Guest machine runs, but no window

[rkc]

I've been using VirtualBox successfully for a while across a variety of host machines with a variety of guest machines, but have recently hit an issue on one of my machines that I have been unable to resolve. The VM starts (and in the case of an Ubuntu guest, I was able to SSH to it and run programs), but the window that should display the guest screen output does not appear - instead I just get a menu bar saying VirtualBox VM" that cannot be accessed (swirling rainbow icon if I move over it). The preview inside the main VirtualBox window is updated so I can see that the guest is running but cannot actually use it.

Using VirtualBox Version 5.2.12 r122591 (Qt5.6.3) with VirtualBox extension pack installed.

The host machine is an iMac Retina 5K, 27 inch, late 2014 (core i7, 16gb ram) running macOS High Sierra version 10.13.4

The guest OS is irrelevant - I have seen the issue on Windows10 guest and Ubuntu 18.04

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling using the uninstall tool, but the problem persists. I tried installing older versions of VirtualBox but no difference. The strange thing is that it USED to work just fine on this machine, then one day it stopped (I don't know what - if anything - changed at the time it stopped working. Nothing obvious).

Clicking "Show log" for a VM that I have started gives the following:

[ModEdit: Partial raw text log, removed]

[socratis]

Partial logs are not that helpful I'm afraid. We're going to need a complete VBox.log, from a complete VM run:

• Gathering the necessary information:
  1. Start the VM from cold-boot (not from a paused or saved state).
  2. Observe the error, i.e. launch the VM and wait for a while.
  3. Shutdown the VM (force close it if you have to). If you can't even do that, use the Activity Monitor to kill the process after 5 minutes or so. Anything that looks like "VirtualBox VM".
• With the VM completely shut down (not paused or saved), right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log".
• Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response. See the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form.

[rkc]

Zipped log

[socratis]

The guest OS is irrelevant - I have seen the issue on Windows10 guest and Ubuntu 18.04

That's ... interesting. Any other monitors involved? I'm going to need a couple of files more, ZIP them all together and attach them:

• The .vbox of the VM. Right-click on the VM, "Show in Finder", that one.
• The "VirtualBox.xml" file located in your user library, "~/Library/VirtualBox/VirtualBox.xml".

[rkc]

No other monitors on this machine.

Requested files attached.

[socratis]

That's weird, really, really weird... You have practically a non-existent <ExtraData> section. Even on a new, never run before VM, that section looks like:

[quote]
<ExtraData>
  <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/FirstRun" value="yes"/>
</ExtraData>
[/quote]

and after the first run/abort:

[quote]
<ExtraData>
  <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastCloseAction" value="PowerOff"/>
  <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastNormalWindowPosition" value="640,329,640,501"/>
</ExtraData>
[/quote]

But you? The only thing you get is:

[quote]
<ExtraData>
  <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/ScaleFactor" value="2"/>
</ExtraData>
[/quote]

Does this happen even with a new VM? Could you try something simple? No need to provide a bootable medium or anything like that, just an empty VM, enough to show the VirtualBox boot logo.

[rkc]

Yes, same on a new empty VM.

One thing I noticed that I had not noticed before. If I start a vm "headless" then say "open" I get to see a window.

[socratis]

I got to admit that this is a weird one. Can you post the output of the following two commands?

• 
  kextstat | grep -v com.apple
  ls -al /private/tmp
  

[rkc]

$ kextstat | grep -v com.apple
Index Refs Address            Size       Wired      Name (Version) UUID <Linked Against>
  154    0 0xffffff7f84663000 0x29000    0x29000    org.pqrs.driver.Karabiner (10.22.0) 75A195F3-FC81-39D0-9040-64D3880249EE <47 5 4 3 1>
  169    0 0xffffff7f84703000 0x2b000    0x2b000    com.aladdin.kext.aksfridge (1.0.2) DE061DF5-F2B9-27A7-8F9B-C85C930D828E <7 4 1>
  256    3 0xffffff7f8468c000 0x64000    0x64000    org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv (5.2.12) 3AABEB96-18B4-378E-B3EE-A0F6EB91DDE7 <7 5 4 3 1>
  258    0 0xffffff7f846f3000 0x8000     0x8000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxUSB (5.2.12) 9ABE1230-E87E-3B89-8E2A-B0B3BAA5F63D <257 256 51 7 5 4 3 1>
  260    0 0xffffff7f846fd000 0x5000     0x5000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetFlt (5.2.12) 3EF145FE-B581-3F71-8F0F-E04C62C5A91D <256 7 5 4 3 1>
  261    0 0xffffff7f8479d000 0x6000     0x6000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetAdp (5.2.12) F6F0D614-6816-3226-9263-DA96DB33D890 <256 5 4 1>

$ ls -al /private/tmp/
total 288
drwxrwxrwt  27 root      wheel     918 12 Jun 11:26 .
drwxr-xr-x@  6 root      wheel     204 20 Oct  2017 ..
srw-rw-rw-   1 root      wheel       0 10 Jun 13:52 .aksusb
drwx------   4 rchapman  wheel     136 11 Jun 17:52 .vbox-rchapman-ipc
drwxr-xr-x   2 rchapman  wheel      68 10 Jun 14:37 35C78986-6830-42D6-8B48-44FF1EA9F345
drwxr-xr-x   3 rchapman  wheel     102 11 Jun 14:37 3FE9AC29-C9DB-43FD-86F4-1AC4C2DC02F6
prw-rw-rw-   1 rchapman  wheel       0 11 Jun 14:34 715391DD-81EA-4775-A3F7-796BCBAABE02_IN
prw-rw-rw-   1 rchapman  wheel       0 11 Jun 14:34 715391DD-81EA-4775-A3F7-796BCBAABE02_OUT
drwxr-xr-x   2 rchapman  wheel      68 11 Jun 14:37 78E11B85-8870-441E-841F-A60FC1884F73
prw-rw-rw-   1 rchapman  wheel       0 10 Jun 14:37 960CDE12-334D-461C-B2CF-34A53D731B19_IN
prw-rw-rw-   1 rchapman  wheel       0 10 Jun 14:37 960CDE12-334D-461C-B2CF-34A53D731B19_OUT
drwxr-xr-x   3 rchapman  wheel     102 11 Jun 14:37 9D858F89-2B4A-46C2-ABE5-93D874A7D467
-rw-r--r--   1 root      wheel       0 10 Jun 13:52 AGM.err
-rw-r--r--   1 root      wheel       0 10 Jun 13:52 AGM.out
-rw-r--r--   1 root      wheel       0 10 Jun 13:52 AGS.err
-rw-r--r--   1 root      wheel       0 10 Jun 13:52 AGS.out
drwxr-xr-x   2 rchapman  wheel      68 11 Jun 14:37 CA74EB88-48E6-4F79-AA39-9CCDAAE8308C
-rw-r--r--   1 rchapman  wheel       0 10 Jun 14:37 ExmanProcessMutex
-rw-rw-rw-   1 root      wheel  120793 12 Jun 08:52 adobegc.log
srwx------   1 rchapman  wheel       0 10 Jun 14:37 com.adobe.AdobeIPCBroker.ctrl-rchapman
drwx------   3 rchapman  wheel     102 10 Jun 14:37 com.apple.launchd.9FLc4LRLJA
drwx------   3 rchapman  wheel     102 10 Jun 14:37 com.apple.launchd.ziJpz516ex
-rw-r--r--   1 root      wheel     507 10 Jun 13:52 com.wacom.UpdateHelper.se.log
-rw-r--r--   1 root      wheel       0 10 Jun 13:52 com.wacom.UpdateHelper.so.log
drwx------   2 root      wheel      68 10 Jun 13:52 cvcd
-rw-rw-rw-   1 rchapman  wheel     729 11 Jun 14:37 swtag.log

[rkc]

I noticed some diagnostics are getting created in the system console app - see attached