VirtualBox 6.1.0 hard crashes macOS 10.15.2 host

[adamretter]

I have a MacBook Pro 2019 15" with macOS 10.15.2 (Catalina), and VirtualBox 6.1.0. My guest VM is Ubuntu x64 16.04.6 (Xenial). I recently upgraded macOS and VirtualBox.

A few moments of after I start the guest and run some commands, then the laptops screen turns black, the fans whirr very loudly for a brief moment, and then the laptop boots up again. It seems that somehow VirtualBox is hard crashing the entire host.

Before upgrading, I was running Virtual Box 6.0 on macOS 10.14.6 (Mojave) and it was very stable.

What do I need to report to get this fixed?

I saw some people talking about `kextstat` on the forums, and so this is the output from that:

$ kextstat | grep -v com.apple
Index Refs Address            Size       Wired      Name (Version) UUID <Linked Against>
   99    0 0xffffff7f8282d000 0x37000    0x37000    com.paragon-software.filesystems.extfs (30.3.11) FB7BD498-B52E-3B42-AFD6-E17D4F15266E <8 6 5 1>
  102    3 0xffffff7f82872000 0xf0000    0xf0000    org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv (6.1.0) 5DA96489-AE58-33AC-AC90-760EE66D6A0A <8 6 5 3 1>
  106    0 0xffffff7f82a5d000 0x17000    0x17000    com.paragon-software.lvm-for-mac (1) 0B3A024F-F646-30A8-9712-6743C3ADE51B <26 6 5 3 1>
  181    0 0xffffff7f837a8000 0x8000     0x8000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxUSB (6.1.0) 05FAFD37-9097-3447-A282-3E0DE51C7181 <180 102 61 8 6 5 3 1>
  185    0 0xffffff7f837da000 0x5000     0x5000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetFlt (6.1.0) 191B696D-4250-3E84-9D99-D751DD370533 <102 8 6 5 3 1>
  188    0 0xffffff7f84876000 0x6000     0x6000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetAdp (6.1.0) 1732BD29-D70C-3E92-A9BB-D27B4BDE552B <102 6 5 1>

[JiF_Brodeur]

Hi @adamretter I found a way to make VirtualBox usable on macOS 10.15.2, change your Graphic Controller (VM - Settings - Display - Graphics Controller) to VBoxVGA instead of VMSVGA, it will complain of Invalid settings detected at the bottom but go ahead and always shutdown you VM, DO NOT SAVE state. There seems to be an issue related to the graphic driver.
Thanks
Jean-François

[jythejavaguy]

I had this exact problem, and the solution here worked for me. Thanks!

[JiF_Brodeur]

I had this exact problem, and the solution here worked for me. Thanks!

Hi, glad I could help, still, if the issue comes back some users in the forum talked about starting the VM headless then show screen.
Have a nice day.
Thanks
Jean-François

[Threader]

Remove 6.1 via latest VB installer. Download older version 6.0.12 (not 6.0.14) and install. Wait for 6.1 to get fixes.

[JiF_Brodeur]

HI, problem solved with VB 6.1.2, no more kernel panic with starting a VM.
Thanks to everyone who helped.
Jean-Francois