Running VirtualBox VM crashes El Capitan

[Geost]

Hello community!

It is the first time I have a big problem with VirtualBox. Please help me to fix it. Whenever I try to start any VM old or new it crashes my Mac, forcing it to restart. It gives me this message after restarting:

Anonymous UUID: 5C24178C-2749-BA01-0541-86E97B387156

Tue Jul 5 18:33:50 2016

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 3 caller 0xffffff802c3ce5fa): Kernel trap at 0xffffff802c3c9054, type 6=invalid opcode, registers:
CR0: 0x0000000080010033, CR2: 0x0000000117904000, CR3: 0x00000001f0ec70ce, CR4: 0x00000000001606e0
RAX: 0x0000000000000000, RBX: 0xffffff812f637000, RCX: 0x00000000ffffffff, RDX: 0x00000000fffffffe
RSP: 0xffffff81385f37c8, RBP: 0xffffff81385f37d0, RSI: 0x00000000001a3d53, RDI: 0x00000001a3d53000
R8: 0x0000000000000001, R9: 0x0000000000000e10, R10: 0x0000000000000003, R11: 0x000000007fbae300
R12: 0x0000000000000004, R13: 0x0000000000000000, R14: 0x0000000000000003, R15: 0x0000000000000003
RFL: 0x0000000000010006, RIP: 0xffffff802c3c9054, CS: 0x0000000000000008, SS: 0x0000000000000010
Fault CR2: 0x0000000117904000, Error code: 0x0000000000000000, Fault CPU: 0x3, PL: 1

Backtrace (CPU 3), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff81385f3450 : 0xffffff802c2dab12
0xffffff81385f34d0 : 0xffffff802c3ce5fa
0xffffff81385f36b0 : 0xffffff802c3ec463
0xffffff81385f36d0 : 0xffffff802c3c9054
0xffffff81385f37d0 : 0xffffff802c3e80b0
0xffffff81385f37f0 : 0xffffff802c3d8829
0xffffff81385f38e0 : 0xffffff802c3e7ddc
0xffffff81385f3930 : 0xffffff7faf44b668
0xffffff81385f3970 : 0xffffff913d8fac52
0xffffff81385f39c0 : 0xffffff913d8fb6f6
0xffffff81385f39f0 : 0xffffff913d912660
0xffffff81385f3a10 : 0xffffff7faf43f729
0xffffff81385f3ac0 : 0xffffff7faf44bc64
0xffffff81385f3b60 : 0xffffff802c5391f2
0xffffff81385f3ba0 : 0xffffff802c52723e
0xffffff81385f3c30 : 0xffffff802c51c26a
0xffffff81385f3e20 : 0xffffff802c7864db
0xffffff81385f3e50 : 0xffffff802c7c7ebd
0xffffff81385f3f60 : 0xffffff802c8286a1
0xffffff81385f3fb0 : 0xffffff802c3ecc66
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv(5.0.24)[3FBE03FF-10B4-33BC-96DA-114CEBE9A861]@0xffffff7faf437000->0xffffff7faf499fff

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: VirtualBoxVM

Regards

[socratis]

1. What changed in your system between before and after the Kernel Panics (KP) started happening? Think hard.
2. Did you try to uninstall/reinstall VirtualBox? Which version?
3. I'm not good at reading KP logs, but please zip the whole log and attach it.

[Geost]

Wow! Thanks for the quick reply.
1. I installed XAMPP, and nothing more.
2. Yes. I tried to reinstall the latest version.
3. Done

[socratis]

loaded kexts:
com.bluestacks.kext.Hypervisor	4.3.26

Can you tell me what another hypervisor is doing in the system? I'm not familiar with it, but a quick search for "Bluestacks Hypervisor" returns mostly how to remove results, malware results and crash results. Maybe?

PS: Please, for the love of your favorite deity(s), do not send text files as formatted RTFs. It's ... ugly

[Geost]

Oh I wasn't familiar with the hypervisor term (up until now that I googled). Bluestacks is an Android Emulator, I use it everyday for work reasons.
However I tried running VB with Bluestacks opened and closed. Even looked for an open process after closing it. It keeps crashing

And just tried another VM software to see if it crashes too. It didn't. However I already have a VM in VB and I like VB. And what keeps me clueless is that I ran a VM yesterday. Had one crash, but after restart it worked normally.

PS: Ohh, I'm so sorry. Saved it directly from macOS's textEdit. But worry no more, I changed the app settings in order to use .txt by default. Thanks for the feedback

[socratis]

However I tried running VB with Bluestacks opened and closed.

It wouldn't make a difference. A kext (Kernel EXTension) loads typically during boot time and stays loaded. So, if there's a conflict, it's going to be there the whole time. From the search results it seems that it is difficult to uninstall Bluestacks, so I don't know what else to think of. See if you can give it a shot.

Now, if you're sure that the only thing that you changed in your system was to install XAMPP, that doesn't compute, because it has nothing to do with the kexts and their potential conflict. I'll try to think of something better in the morning.

[Geost]

Thanks, I'll try uninstalling Bluestacks in order to see what happens. I'll keep you updated. Have a nice night

[socratis]

Here's what I've found so far. The most important clue (for non-developers like us) is the first line of the panic report:

panic(cpu 3 caller 0xffffff802c3ce5fa): Kernel trap at 0xffffff802c3c9054, type 6=invalid opcode, registers:

A search for "type 6=invalid opcode" site:virtualbox.org, turned out a few results (9). Read them, including ticket #15097 that looks very similar to yours, and maybe add your comment and point them to this discussion.

Now, a more general search for type 6=invalid opcode virtualbox turned out a lot more results. There is a open-source virtualization app called xhyve, in whose forums I found several reports that their systems are kernel panicking and they blame VirtualBox. From what I've read, OSX 10.10 introduced the Hypervisor.framework:

The Hypervisor framework provides C APIs for interacting with virtualization technologies in user-space, without the need for writing kernel extensions (KEXTs). As a result, apps created using this framework are suitable for distribution on the Mac App Store.

Now, since you have another virtualization product, which I'll assume makes use of the HyperVisor.framework, that's why you get the kernel panics (most probably). This is almost always the case with all the reports that I've found; there is another virtualization program installed. There is actually a ticket (14217) to allow VirtualBox to use said framework.

Since you're using Bluestacks, that's most probably the reason. To me it smells like a VirtualBox bug, but I'm not a developer. As I said, head to the bugtracker and let them know.


PS. Man this was a rewarding two-hour Hercule Poirot clue hunting

[Geost]

You are amazing! Thanks for all that research. You are indeed right. To confirm, I uninstalled Bluestacks and VBox worked without crashing my Mac. However I will have to install it again since I need it for work.

Thank you very much Socratis. I will report the bug.

Wish you a great day

[socratis]

I will report the bug.

Don't open a new bug. You better should go to the already opened ticket #15097, otherwise you're creating more noise than signal for the DEVs. Point them to this discussion. I'm not really sure that the DEVs are aware about the issues of concurrent use of VirtualBox with the HyperVisor.framework.