[Fixed] 5.1.x Guru Meditation: VERR_IEM_INSTR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED
Posted: 28. Mar 2017, 00:59
Summary
With VirtualBox 5.1.x, a lot of VMs on OSX hosts can crash with a Guru Meditation. VMs that used to work, VMs that can work, but suddenly they go into Guru Meditation. This is a known regression of VBox 5.1.x, when the developers switched to a new instruction interpreter on Mac OS X. Some instructions defined in the Intel 80/86 instruction set are not implemented in VirtualBox.
This Guru is not triggered on more recent Mac OS X hosts. The interpreter is used under certain conditions so it may happen that such a Guru is never triggered. Some users have reported that disabling Nested Paging might work around the issue or by reducing the vCPUs to 1. VBox 5.1.x depends a bit more on the Nested Paging feature, at least on Mac OS X.
According to the developers, a fix is in the queue, but there is no ETA.
Solution
This has been fixed with 5.1.24. If it doesn't work for you, please post a zipped VBox.log from a failed session.
Not all Guru Meditation errors are because of this bug
If you want to know that your crash is due to this, open the "VBox.log" for the affected VM and search for the string "VERR_IEM_INSTR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED". Here's an excerpt of a log. Note that right after the guru error message you can see the offending instruction that has not been implemented yet:
There were several tickets that are open because of this. Next to each ticket, I've noted the VirtualBox version used, the instruction responsible for the crash, and the host hardware/guest OS used. Your mileage may vary:
With VirtualBox 5.1.x, a lot of VMs on OSX hosts can crash with a Guru Meditation. VMs that used to work, VMs that can work, but suddenly they go into Guru Meditation. This is a known regression of VBox 5.1.x, when the developers switched to a new instruction interpreter on Mac OS X. Some instructions defined in the Intel 80/86 instruction set are not implemented in VirtualBox.
This Guru is not triggered on more recent Mac OS X hosts. The interpreter is used under certain conditions so it may happen that such a Guru is never triggered. Some users have reported that disabling Nested Paging might work around the issue or by reducing the vCPUs to 1. VBox 5.1.x depends a bit more on the Nested Paging feature, at least on Mac OS X.
According to the developers, a fix is in the queue, but there is no ETA.
Solution
This has been fixed with 5.1.24. If it doesn't work for you, please post a zipped VBox.log from a failed session.
Not all Guru Meditation errors are because of this bug
If you want to know that your crash is due to this, open the "VBox.log" for the affected VM and search for the string "VERR_IEM_INSTR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED". Here's an excerpt of a log. Note that right after the guru error message you can see the offending instruction that has not been implemented yet:
Related tickets00:00:09.936143 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 00:00:09.936144 !! 00:00:09.936144 !! VCPU0: Guru Meditation -5300 (VERR_IEM_INSTR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED) 00:00:09.936170 !! 00:00:09.936202 Guest CPUM (VCPU 0) state: ... 00:00:09.967655 00:00:09.967656 CPUM: 0020:ffffffff80f73410 0f ae 3f clflush byte [rdi] 00:00:09.967657
There were several tickets that are open because of this. Next to each ticket, I've noted the VirtualBox version used, the instruction responsible for the crash, and the host hardware/guest OS used. Your mileage may vary:
- https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/15693
5.1.2, movq xmm, Macmini4,1/Win10_64 - https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/15790
5.1.2, clflush, MacBookPro11,2/BSD (FreeNAS) - https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/15801
5.1.2, stmxcsr, MacBookPro7,1/Win7_64, MacBookPro5,2/Win7_64, MacBookAir6,2/RedHat_64, MacBookPro12,1/Win10_64 - https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/15969
5.1.4, stmxcsr, MacBookPro7,1/Win7_64 - https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/16171
5.1.8, stmxcsr, MacBookPro7,1/Win7_64 - https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/16274
5.1.10, movq xmm, MacBookPro9,1/Linux2.6 (Knoppix 7.7) - https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/16418
5.1.14, stmxcsr, MacBookPro8,2/Win7_64 - https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/16556
5.1.16, movss xmm, MacBookPro12,1/Win10_64 - https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/16569
5.1.16, clflush, MacBookAir6,2/FreeBSD_64 (GhostBSD) - https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/16657
5.1.18, movq xmm, MacBookPro7,1/Win10_64 - https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/16663
5.1.18, movups xmm, MacBookAir6,2/FreeBSD_64 - In this thread:
5.1.22, vmovdqa oword, iMac17,1/ArchLinux_64