[Fixed] VBoxManage modifyvm --recording ... : Crash, Documentation wrong (#18494)

[m23Hauke]

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ModEdit; related ticket: #18494: VBoxManage modifyvm --recording ... : Crash, Documentation wrong

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Hi,

I'm running VBox 6.0.4 on Ubuntu 18.04 amd64.

Recording video by using VBoxManage doesn't work for several reasons:

1. The options shown in the help screen (VBoxManage --help) don't exist and aren't accepted by VBoxManage (eg. "--recording filename").
2. By playing with spelling variants of the options I figured out, that eg. "--recordingfile" is accepted by VBoxManage.
3. In my tests I used the options like in the following example:
   VBoxManage modifyvm "myVM" --recording on --recordingfile="/tmp/test.webm" --recordingvideores="1024x756" --recordingvideorate=1024 --recordingvideofps=25

After modifying a (turned off) VM with these options the following happens:

1. The VM will crash on next start attempt. This can only be fixed by turning off recording (VBoxManage modifyvm "myVM" --recording off).
2. The CPU will jump to 100% for a few seconds.
3. All VMs aren't available via the VBox GUI. Something like "No information available" is shown where the VM settings are shown usually.
4. There is no log created. The VM and the VirtualBox GUI are freezing when trying to start the VM. To get the GUI back to work the process "VirtualBoxVM" has to be killed by hand.

Maybe there are combinations of options that enable recording, but I couldn't find any.

Thank you for your previous work on VirtualBox

Hauke

[socratis]

Here are the options regarding recording control from the command line, i.e. "VBoxManage modifyvm", when the VM isn't running:

modifyvm <uuid|vmname>
         [--recording on|off]
         [--recording screens all|<screen ID> [<screen ID> ...]]
         [--recording filename <filename>]
         [--recording videores <width> <height>]
         [--recording videorate <rate>]
         [--recording videofps <fps>]
         [--recording maxtime <s>]
         [--recording maxfilesize <MB>]
         [--recording opts <key=value> [,<key=value> ...]]

and something similar for the "VBoxManage controlvm", when the VM is running.

Looking at the source code however, in VBoxManageModifyVM.cpp r76678, it seems that you are absolutely, 100% right. The correct options should be:

{ "--recording",                MODIFYVM_RECORDING,                 RTGETOPT_REQ_BOOL_ONOFF },
{ "--recordingscreens",         MODIFYVM_RECORDING_SCREENS,         RTGETOPT_REQ_STRING },
{ "--recordingfile",            MODIFYVM_RECORDING_FILENAME,        RTGETOPT_REQ_STRING },
{ "--recordingmaxtime",         MODIFYVM_RECORDING_MAXTIME,         RTGETOPT_REQ_INT32  },
{ "--recordingmaxsize",         MODIFYVM_RECORDING_MAXSIZE,         RTGETOPT_REQ_INT32  },
{ "--recordingopts",            MODIFYVM_RECORDING_OPTIONS,         RTGETOPT_REQ_STRING },
{ "--recordingoptions",         MODIFYVM_RECORDING_OPTIONS,         RTGETOPT_REQ_STRING },
{ "--recordingvideores",        MODIFYVM_RECORDING_VIDEO_RES,       RTGETOPT_REQ_STRING },
{ "--recordingvideoresolution", MODIFYVM_RECORDING_VIDEO_RES,       RTGETOPT_REQ_STRING },
{ "--recordingvideorate",       MODIFYVM_RECORDING_VIDEO_RATE,      RTGETOPT_REQ_UINT32 },
{ "--recordingvideofps",        MODIFYVM_RECORDING_VIDEO_FPS,       RTGETOPT_REQ_UINT32 },

Somebody forgot to either update the corresponding VBoxManageHelp.cpp r77887, or it was never right to begin with.

But here comes the kicker... the options listed in the help, *are* the correct ones if you use "VBoxManage controlvm" (VBoxManageControlVM.cpp r76553)!!!

Somebody needs to get to that ASAP...

[socratis]

Fixed with 6.0.6, marked as such.