[Solved] Random freezes after startup with Win8.1 guest

[Thieso]

Hey people,

I run Arch Linux and I have a VirtualBox with Windows 8.1 on it. It worked perfectly for some months but now I encounter random freezes of the Box after startup. Sometimes it works but the freezes actually get more frequent. I have sadly no idea what is causing this.
Attached you find a log file of one of those freezes.

Any help is greatly appreciated since I need this for work.

Thank you and kind regards
Thies

[socratis]

00:02:55.383950 Console::powerDown(): A request to power off the VM has been issued (mMachineState=Stopping, InUninit=0)

This VM was shutdown properly after a user-initiated shutdown procedure! When asking for a log, we don't want to see a random log, from a random run. We want to see "The log" where/when the problem occurs.

Having said that, I see a lot of these in your log:

00:01:05.782741 AHCI#0: Port 0 reset
00:01:05.783778 VD#0: Cancelling all active requests

In fact 1934 of them, in a matter of 1' 48", 18 messages/second!

Something isn't right with your disk I/O. And right before the barrage of these messages start, I see:

00:01:05.774523 VD#0: Request{0x007f9454f02200}:
00:01:05.774524     Type=READ State=ACTIVE Id=0x1 SubmitTs=94551 {2} Flags=0x2
00:01:05.774525     Offset=37036570624 Size=131072 Left=131072 BufSize=131072
00:01:05.775339 VD#0: Aborted read (0 bytes left) returned rc=VERR_PDM_MEDIAEX_IOREQ_CANCELED
00:01:05.775365 AHCI#0P0: Canceled read at offset 37036570624 (131072 bytes left) returned rc=VERR_PDM_MEDIAEX_IOREQ_CANCELED
00:01:05.775408 VD#0: Read (0 bytes left) returned rc=VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR
00:01:05.775414 AHCI#0P0: Read at offset 37036701696 (90112 bytes left) returned rc=VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR

Something's definitely wrong with your host's disk, when even read attempts are aborted.

00:00:00.992848 [/Devices/ahci/0/LUN#0/Config/] (level 5)
00:00:00.992850   BlockCache <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)

Go to the VM Settings » Storage » select your SATA controller » Use Host I/O Cache: enable that. See if the situation changes...

[Thieso]

Thanks for your fast and thorough reply.
I am pretty sure the log was from when it freezes but I power it down using the close button and that works. So maybe it does not completely freeze but I can do anything in the VM anymore. Sorry for this confusion.

Otherwise I changed the option you told me about and that has resolved the problem with the many messages.
For now I also don't experience any freezes anymore.

So thanks a lot for this help.

[socratis]

Otherwise I changed the option you told me about and that has resolved the problem with the many messages. For now I also don't experience any freezes anymore.

Oh, that's good to hear! Could you update the thread in a couple of days or so, after testing it, so I can mark the thread as [Solved]? TIA.

[Thieso]

Yes sure I will do so

[Thieso]

Ok after working with it a bit it seems to have solved the issue for good. So you can mark this thread as [solved].
Thank you

[socratis]

Great, thank you for the feedback. Marking as [Solved].