Fedora 31 host crashes attempting to install Ubuntu 18.04 to VM from iso

[mMerlin]

That is a hard, full system, crash. No error message. The host screen goes blank with a blinking cursor in the corner. Depending on the initial VM creation, that either needs ctrl+alt+delete to reboot, or it quickly jumps to the Fedora login screen without needing a full reboot.

Am I missing something needed in the VM configuration, or did I hit a bug for the combination of host and guest versions and environments? A couple of configuration variations below.

I use VirtualBox a lot, with a variety of guest OS instances. I have several VMs of older versions of Ubuntu, created using older versions on VirtualBox, that are still working. I have both older and current versions of debian and fedora, some created with older some with the current 6.1.2 version of VirtualBox. An older windows VM works too. All that saying that the host environment and VirtualBox are working quite well. Except I can not get Ubuntu 18.04 to install to the virtual machine. From the progress bar, it makes it about 85% of the way through the install, then crashes. Consistently in the same place. At least the end of the VB.log files are the same. The last screen message I captured was `Completely removed libyajl2 (amd64)` seconds before the crash. This was attempting to install a `minimal` Ubuntu environment.

I searched, but did not locate anything related in the forum. With the keywords and filters that I could come up with.

Environment information

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% VBoxManage --version
6.1.2r135662
QT5.6.1
Host Fedora 31 64 bit, 16 GB memory, 4 processors
% uname -r
5.4.14-200.fc31.x86_64
Guest Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit, 4 GB memory, 2 processors
ubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso
% VBoxManage list extpacks                                        
Extension Packs: 1
Pack no. 0:   Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack
Version:      6.1.2
Revision:     135662
Edition:      
Description:  Oracle Cloud Infrastructure integration, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 Host Controller, Host Webcam, VirtualBox RDP, PXE ROM, Disk Encryption, NVMe.
VRDE Module:  VBoxVRDP
Usable:       true 
Why unusable: 

Starting VM configuration attempt

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Name:                        Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit Testing
Groups:                      /Ubuntu
Guest OS:                    Ubuntu (64-bit)
UUID:                        05f19f2c-21fb-4ec4-9a82-7d192725e3e3
Config file:                 /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit Testing/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit Testing.vbox
Snapshot folder:             /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit Testing/Snapshots
Log folder:                  /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit Testing/Logs
Hardware UUID:               05f19f2c-21fb-4ec4-9a82-7d192725e3e3
Memory size                  4096MB
Page Fusion:                 disabled
VRAM size:                   16MB
CPU exec cap:                100%
HPET:                        disabled
CPUProfile:                  host
Chipset:                     piix3
Firmware:                    BIOS
Number of CPUs:              2
PAE:                         disabled
Long Mode:                   enabled
Triple Fault Reset:          disabled
APIC:                        enabled
X2APIC:                      enabled
Nested VT-x/AMD-V:           disabled
CPUID Portability Level:     0
CPUID overrides:             None
Boot menu mode:              message and menu
Boot Device 1:               DVD
Boot Device 2:               HardDisk
Boot Device 3:               Not Assigned
Boot Device 4:               Not Assigned
ACPI:                        enabled
IOAPIC:                      enabled
BIOS APIC mode:              APIC
Time offset:                 0ms
RTC:                         UTC
Hardware Virtualization:     enabled
Nested Paging:               enabled
Large Pages:                 disabled
VT-x VPID:                   enabled
VT-x Unrestricted Exec.:     enabled
Paravirt. Provider:          Default
Effective Paravirt. Prov.:   KVM
State:                       powered off (since 2020-02-02T03:33:46.000000000)
Graphics Controller:         VMSVGA
Monitor count:               1
3D Acceleration:             disabled
2D Video Acceleration:       disabled
Teleporter Enabled:          disabled
Teleporter Port:             0
Teleporter Address:          
Teleporter Password:         
Tracing Enabled:             disabled
Allow Tracing to Access VM:  disabled
Tracing Configuration:       
Autostart Enabled:           disabled
Autostart Delay:             0
Default Frontend:            
VM process priority:         default
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
SATA (0, 0): /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit Testing/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit Testing.vdi (UUID: a5cbd6c0-2ad6-40b6-9e32-964f1ac569a4)
SATA (1, 0): /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/ISO images/ubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso (UUID: 1a89e1b8-2b59-417f-877f-236d5fd8cc0e)
NIC 1:                       MAC: 0800276D0D0B, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'eno1', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny, Bandwidth group: none
NIC 2:                       disabled
NIC 3:                       disabled
NIC 4:                       disabled
NIC 5:                       disabled
NIC 6:                       disabled
NIC 7:                       disabled
NIC 8:                       disabled
Pointing Device:             PS/2 Mouse
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: AC97, Codec: AD1980)
Audio playback:              enabled
Audio capture:               disabled
Clipboard Mode:              disabled
Drag and drop Mode:          disabled
VRDE:                        disabled
OHCI USB:                    enabled
EHCI USB:                    enabled
xHCI USB:                    disabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Bandwidth groups:  <none>

Shared folders:<none>

Capturing:                   not active
Capture audio:               not active
Capture screens:             0
Capture file:                /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit Testing/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit Testing.webm
Capture dimensions:          1024x768
Capture rate:                512kbps
Capture FPS:                 25kbps
Capture options:             

Description:
Exploration and testing of applications in a Ubuntu 18.04 environment
Guest:

Configured memory balloon size: 0MB

Second attempt, using more default settings

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Name:                        Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing
Groups:                      /Ubuntu
Guest OS:                    Ubuntu (64-bit)
UUID:                        834160b0-c601-4ce8-9b37-ac781521ed84
Config file:                 /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing.vbox
Snapshot folder:             /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing/Snapshots
Log folder:                  /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing/Logs
Hardware UUID:               834160b0-c601-4ce8-9b37-ac781521ed84
Memory size                  4096MB
Page Fusion:                 disabled
VRAM size:                   16MB
CPU exec cap:                100%
HPET:                        disabled
CPUProfile:                  host
Chipset:                     piix3
Firmware:                    BIOS
Number of CPUs:              2
PAE:                         disabled
Long Mode:                   enabled
Triple Fault Reset:          disabled
APIC:                        enabled
X2APIC:                      enabled
Nested VT-x/AMD-V:           disabled
CPUID Portability Level:     0
CPUID overrides:             None
Boot menu mode:              message and menu
Boot Device 1:               DVD
Boot Device 2:               HardDisk
Boot Device 3:               Not Assigned
Boot Device 4:               Not Assigned
ACPI:                        enabled
IOAPIC:                      enabled
BIOS APIC mode:              APIC
Time offset:                 0ms
RTC:                         UTC
Hardware Virtualization:     enabled
Nested Paging:               enabled
Large Pages:                 disabled
VT-x VPID:                   enabled
VT-x Unrestricted Exec.:     enabled
Paravirt. Provider:          Default
Effective Paravirt. Prov.:   KVM
State:                       aborted (since 2020-02-02T20:27:15.000000000)
Graphics Controller:         VMSVGA
Monitor count:               1
3D Acceleration:             disabled
2D Video Acceleration:       disabled
Teleporter Enabled:          disabled
Teleporter Port:             0
Teleporter Address:          
Teleporter Password:         
Tracing Enabled:             disabled
Allow Tracing to Access VM:  disabled
Tracing Configuration:       
Autostart Enabled:           disabled
Autostart Delay:             0
Default Frontend:            
VM process priority:         default
Storage Controller Name (0):            IDE
Storage Controller Type (0):            PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0):  2
Storage Controller Port Count (0):      2
Storage Controller Bootable (0):        on
Storage Controller Name (1):            SATA
Storage Controller Type (1):            IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1):  30
Storage Controller Port Count (1):      1
Storage Controller Bootable (1):        on
IDE (1, 0): /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/ISO images/ubuntu-18.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso (UUID: 1a89e1b8-2b59-417f-877f-236d5fd8cc0e)
SATA (0, 0): /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing.vdi (UUID: cb352b64-667c-406e-824d-689c0d70641b)
NIC 1:                       MAC: 080027D6E0AD, 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:             PS/2 Mouse
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: AC97, Codec: AD1980)
Audio playback:              enabled
Audio capture:               disabled
Clipboard Mode:              disabled
Drag and drop Mode:          disabled
VRDE:                        disabled
OHCI USB:                    enabled
EHCI USB:                    enabled
xHCI USB:                    disabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Bandwidth groups:  <none>

Shared folders:<none>

Capturing:                   not active
Capture audio:               not active
Capture screens:             0
Capture file:                /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing.webm
Capture dimensions:          1024x768
Capture rate:                512kbps
Capture FPS:                 25kbps
Capture options:             

Description:
Exploration and testing of applications in a Ubuntu 18.04 environment
Guest:

Configured memory balloon size: 0MB

Log zip files attached.

[mpack]

There seems to be something weird going on with the host audio driver. What happens if you disable audio support in the VM?

[mMerlin]

There seems to be something weird going on with the host audio driver. What happens if you disable audio support in the VM?

Something in general been strange with audio? Or did you spot something in the log files?

Disabling Audio did not get the first VM to work, even with USB also disabled. However, disabling Audio and USB on the second configuration worked. At least enough to finish the install, reboot, and login. The main difference being that version 1 used a SATA optical drive and had shared clipboard and drag'n'drop enabled, and version 2 had IDE optical drive without clipboard or drag'n'drop. I remembered something about some distro releases not liking SATA optical, which was why I switched initially for the 2nd configuration. Now I need a few more iterations to determine just what is available and not for this scenario. It appears that both SATA optical and PulseAudio + ICH AC97 are problems.

Audio is probably not something I would have thought to test. Though I have been turning it off for several VMs created lately (Debian and Fedora, not Ubuntu) that were being used in a server context. This one was intended for some desktop testing, though it does not actually need audio for the intended applications. Note to self … Turn off everything that is not `actually` going to be needed.

The configuration that worked

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Name:                        Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing
Groups:                      /Ubuntu
Guest OS:                    Ubuntu (64-bit)
UUID:                        834160b0-c601-4ce8-9b37-ac781521ed84
Config file:                 /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing.vbox
Snapshot folder:             /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing/Snapshots
Log folder:                  /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing/Logs
Hardware UUID:               834160b0-c601-4ce8-9b37-ac781521ed84
Memory size                  4096MB
Page Fusion:                 disabled
VRAM size:                   16MB
CPU exec cap:                100%
HPET:                        disabled
CPUProfile:                  host
Chipset:                     piix3
Firmware:                    BIOS
Number of CPUs:              2
PAE:                         disabled
Long Mode:                   enabled
Triple Fault Reset:          disabled
APIC:                        enabled
X2APIC:                      enabled
Nested VT-x/AMD-V:           disabled
CPUID Portability Level:     0
CPUID overrides:             None
Boot menu mode:              message and menu
Boot Device 1:               DVD
Boot Device 2:               HardDisk
Boot Device 3:               Not Assigned
Boot Device 4:               Not Assigned
ACPI:                        enabled
IOAPIC:                      enabled
BIOS APIC mode:              APIC
Time offset:                 0ms
RTC:                         UTC
Hardware Virtualization:     enabled
Nested Paging:               enabled
Large Pages:                 disabled
VT-x VPID:                   enabled
VT-x Unrestricted Exec.:     enabled
Paravirt. Provider:          Default
Effective Paravirt. Prov.:   KVM
State:                       powered off (since 2020-02-03T23:34:02.985000000)
Graphics Controller:         VMSVGA
Monitor count:               1
3D Acceleration:             disabled
2D Video Acceleration:       disabled
Teleporter Enabled:          disabled
Teleporter Port:             0
Teleporter Address:          
Teleporter Password:         
Tracing Enabled:             disabled
Allow Tracing to Access VM:  disabled
Tracing Configuration:       
Autostart Enabled:           disabled
Autostart Delay:             0
Default Frontend:            
VM process priority:         default
Storage Controller Name (0):            IDE
Storage Controller Type (0):            PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0):  2
Storage Controller Port Count (0):      2
Storage Controller Bootable (0):        on
Storage Controller Name (1):            SATA
Storage Controller Type (1):            IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1):  30
Storage Controller Port Count (1):      1
Storage Controller Bootable (1):        on
IDE (1, 0): Empty (ejected)
SATA (0, 0): /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing.vdi (UUID: cb352b64-667c-406e-824d-689c0d70641b)
NIC 1:                       MAC: 080027D6E0AD, 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:             PS/2 Mouse
Keyboard Device:             PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1:                      disabled
UART 2:                      disabled
UART 3:                      disabled
UART 4:                      disabled
LPT 1:                       disabled
LPT 2:                       disabled
Audio:                       disabled
Audio playback:              enabled
Audio capture:               disabled
Clipboard Mode:              disabled
Drag and drop Mode:          disabled
VRDE:                        disabled
OHCI USB:                    disabled
EHCI USB:                    disabled
xHCI USB:                    disabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Bandwidth groups:  <none>

Shared folders:<none>

Capturing:                   not active
Capture audio:               not active
Capture screens:             0
Capture file:                /home/appdata/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing/Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit-2 Testing.webm
Capture dimensions:          1024x768
Capture rate:                512kbps
Capture FPS:                 25kbps
Capture options:             

Description:
Exploration and testing of applications in a Ubuntu 18.04 environment
Guest:

Configured memory balloon size: 0MB

[mMerlin]

No reliable work around yet. I got one more VM to fully install, then reboot and login. However, when I powered down that VM, the host crashed as before. After restart, that VM successfully booted, logged in, powered down.

Attempting to verify that failure sequence sequence, (crash on first power down) by building a fresh VM with the same configuration, the host crashed *before* finishing the ubuntu install. So I do not yet have a reliable sequence to create a Ubuntu 18.04 64-bt vm. Shutting the research down for now, and see if I can use one of the 2 VMs that made it all the way to reboot.

[virtualhuman]

Interesting, I just came back to the forum to post a similar hard system crash on Fedora...

I have a RAID 1 array of two harddrives (one mirrors the other) formatted in the XFS file system. There I have 10+ VM's running with the latest VirtualBox 6.1.2.

Recently, I noticed that when I create a new VM and try to install something (CentOS, Fedora, etc) there is a 50% chance that the system will hard freeze... no errors.

The journal from "previous" boot has nothing of interest, the last few lines are:

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Feb 04 11:15:59 desktop kernel: VMMR0InitVM: eflags=246 fKernelFeatures=0x4 (SUPKERNELFEATURES_SMAP=0)
Feb 04 11:19:26 desktop kernel: VMMR0InitVM: eflags=246 fKernelFeatures=0x4 (SUPKERNELFEATURES_SMAP=0)
Feb 04 11:20:11 desktop pulseaudio[3873]: E: [alsa-sink-HDMI 4] alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_avail() returned a value that is exceptionally large: 1788276 bytes (10137 ms).

The two kernel lines appear when I booted the two new VMs, the first started installing, then I booted the second VM and started installing that too, then a few minutes go by and hard freeze. What is interesting, is that the music I was playing kept on playing the last 2-3 seconds in a loop. Power down, reboot, start VM, redo the installation inside the VM which completed without a problem, no crash.

The only related thing that has changed in my system, is the updated 5.4 kernels over the 5.3 kernel that I was using previously.

[mpack]

There seems to be something weird going on with the host audio driver. What happens if you disable audio support in the VM?

Something in general been strange with audio? Or did you spot something in the log files?

Obviously my info came from your logs. Specifically:

00:00:29.761497 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:29.787784 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:29.812220 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:29.835892 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:29.875188 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:29.918068 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:29.948859 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:29.974622 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:29.988442 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:29.990851 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:32.723816 VMMDev: vmmDevHeartbeatFlatlinedTimer: Guest seems to be unresponsive. Last heartbeat received 4 seconds ago

And then...

00:00:33.300229 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:33.301213 Audio: Enabling input for driver 'PulseAudio'
00:00:33.301437 Audio Mixer: Setting recording source of sink '[Recording] Line In' to '[Line-In] PulseAudio'
00:00:33.301600 VMMDev: GuestHeartBeat: Guest is alive (gone 4 584 303 798 ns)
00:00:33.307940 Audio: Disabling input for driver 'PulseAudio'
00:00:33.308364 Audio Mixer: Setting recording source of sink '[Recording] Line In' to '<None>'
00:00:33.308410 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...
00:00:33.309942 PulseAudio: Retrieving server information ...

Repeated ad infinitum until the log ends. Same with both logs.

This is not normal IME. I don't know why your VM needs to enable your audio input device more than once. It implies some kind of driver or config problem.

I saw nothing of interest in the USB activity.

[virtualhuman]

In my case both USB and Audio are disabled in all my VMs.