virtualbox.org

On my iMac 2017 5K, macOS Mojave, 10.14.510.14.4 (sorry), I successfully used VirtualBox 6.0.4 and wanted to update to VirtualBox 6.0.8. The update was apparently successful. Also the guest machines, Windows 7 and Windows XP ran well in the beginning. But later there were crashes of macOS, i.e. spontaneous restarts. Finally with broken machines, so my virtual machines didn't start anymore. So I uninstalled VirtualBox 6.0.8 with the uninstall tool and installed the old version. But the machines were broken. Finally the complete system was restored from backup. Now everything runs again.

Sorry, I don't have any screenshots or logs.

And I'm terrified to try the update to VirtualBox 6.0.8 again.

Has anyone had similar experiences?

I wouldn't open a thread with a "Caution..." title, as a warning to the general public, and then have a "anyone else".

How do we know for example that it's not simply your iMac that's broken? We don't.

macjacke wrote:wanted to update to VirtualBox 6.0.8. The update was apparently successful

I'm sorry, but you can't simply upgrade to 6.0.8 with 10.14.5, Apple has banned 6.0.8. See installation fails for vbox 6.0.8 on osx 10.14.5.

Unless you did some of those workarounds, your "apparently" was just that; apparently. Because the installer fails to install the kext (Kernel EXTensions) required for the whole thing to work. And that would result in error messages (which you don't have, tsk, tsk, tsk) and given you the impression that the whole thing failed or your VMs were broken.

Hard to say without

macjacke wrote:any screenshots or logs

Sorry, the macOS Version was 10.14.4.

Under macOS the version 6.0.8 only works unstable. For the first time in my history with VirtualBox I experienced system crashes from Mac. There were reboots from the running virtual machine. The iMac 2017 was the first. My MacBook Pro followed. The crashes could only be fixed by restoring the backups and using the old version of VirtualBox. Now all my Macs run with the old Virtualbox versions (6.0.4 and 6.0.6) and current macOS 10.14.5.

Can you please try again? It might have been a one-time glitch. But this time, please keep detailed logs, error messages, screenshots, etc.

It was interesting in both cases that an uninstallation of version 6.0.8 and a new installation of the older version was not sufficient to eliminate the problems. The problems also occurred in the old version. The only solution was the backup.

The installation script must have changed something in the system that is not reversible.

I haven't yet completely understood. VirtualBox crashes? The VM crashes? The host crashes?

VM crashes

• We need to see a complete VBox.log, from a complete VM run, where the problem occurs:
  • Start the VM from cold-boot (not from a paused or saved state) / Observe problem / Shutdown the VM (force close it if you have to).
  • 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.

VirtualBox or Host crashes

• Run the following in the Terminal and post the output:

  • kextstat | grep -v com.apple

macOS crashs, kernel panic, a black screen appears with a small text, a macOS message, then the complete system reboots automatically.

One of the systems got a kernel panic again. The system was macOS 10.14.5 and Virtualbox 6.0.4. It seems that VirtualBox is not compatible with macOS 10.14.5.

Please excuse the inaccuracy of my error messages, the reason is the almost simultaneous update of macOS 10.14.5 and VirtualBox 6.0.8.

I recommend to reset all systems to macOS 10.14.4 and VirtualBox 6.0.6. This is the latest version I know that works safe and stable.

Please don't make generalizations based on a single data point; 1 datapoint = 0 datapoints. And please don't make recommendations based only on your situation. Just because something is wrong with your setup, it doesn't apply universally.

And please do not create noise in the installation fails for vbox 6.0.8 on osx 10.14.5. I have removed your post that had as a sole purpose to draw attention to this thread. Do not repeat.

I said previously that if the host crashes I need to see the output of the following command:

• 
  kextstat | grep -v com.apple

Please provide the output, maybe we can find out what's wrong with your computer.

To add a little more sanity to this thread...

I too have a 2017 5K iMac. In the last week since I updated it to macOS 10.14.5 and VirtualBox 6.0.8 I have had a Fedora 27 guest running headless current uptime just over 5 days, and have also had at various times either a Windows 10 or Windows XP guest running with guest additions installed at 1280x1024 screen res.

It isn't like this is a totally clean macOS install either. The output of the kextstat command that Socratis mentioned reports:
All I can say is on my system it works, therefore it isn't as fundamentally broken as you think it is and you need to look more closely at your system.

-Andy.

@andyp73
None of these kexts would raise a red flag from the get-go. Maybe the ESET ones, depending on the problem you were facing...

But, on the other hand, you don't have a problem...

macOS 10.14.5 keeps crashing very often when running vms:

[ModEdit: Malformed crash report deleted]

Index Refs Address            Size       Wired      Name (Version) UUID <Linked Against>
  112    0 0xffffff7f83eaa000 0x28000    0x28000    com.intel.kext.intelhaxm (7.3.2) 58DFBE80-E54A-3EFE-B38A-215C5ED8E828 <8 6 5 3 1>
  113    3 0xffffff7f83ed2000 0xf0000    0xf0000    org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv (6.0.8) BA29BAA2-1460-3F53-BF68-E672C5115BF1 <8 6 5 3 1>
  179    0 0xffffff7f849e9000 0x8000     0x8000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxUSB (6.0.8) 9331EE7C-CCD1-3E6D-B1FA-5D1036B0C0FF <178 113 56 8 6 5 3 1>
  181    0 0xffffff7f84a04000 0x5000     0x5000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetFlt (6.0.8) 4F577315-BF94-3C7A-974B-48ECBE38B445 <113 8 6 5 3 1>
  183    0 0xffffff7f84a1a000 0x6000     0x6000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetAdp (6.0.8) 3793177D-4D36-37D6-8B61-50E941DFC8FF <113 6 5 1>

my impression is that it happens in low memory conditions during Guest OS startup (it happened to me in windows guest as well as linux guests).

@tbenr
I honestly don't know what you did with your crash report, but whatever tool you used, don't use it again. Instead of the "<Enter>" character your report was full of "\n" and instead of the "<Tab>" character, the corresponding escaped "\t". Ideally you should have not touched the crash report with your editor, but instead ZIPPING it and attaching it in your post:

tbenr wrote:

112 0 0xffffff7f83eaa000 0x28000 0x28000 com.intel.kext.intelhaxm (7.3.2) 58DFBE80-E54A-3EFE-B38A-215C5ED8E828 <8 6 5 3 1>

We've had plenty of reports with crashes with that specific Intel HAXM version. It's rather old, and predates 10.4.5 by almost a year. I would suggest to completely uninstall it...