at Timepoint A. Speed of the guest is OK.
2. I shutdown the guest. I keep the host running
3. Timepoint B (one week later): I start the guest. Guest is slow

I have checked that

1. Plenty of free ram left on host and guest
2. CPU consumption low on host and nearly non-existing on Guest

I have no idea what causes the Guest to slow down. The evident workaround is to restart the host whenever I want a guest that is reasonable fast. However, I have long-running processes on the host that I do not want to interrupt (apart from many other rebooting-related things that I do not want to reperform just to get a reasonably fast guest)

I also tried

1. Using snapshots. Taking snapshots and restarting the VM does not speed up the guest
2. shutting down the guest using ACPI shutdown or Reset. Neither of that changes the fact that the guest is slow
3. Uninstalled Google chrome that seemed to have too many instances in the guest (about 10). Did not speed up the guest

My host configuration (VBoxManage list hostinfo):

Code: Select all

Host Information:

Host time: 2018-10-28T21:07:19.199000000Z
Processor online count: 8
Processor count: 8
Processor online core count: 4
Processor core count: 4
Processor supports HW virtualization: yes
Processor supports PAE: yes
Processor supports long mode: yes
Processor supports nested paging: no
Processor#0 speed: 4300 MHz
Processor#0 description: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Processor#1 speed: 4300 MHz
Processor#1 description: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Processor#2 speed: 4300 MHz
Processor#2 description: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Processor#3 speed: 4300 MHz
Processor#3 description: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Processor#4 speed: 4300 MHz
Processor#4 description: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Processor#5 speed: 4300 MHz
Processor#5 description: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Processor#6 speed: 4300 MHz
Processor#6 description: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Processor#7 speed: 4300 MHz
Processor#7 description: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Memory size: 64338 MByte
Memory available: 45029 MByte
Operating system: Linux
Operating system version: 4.15.0-36-generic

My guest configuration (VBoxManage showvminfo "UB_Windows10"):

Code: Select all

Name:            UB_Windows10
Groups:          /
Guest OS:        Windows 10 (64-bit)
UUID:            712e30f5-95df-4fc1-9d8a-7e4c6075526a
Config file:     /home/bn/VirtualBox VMs/UB_Windows10/UB_Windows10.vbox
Snapshot folder: /home/bn/VirtualBox VMs/UB_Windows10/Snapshots
Log folder:      /home/bn/VirtualBox VMs/UB_Windows10/Logs
Hardware UUID:   712e30f5-95df-4fc1-9d8a-7e4c6075526a
Memory size:     32768MB
Page Fusion:     off
VRAM size:       256MB
CPU exec cap:    100%
HPET:            off
Chipset:         piix3
Firmware:        BIOS
Number of CPUs:  4
PAE:             off
Long Mode:       on
Triple Fault Reset: off
APIC:            on
X2APIC:          off
CPUID Portability Level: 0
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode:  message and menu
Boot Device (1): Floppy
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI:            on
IOAPIC:          on
BIOS APIC mode:  APIC
Time offset:     0ms
RTC:             local time
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Nested Paging:   on
Large Pages:     off
VT-x VPID:       on
VT-x unr. exec.: on
Paravirt. Provider: Default
Effective Paravirt. Provider: HyperV
State:           powered off (since 2018-10-28T19:27:01.000000000)
Monitor count:   1
3D Acceleration: on
2D Video Acceleration: on
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address: 
Teleporter Password: 
Tracing Enabled: off
Allow Tracing to Access VM: off
Tracing Configuration: 
Autostart Enabled: off
Autostart Delay: 0
Default Frontend: 
Storage Controller Name (0):            SATA
Storage Controller Type (0):            IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0):  30
Storage Controller Port Count (0):      2
Storage Controller Bootable (0):        on
Storage Controller Name (1):            IDE
Storage Controller Type (1):            PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1):  2
Storage Controller Port Count (1):      2
Storage Controller Bootable (1):        on
SATA (0, 0): /home/bn/VirtualBox VMs/UB_Windows10/Snapshots/{c077edbe-d3d9-44b1-a50f-71074151073e}.vdi (UUID: c077edbe-d3d9-44b1-a50f-71074151073e)
SATA (1, 0): /usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso (UUID: 1b5cccc4-45f1-4812-a5ac-bc62f73770a1)
IDE (0, 0): /home/bn/data/NewInstallation/Windows operating systems/de_windows_10_n_multiple_editions_version_1511_updated_apr_2016_x64_dvd_8708282.iso (UUID: aa4e0379-29c6-479c-9158-e985e3f9d826)
NIC 1:           MAC: 080027324921, Attachment: NAT, Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny, Bandwidth group: none
NIC 1 Settings:  MTU: 0, Socket (send: 64, receive: 64), TCP Window (send:64, receive: 64)
NIC 2:           disabled
NIC 3:           disabled
NIC 4:           disabled
NIC 5:           disabled
NIC 6:           disabled
NIC 7:           disabled
NIC 8:           disabled
Pointing Device: USB Tablet
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1:          disabled
UART 2:          disabled
UART 3:          disabled
UART 4:          disabled
LPT 1:           disabled
LPT 2:           disabled
Audio:           enabled (Driver: PulseAudio, Controller: HDA, Codec: STAC9221)
Audio playback:  disabled
Audio capture: enabled
Clipboard Mode:  Bidirectional
Drag and drop Mode: Bidirectional
VRDE:            disabled
USB:             disabled
EHCI:            disabled
XHCI:            enabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Bandwidth groups:  <none>

Shared folders:  

Name: 'bn', Host path: '/home/bn' (machine mapping), writable
Name: 'data', Host path: '/home/bn/data' (machine mapping), writable

Capturing:          not active
Capture audio:      not active
Capture screens:    0
Capture file:       /home/bn/VirtualBox VMs/UB_Windows10/UB_Windows10.webm
Capture dimensions: 1024x768
Capture rate:       512 kbps
Capture FPS:        25
Capture options:    ac_enabled=false

Guest:

Configured memory balloon size:      0 MB

Snapshots:

   Name: previous (UUID: 769ef922-d9f3-4df6-a54a-1c8e7edd3d51)
      Name: current (UUID: 77a620cd-bbc2-4b2c-a89e-7c79796af99f) *

The VM logs are attached.

Any help is appreciated

[andyp73]

Firstly, zipping the log file and posting it as a single file would have been preferable. That said...

VirtualBox VM 5.2.10_Ubuntu r121806 linux.amd64 (Jun 15 2018 16:14:07) release log

This looks to be the Ubuntu tribute band version of VirtualBox. You should either seek help in the Ubuntu forums or purge it completely from your system and install the latest version of the real thing (v5.2.20 as of writing).

00:00:05.547557 CPUM: Physical host cores: 4
00:00:05.256878   NumCPUs           <integer> = 0x0000000000000004 (4)

You have assigned all of your physical CPU cores (the thing VirtualBox cares about) to the guest. That will lead to resource starvation on the host especially if the host has tasks it is trying to perform as well. Reduce it to either 2 or 3 so your host has at least one for itself.

-Andy.

[bn]

Thanks Andy. I actually switched to the ubuntu version of virtualbox because the original version showed the same behaviour - getting slow during uptime of the host.

I will nonetheless retry using the original version and a lower number of cores for the guest.

As I have written, CPU consumption is low for host and guest while the guest is very slow (after some uptime of the host).

Is the last part of your comment (resource starvation) still valid if I observe that CPU consumption is low on host and guest?

Do you know if there is any chance that the "getting slower" thing is linked to the number of CPUs dedicated to the guest, while being independent on the actual CPU consumption of host and guest (which is low during the entire uptime of host and the short uptimes of the guest)?

[socratis]

Let me see if I understand the situation correctly:

• You start the host, you start VirtualBox and the VM and everything is working correctly.
• You let the host running, you start VirtualBox and the VM and the VM is slow.

And why do you think that this is a VirtualBox issue at this point?
And can you define "slow"?

[bn]

Hi socratis.
you understand correctly.
Between your two bulletpoints, I actually stop the Virtual machine (let's say for a week).
I then restart the virtual machine (while the host was running continuously, but the guest was not) - and it's slow.

Why do I think it is a VirtualBox Issue?
First, I am not sure it is a virtualbox issue. I think it might be because the only thing that displays any problems is virtualbox. But I would be happy to find out that something else is slowing down the system - I just have no idea how or what to investigate. And as virtualbox is the only thing showing problems, I am basically stuck asking questions in forums to people who know stuff about virtualbox. And maybe these people even know if there might be problems with the host - and not virtualbox - for this problem, allowing me to solve the problem - without virtualbox being the problem.

Second, I do not have an exact method to measure time. The slowing down process is so pronounced that it is making the use of virtualbox nearly impossible. To give you an example, trying to start ms access might take over a minute, opening a vba window 10 seconds, and every key I press might have a delay of several seconds.
It might take over a minute between hitting the windows key and being able to write anything in the search box.

As a comparison, when the host is restarted, all of these things work basically without any noticeable delay.

[socratis]

We need to see a complete VBox.log, from a complete VM run:

• Start the VM from cold-boot (not from a paused or saved state) / Observe error / Shutdown the VM (force close it if you have to).
• With the VM completely shut down (not paused or saved), right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log".
• Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response. See the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form.

Now, do this procedure twice; once with a freshly started host, and once after a week. No hurry, we're going to be here...

My gut feeling? Some host caching issues...

[bn]

Cool, I like gut feelings.
Right now, I am already following Andy's advice: I have installed the real oracle version and reduced the number of cores to two.
After doing the reinstall of virtualbox, the guest was, as expected, fast.
I am right now changing the dynamic disk to a fixed disk and moving its position.
I will keep you posted - hopefully having done all that, the slowness issues have gone away.

But I will send you those logs.

By the way, I always restarted the VM - it was never saved or paused: The slowness issues are present in the guest when the guest is freshly started (but the host was up for quite some time).

[bn]

OK, here is the logs.

This is now a fixed size hdd on a spinning disk.
2 Cores dedicated.
Speed is ok as of now (even though it takes a lot longer to boot than the dynamic disk on my ssd, using access and the windows button run with ok speed).

[bn]

OK, the slowness is already back.
I reinstalled the windows system on the spinning disk (Visual studio, sql server, microsoft office - 100 GB about).
I flattened the virtual disk.
Still, it took access about 10 minutes to start.

I attach the logs.

Code: Select all

Name:            UB_Windows10
Groups:          /
Guest OS:        Windows 10 (64-bit)
UUID:            712e30f5-95df-4fc1-9d8a-7e4c6075526a
Config file:     /home/bn/data/VirtualboxVMs/UB_Windows10/UB_Windows10.vbox
Snapshot folder: /home/bn/data/VirtualboxVMs/UB_Windows10/Snapshots
Log folder:      /home/bn/data/VirtualboxVMs/UB_Windows10/Logs
Hardware UUID:   712e30f5-95df-4fc1-9d8a-7e4c6075526a
Memory size:     32768MB
Page Fusion:     off
VRAM size:       256MB
CPU exec cap:    100%
HPET:            off
Chipset:         piix3
Firmware:        BIOS
Number of CPUs:  2
PAE:             off
Long Mode:       on
Triple Fault Reset: off
APIC:            on
X2APIC:          off
CPUID Portability Level: 0
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode:  message and menu
Boot Device (1): Floppy
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI:            on
IOAPIC:          on
BIOS APIC mode:  APIC
Time offset:     0ms
RTC:             local time
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Nested Paging:   on
Large Pages:     off
VT-x VPID:       on
VT-x unr. exec.: on
Paravirt. Provider: Default
Effective Paravirt. Provider: HyperV
State:           powered off (since 2018-10-29T23:28:56.258000000)
Monitor count:   1
3D Acceleration: on
2D Video Acceleration: on
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address: 
Teleporter Password: 
Tracing Enabled: off
Allow Tracing to Access VM: off
Tracing Configuration: 
Autostart Enabled: off
Autostart Delay: 0
Default Frontend: 
Storage Controller Name (0):            SATA
Storage Controller Type (0):            IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0):  30
Storage Controller Port Count (0):      2
Storage Controller Bootable (0):        on
Storage Controller Name (1):            IDE
Storage Controller Type (1):            PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1):  2
Storage Controller Port Count (1):      2
Storage Controller Bootable (1):        on
SATA (0, 0): /home/bn/data/VirtualboxVMs/UB_Windows10/Snapshots/{f7643e6b-80cf-4622-9351-328fe1df9b81}.vdi (UUID: f7643e6b-80cf-4622-9351-328fe1df9b81)
SATA (1, 0): /usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso (UUID: 1b5cccc4-45f1-4812-a5ac-bc62f73770a1)
IDE (0, 0): /home/bn/data/NewInstallation/Windows operating systems/de_windows_10_n_multiple_editions_version_1511_updated_apr_2016_x64_dvd_8708282.iso (UUID: aa4e0379-29c6-479c-9158-e985e3f9d826)
NIC 1:           MAC: 080027324921, Attachment: NAT, Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny, Bandwidth group: none
NIC 1 Settings:  MTU: 0, Socket (send: 64, receive: 64), TCP Window (send:64, receive: 64)
NIC 2:           disabled
NIC 3:           disabled
NIC 4:           disabled
NIC 5:           disabled
NIC 6:           disabled
NIC 7:           disabled
NIC 8:           disabled
Pointing Device: USB Tablet
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1:          disabled
UART 2:          disabled
UART 3:          disabled
UART 4:          disabled
LPT 1:           disabled
LPT 2:           disabled
Audio:           enabled (Driver: PulseAudio, Controller: HDA, Codec: STAC9221)
Audio playback:  disabled
Audio capture: enabled
Clipboard Mode:  Bidirectional
Drag and drop Mode: Bidirectional
VRDE:            disabled
USB:             disabled
EHCI:            disabled
XHCI:            enabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Bandwidth groups:  <none>

Shared folders:  

Name: 'bn', Host path: '/home/bn' (machine mapping), writable
Name: 'data', Host path: '/home/bn/data' (machine mapping), writable

Capturing:          not active
Capture audio:      not active
Capture screens:    0
Capture file:       /home/bn/data/VirtualboxVMs/UB_Windows10/UB_Windows10.webm
Capture dimensions: 1024x768
Capture rate:       512 kbps
Capture FPS:        25
Capture options:    ac_enabled=false

Guest:

Configured memory balloon size:      0 MB

Snapshots:

   Name: previous (UUID: 1ef7579c-e659-4f7e-8e76-8517b56adc6b)
      Name: current (UUID: 94b60f52-24b5-49fc-bcd4-2c585ab77a0a) *

[socratis]

1. I see no difference whatsoever between your normal and slow logs. Like two drops of water...
2. I see nothing suspicious between your log and a log of a Win10 VM from my host.
3. Which means that whatever is causing this delay, is not reflected in the logs. I'd start looking at the host logs to be honest with you. Swap, caching, power/sleeping, anything you can think of.
4. A good idea would be to look at this from the host side (that's where my gut is pointing) and look in the appropriate forums/lists/blogs for signs of slowing down.

[mpack]

I wouldn't give Windows a free pass either. Look at the Task Manager inside the Windows guest during slow periods, try to identify any processes using lots of CPU or I/O.