VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
pietpatat
Posts: 7
Joined: 18. Oct 2018, 16:09

VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by pietpatat »

VB version: Version 5.2.20 r125813 (Qt5.6.3) with guest additions installed (encountered this issue through multiple versions and also before having guest additions installed)
Host: macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 - 64bit - 16GB memory
Guest1: Ubuntu 16.04.4 - 64bit - 2GB memory
Guest2: Ubuntu 16.04.4 - 64bit - 1GB memory

I have been getting kernel panics every once in a while. Lately I have been getting them more often, but I've also been using VB more so maybe that is the relation. They seem to happen at random, as in: I cannot think of a common thing I'm doing at the time they happen. I've read through the forums and the issues there were pointed towards other 3rd party kexts, which I do not have running. I've added the apple logs for analysis, any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
Attachments
macKP.log
(8.27 KiB) Downloaded 57 times
socratis
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Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by socratis »

Any system-wide modifying software? I'm not talking about Firefox or TextWrangler. I'm talking about MacPorts, Homebrew, XQuartz, etc.

From the crash log:
last loaded kext at 15176593480532: com.apple.driver.usb.cdc    5.0.0 (addr 0xffffff7f92e65000, size 28672)
last unloaded kext at 15236606317574: com.apple.driver.usb.cdc  5.0.0 (addr 0xffffff7f92e65000, size 28672)
Searching for "com.apple.driver.usb.cdc" returns about 1/2 million results, most of them about kernel panics. Not very reassuring...
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pietpatat
Posts: 7
Joined: 18. Oct 2018, 16:09

Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by pietpatat »

Thanks for your reply!
Any system-wide modifying software? I'm not talking about Firefox or TextWrangler. I'm talking about MacPorts, Homebrew, XQuartz, etc.
Nothing comes to mind that qualifies as system-wide modifying.

As for the last loaded kext: I've gathered up all my panic logs from October and cropped them down to only show the running process and last loaded/unloaded kext (see attachment).
I see quite a wide variety in loaded/unloaded kexts at the time of crash. On the other hand, all but one show VirtualBoxVM as the process closest to the crash.

I've now set the paravirtualisation interface to: none. I read in a blogpost which described a similar issue that this fixed it for him, thought it was worth a try. No panics as of yet and for my use I have not noticed any performance issues.

What I still need to do:
- Run a hardware test, just to be sure that comes back clean
- Try and reproduce with the settings I had before. Will have to do this over the weekend.

Any input is again appreciated :)
Attachments
macKPlogs_oct.log
(3.44 KiB) Downloaded 24 times
socratis
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Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by socratis »

com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily
com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs
com.apple.driver.AppleXsanScheme
com.apple.driver.AppleHDAHardwareConfigDriver
com.apple.driver.usb.cdc
com.apple.driver.usb.cdc.acm
Since you're the only one so far reporting random kernel panics with 10.13.6, a deeper analysis of your setup is needed, something not easily done remotely. I see several storage related kexts. Anything out of the norm with your setup?
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
pietpatat
Posts: 7
Joined: 18. Oct 2018, 16:09

Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by pietpatat »

I see several storage related kexts. Anything out of the norm with your setup?
Not really, my setup is: Macbook with a multiport adapter which connects to a Dell monitor, Apple keyboard and a Logitech mouse. No storage connected to it, or did you mean VM related setup?
com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs
Above makes me ask that question, because I do have a windows VM (has not been turned on in at least half a year though).

Update from my end:
- Hardware test came back clean.
- Have not been able to reproduce with old paravirtualisation settings, during my short testing period.
- With having the paravirtualisation interface set to 'none', I've still not had any issues as of yet.

Any other info you need, I'll be happy to provide.
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
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Location: Greece

Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by socratis »

pietpatat wrote:- Have not been able to reproduce with old paravirtualisation settings, during my short testing period.
With that you mean that paravirtualization is set to "None"? Interesting, but, keep it like that, at least until we have a 2nd report. Nothing bad is going to happen to your VM, in fact mine are still set to "None" or "Legacy" (which in most cases it means None).
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
pietpatat
Posts: 7
Joined: 18. Oct 2018, 16:09

Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by pietpatat »

With that you mean that paravirtualization is set to "None"?
Indeed. I had it set to default initially, panics happened. Then I set it to minimal (as the documentation describes for macOS) for a short while, panics still happened. Now it is set to none, no panics happened so far.
I will keep it like this indeed, for my use I don't notice any difference.
socratis
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Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by socratis »

pietpatat wrote:Then I set it to minimal (as the documentation describes for macOS)
Slight misunderstanding, the "Minimal paravirtualization" is for OSX guests, not hosts.
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
pietpatat
Posts: 7
Joined: 18. Oct 2018, 16:09

Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by pietpatat »

Ah, ok.

Also, just encountered the first kernel panic in these settings, so sadly, it seems this did not fix it :( Attached is the log.
Attachments
macKP1024.log
(7.4 KiB) Downloaded 28 times
./scc
Posts: 7
Joined: 24. Oct 2018, 18:31

Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by ./scc »

I'm also seeing Kernel panics and need to sort it out. Not sure if it's a regression, as I did update to 5.2.20 r125813, but believe I was seeing it earlier (think I was at 5.2.16).

* Host is OSX 10.13.6, has 16 GB RAM
* Running 3 separate Ubuntu 16.04 instances, each with 4GB RAM
* VM disk locations (.vdi's) are non-sparse, fully allocated 2TB files living on a RAID6 external thunderbolt drive (Pegasus R6). Yes, this means I have to login on the host machine or the external drive doesn't mount, and also prevent auto-logout.
* Tried changing paravirtualization options: Default, KVM, and None (all still kernel panic)

Here's the most recent kernel panic. *any* suggestions whatsoever are worth gold to me. Need these instances to stay alive indefinitely, not kernel panic after < 2 hours of running. FWIW, I didn't see kernel panics before but have recently really started "exercising" the Ubuntu VMs (primarily Elasticsearch CPU bound across all 3 instances).

Also, I am a bit worried that I see the com.app.filesystems.msdosfs always being the last loaded kext AND that it is frequently also last unloaded with a different size.

Code: Select all

last loaded kext at 245345939560: com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs	1.10 (addr 0xffffff7f973cf000, size 69632)
last unloaded kext at 306073793647: com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs	1.10 (addr 0xffffff7f973cf000, size 61440)
Attachments
Kernel_2018-10-23-144012.panic.txt
(7.26 KiB) Downloaded 40 times
./scc
Posts: 7
Joined: 24. Oct 2018, 18:31

Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by ./scc »

Hey @pietpatat - was your system upgraded to High Sierra 10.13 from 10.12? My system certainly was, and upon reading this link, I'm wondering if the plethora of kernel panics out there in the wild that show com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs are due to the fact that this kext was there before and is thus allowed, where it might not be present on clean High-Sierra-ONLY boxes:
link: https://pikeralpha.wordpress.com/2017/0 ... n-loading/

Argh - tried to post this as a real link, but hit a spam limit of "must be a member for 1 days and have 1 posts before you can post URLS. Sigh. Add a prefix of secure web, then join all the spaces with "/", and change the two "DOT" instances to "."
Last edited by socratis on 24. Oct 2018, 22:14, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Fixed obfuscated URLs.
./scc
Posts: 7
Joined: 24. Oct 2018, 18:31

Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by ./scc »

Whelp. Clean OSX High Sierra boxes also appear to have /System/Library/Extensions/msdosfs.kext too. So - trying out the full Command-R reboot into recovery, Terminal, "csrutil disable", reboot, move msdosfs.kext somewhere else (as a backup), reboot again with Command-R, "csrutil enable", then reboot.

Let this thread know whether it survives the day/night. Prior to this it's been pretty guaranteed to kernel panic during that timeframe.
socratis
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Posts: 27330
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Primary OS: Mac OS X other
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Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by socratis »

Just stating the facts/dates here...
  • 2018-07-09: 10.13.6 comes out. No major issues reported.
  • 2018-10-16: 5.2.20 comes out.
  • 2018-10-18: Unexplained kernel panic reports, start coming in.
Hmm... Can you downgrade to 5.2.18 or earlier and try it again?
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
./scc
Posts: 7
Joined: 24. Oct 2018, 18:31

Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by ./scc »

Yeah, great question @socratis - downgrading will definitely be my next step if this removal of msdosfs.kext doesn't make it stable. So far, so good (86 min). Definitely updating here tomorrow morning. Thanks for fixing my link too.
./scc
Posts: 7
Joined: 24. Oct 2018, 18:31

Re: VirtualBox causing kernel panics

Post by ./scc »

No dice - kernel panic again, and the last loaded/unloaded kexts are STILL the "com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs":

Code: Select all

last loaded kext at 245299630143: com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs 1.10 (addr 0xffffff7f9cfcf000, size 69632)
last unloaded kext at 306028564078: com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs       1.10 (addr 0xffffff7f9cfcf000, size 61440)
Which floors me, as the "msdosfs.kext" directory has been moved out of /System/Library/Extensions entirely - I put it into /System/Library/Extensions-SCC-DISABLED/ which I'd be stunned if it got found that way.

Regardless - going to put it back in place and move back to VirtualBox 5.2.18. Let this thread know after another day (or sooner if it continues to panic).
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