Windows 10 Guest freezes on OSX host

[qvdm]

My Windows 10 guest started freezing randomly, shortly after I upgraded to Virtualbox 5.0.16. When the guest freezes, it shows the Windows 'busy' spinning circle, and does not respond to any keyboard input or mouse clicks. ACPI shutdown does not do anything; the only way to shut down the VM is to select 'Reset' in the VirtualBox menu. The log file (copy attached) never shows any activity at or near the time when the VM freezes.

Host : Yosemite (10.10.5) on a Macbook Pro
VirtualBox : 5.0.16 r105871
Guest : WIndows 10 Pro

--Q

[FoxInCloud]

Have had the exact same issue as described by OP since sept 2015, wilh all VirtualBox versions and updates since
Must power off the machine to stop it
Attached is my vbox.log right after the freeze

host: OSX El Capitan v 10.11.4 on iMac Retina 5K - processor 4 Ghz Intel Core I7
guest: Windows 10 pro 64-bit

[Rune B]

I can only chime in to say I'm having the same issue... or at least almost. It appear to me that the screen freezes, but mouse clicks are still being processed. I have verified this by placing a shortcut on the guest desktop that calls the Windows shutdown command. If I double click that icon and no applications stop the shutdown process, the guest will shut down gracefully even when the screen is frozen. I've described this in this post.

The suggestion is that is has to do with 3D support - or lack thereof. I have 3D disabled, but VB seems to use it anyway...

[qvdm]

Just a quick update: based on advice found in another thread, I changed the Paravirtualization interface to "Hyper-V" for my Windows guests under Machine / Settings / System / Acceleration. Since doing that, Windows 10 guests have been rock solid -- no crashes or freezes. I guess the question now is why this is not the default setting for Windows guests?

[socratis]

based on advice found in another thread, I changed the Paravirtualization interface to "Hyper-V"

Do you mind posting the related thread so that we have a cross-reference?

why this is not the default setting for Windows guests?

Actually, it is. If you create a new VM with a VirtuaBox version later than the one where the paravirtualization was introduced (5.0.0). If you are using a VM created with a previous VBox version, the paravirtualization defaults to Legacy. It's in the manual, Chapter 8.8.1.

[MatthewS]

"Just a quick update: based on advice found in another thread, I changed the Paravirtualization interface to "Hyper-V" for my Windows guests under Machine / Settings / System / Acceleration. Since doing that, Windows 10 guests have been rock solid -- no crashes or freezes. I guess the question now is why this is not the default setting for Windows guests?"

This worked for me. Thank you! It also works using the "Default" setting. Paravirtualization is then automatically set to "Hyper-V" in the VM settings. It is the "Legacy" setting that causes a problem with Win 10 guests.