[Solved] Booting El Capitan iso hangs after loading compression libraries

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rainbowgoblin
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Joined: 14. Sep 2019, 04:20

[Solved] Booting El Capitan iso hangs after loading compression libraries

Post by rainbowgoblin »

Trying to set up an El Capitan guest on a MacBook Pro (late 2016) host running Mojave. EDIT: I'm using VirtualBox 6.0.12.

I followed a guide at techsviewer dot com which is currently the first google hit for "how-to-install-mac-os-x-el-capitan-on-pc-on-virtualbox" (I'll replace this with an actual link tomorrow when I'm allowed to!)

I get partway through booting from the El Cap iso, at which point the VM hangs after:

Code: Select all

com.apple.AppleFSCompressionTypeDataless kmod start
com.apple.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib kmod start
com.apple.AppleFSCompressionTypeDataless load succeeded
com.apple.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib load succeeded
... then nothing.

I checked that I can boot this VM from a Yosemite installation DMG (no problem), but I can't figure out what I need to do to make El Cap work.

I've set up Mac OS VMs before, but never El Cap or newer. Googling the line where it fails led me to forums with Hackintosh questions, but I'm running Mac OS on Apple hardware on my host system.
Attachments
VBox.log.tar.gz
Log file
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rainbowgoblin
Posts: 5
Joined: 14. Sep 2019, 04:20

Re: Booting El Capitan iso hangs after loading compression libraries

Post by rainbowgoblin »

Just an update... browsing these forums I've learned that techsviewer is Hackintosh, so probably has a bunch of setextradata commands I shouldn't be using.

I've scaled it back. I set up a fresh El Capitan VM with the default settings, then set the "VBoxInternal2/SmcDeviceKey" extra data to the usual value and ran:

Code: Select all

VBoxManage modifyvm ElCap --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-6700K"
When I boot my VM, I immediately get "A critical error has occurred while running the virtual machine and the machine execution has been stopped (etc.)"
Attachments
VBox.log.tar.gz
Another logfile
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socratis
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Re: Booting El Capitan iso hangs after loading compression libraries

Post by socratis »

rainbowgoblin wrote:I set up a fresh El Capitan VM
See [HowTo] Install OSX 10.13 in a VM.
rainbowgoblin wrote:then set the "VBoxInternal2/SmcDeviceKey" extra data to the usual value
You don't need to do that, you shouldn't do that. Delete that key:
  • VBoxManage setextradata ElCap "VBoxInternal2/SmcDeviceKey"
rainbowgoblin wrote:VBoxManage modifyvm ElCap --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-6700K"
You don't need to do that, you shouldn't do that. Delete that key:
  • VBoxManage modifyvm ElCap --cpu-profile host
00:00:01.730868 Guest OS type: 'MacOS1011_64'
How about creating a new VM and choosing actually the appropriate option, "OSX 10.13"?
00:00:01.768877 File system of '/Users/jessica/Downloads/elcap/elcapitan.iso' (DVD) is apfs
How did you create that ISO? See [HowTo] Create OSX ISO from the OSX Install app.

Actually, come to think about it, it would be best if you delete your current VM, and start from scratch, with a properly setup VM, and following the two [HowTo] threads that I gave you...
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rainbowgoblin
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Joined: 14. Sep 2019, 04:20

Re: Booting El Capitan iso hangs after loading compression libraries

Post by rainbowgoblin »

socratis wrote:See [HowTo] Install OSX 10.13 in a VM.
Sorry, maybe that wasn't clear: I'm setting up a 10.11 guest (on a 10.14 host). I looked for an equivalent how-to for 10.11 but couldn't find one.
socratis wrote:[HowTo] Create OSX ISO from the OSX Install app.
Thanks for that, I've created a new iso with the script linked there (it didn't complain about creating an ISO from a 10.11 installer), and a fresh VM, and it still crashes with the Guru "A critical error..." message. Also, the log still looks like the iso's file system is apfs:
00:00:02.076261 File system of '/Users/jessica/Downloads/elcap/elcap.iso' (DVD) is apfs
Attachments
VBox.log.tar.gz
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socratis
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Posts: 27330
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Re: Booting El Capitan iso hangs after loading compression libraries

Post by socratis »

rainbowgoblin wrote:Sorry, maybe that wasn't clear: I'm setting up a 10.11 guest (on a 10.14 host)
No, you were clear enough, it's me that got confused with the El Capitan, Mohave, Yosemite, Sierra, Catalina thingy. That's why I always use the numeric version, I don't do well with names... :)
rainbowgoblin wrote:I looked for an equivalent how-to for 10.11 but couldn't find one.
There's no need for one. You simply create the ISO, boot the VM, go on with your life...
rainbowgoblin wrote:Also, the log still looks like the iso's file system is apfs:
00:00:02.076261 File system of '/Users/jessica/Downloads/elcap/elcap.iso' (DVD) is apfs
APFS is the filesystem where the ISO resides, not the ISO itself. The ISO itself is ... ISO. :shock:

But I do have a little bit of an issue here. Why is the ISO in the "/Users/jessica/Downloads/elcap" folder? Why is the ISO not named as it should come out of the script/app? The ISO should be in "/Users/jessica/Desktop/10.11.6.iso". Why would you get into the trouble of renaming/moving it? Did you actually run the script with a proper Installer.app from Apple? Sure doesn't look like it...

Given the fact that I just did a clean InstallerApp2ISO from a 10.11.6.app, and it installed just fine, I have a little bit of a problem understanding what's going on here...
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rainbowgoblin
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Re: Booting El Capitan iso hangs after loading compression libraries

Post by rainbowgoblin »

socratis wrote:Why is the ISO in the "/Users/jessica/Downloads/elcap" folder? Why is the ISO not named as it should come out of the script/app? The ISO should be in "/Users/jessica/Desktop/10.11.6.iso". Why would you get into the trouble of renaming/moving it?
I didn't actually move the file, I ran it with the -o flag:

Code: Select all

bash InstallerApp2ISO.sh -i 'Install OS X El Capitan.app' -o ~/Downloads/elcap
(I know keeping things in Downloads is weird, please don't judge). I did rename the file 10.11.iso to elcap.iso: I have an easier time with Mac OS codenames than numbers (specifically, when I'm told by my product manager "test this on El Capitan" and the "Install OS X El Capitan" app bundle also has the codename rather than the number it's easier not to have to look for a matching ISO with a number). I'll attach a new log file from an iso I didn't rename (or move, but you'll see it's still in a Downloads subdirectory).
socratis wrote:Did you actually run the script with a proper Installer.app from Apple? Sure doesn't look like it...
Yes, I did run the script with a proper installer from Apple. It's 10.11, not 10.11.6, but yes, it's a real installer from Apple. I'll ask around whether anyone else has successfully used this installer... we moved our installers from an in house server to cloud storage recently, it's possible it got corrupted. When I mounted the elcap.iso I created on a 10.10 VM it seemed to think it was a real installer, but since I didn't actually try to boot with it... I don't know.

EDIT: I found the installer checksums you had linked on this thread (thanks!) and verified the checksum for the InstallESD.dmg image inside my installer, it's fine.

I'm wondering if the problem is actually my host hardware that's the problem? I guess my MacBook probably had 10.12 installed when I got it. This seems unlikely, though, given that I managed to install 10.6, 10.8, 10.9, and 10.10 VMs without so much trouble.

Thanks for your help, anyway.
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rainbowgoblin
Posts: 5
Joined: 14. Sep 2019, 04:20

Re: Booting El Capitan iso hangs after loading compression libraries

Post by rainbowgoblin »

So. I read carefully through this same thread (where I found the checksum link, thanks again). It seems my problem was exactly the same. Your suggestion:
socratis wrote:
  1. Try with 3072 MB of RAM instead of 2048 MB.
  2. Try with two vCPUs instead of one.
  3. Try with 128 MB of vRAM instead of 16 MB.
  4. Enabling the Host I/O cache, might improve your performance. If the VM ever boots ;)
    (VM settings » Storage » SATA Controller » Use Host I/O Cache = checked)
Enabling Host I/O cache was the key. So weird. I really don't think I was just impatient, without this option checked I did manage to get back to the point where it stalled after loading com.apple.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib. I waited about half an hour at one point. With that option checked, it takes less than a second to move on after zlip is loaded.

In any case, thanks. The installer is now booted and running (22 minutes and I should hopefully have my El Cap/10.11 VM up and running).
socratis
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Re: Booting El Capitan iso hangs after loading compression libraries

Post by socratis »

First of all, thank you for the explanations, it makes more sense now...
rainbowgoblin wrote:Enabling Host I/O cache was the key. So weird.
Tell me about it! :shock:
I don't know why this was the problem, it doesn't make sense... But I'm glad that you finally got it going, marking as [Solved].
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fth0
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Re: [Solved] Booting El Capitan iso hangs after loading compression libraries

Post by fth0 »

@socratis:
BTW, in general, do you know of any indication in VBox log files to recognize if the Host I/O cache was enabled/disabled? (The BlkCache entries seem to be independent of the Host I/O cache setting.)
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