Wakeup a frozen machine on a different computer

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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keros
Posts: 29
Joined: 13. Mar 2009, 11:16

Wakeup a frozen machine on a different computer

Post by keros »

Hi

My testsetup:
VirtualBox 3.1.4
System1: Intel Core 2 Duo - Windows Vista
System2: Pentium 4 - Windows XP
System3: AMD Athlon - Windows XP
Virtual Machine: Ubuntu 8.04

Now i have tested the following:
I have frozen the VM on System1. After that i have copied all files (Snaphot, *.vdi, *.sav, *.xml , ...) to System2 and tried to start the VM.
This ends up with an error:
cpum#1 CPU family mismatch: host=0xf saved=0x6 [ver=11 pass=final]
VERR_SSM_LOAD_CPUID_MISMATCH

The same with System3 says:
~ CPU Vendor String missmatch ~

Is there a technical reason why the cpu Type (Vendor, Family, ?Serial?, ...) is stored in the *.sav file? Is there maybe a way to avoid this behavior? Or is the only way to shutdown the VM and reboot it on the new System?

keros
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Wakeup a frozen machine on a different computer

Post by mpack »

Different CPUs can have different feature sets, for example register widths, presence of VT-x, handling of certain privileged ops, so I don't see how a CPU check can be avoided. Perhaps a less strict test is possible, but do you have a good reason for not shutting down the VM before moving it between hosts?
keros
Posts: 29
Joined: 13. Mar 2009, 11:16

Re: Wakeup a frozen machine on a different computer

Post by keros »

mpack wrote:Perhaps a less strict test is possible, but do you have a good reason for not shutting down the VM before moving it between hosts?
I sync the data from my Laptop to my other 2 machines, so it would be nice if i have a frozen VM that i can wakeup it on my Desktop machines. I understand the problem about the VT-x/AMD-V and other features. So it seems there is no way :(

Then i have to live with that. But maybe lesser checks would be nice (if possible). Migrating VMs from one to another (newer) host with 0 downtime would be a nice feature ^^

keros
durval
Posts: 4
Joined: 30. Mar 2010, 10:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu 8.04
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows XP, Windows 2003

Re: Wakeup a frozen machine on a different computer

Post by durval »

Hello,

I have the same problem as the original poster, but my old system (the one the VM was created on) uses a Merom T5600 CPU, and the new system (the one I'm trying to start the saved VM) has a Yorkfield Q9550 CPU.

As far as I know, this new CPU is a "proper superset" (ie, has everything and them some) of the old CPU, so there could be no incompatibility problems running the old VM, but VirtualBox (at least v3.0.12) refuses to run it all the same.

It would be nice if that "refusal logic" could be smarter, or if the error could be turned into a warning instead, with a "continue anyway" button so the user could opt to go ahead and start the saved VM anyway at his/her own risk.

Regards,
--
Durval Menezes.
durval
Posts: 4
Joined: 30. Mar 2010, 10:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu 8.04
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows XP, Windows 2003

Re: Wakeup a frozen machine on a different computer

Post by durval »

Hello,
mpack wrote:[...]do you have a good reason for not shutting down the VM before moving it between hosts?
I don't know about the original poster, but in my case my old system is DEAD... motherboard just turned belly-up last week. I replaced the motherboard with a new one, with a new CPU which was supposed to be a "proper superset" of the old one (for old/new CPU specs, please see above) and the fact that I can't start my saved VMs because I now have a newer CPU (event thought there should not be any incompatibility) seems rather arbitrary...

Best regards,
--
Durval Menezes.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Wakeup a frozen machine on a different computer

Post by mpack »

durval wrote:It would be nice if that "refusal logic" could be smarter, or if the error could be turned into a warning instead, with a "continue anyway" button so the user could opt to go ahead and start the saved VM anyway at his/her own risk.
That's sounds like a good suggestion to me: good enough that perhaps you should open a bugtracker account, raise the original problem as a formal bug report, and suggest this solution.
durval
Posts: 4
Joined: 30. Mar 2010, 10:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu 8.04
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows XP, Windows 2003

Re: Wakeup a frozen machine on a different computer

Post by durval »

mpack wrote:That's sounds like a good suggestion to me: good enough that perhaps you should open a bugtracker account, raise the original problem as a formal bug report, and suggest this solution.
Just did it: http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/6460

In the meantime, if someone knows where I need to poke into the (binary) .sav file to change the old CPU type to the current one so VBox will run it, please post it (or PM me).

Thanks in advance,
--
Durval Menezes.
alexbird
Posts: 1
Joined: 7. Dec 2011, 00:47
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: Ubuntu

Re: Wakeup a frozen machine on a different computer

Post by alexbird »

I have a similar problem, except I'm waking up from the frozen state on the SAME machine, just in a different host OS. The CPU is exactly the same!

The machine was frozen in Ubuntu, and defrosted in OSX. Ubuntu is running OSE from the repository, OSX the current download package.

It says:
cpum#1: x86_CPUID_FEATURE_ECX_OSXSAVE mismatch: host=0 saved=1 [ver=12 pass=final]
verr_ssm_load_cpuid_mismatch

Result Code:
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component:
Console
Interface:
IConsole {1968b7d3-e3bf-4ceb-99e0-cb7c913317bb}

Can anyone help me out?
durval
Posts: 4
Joined: 30. Mar 2010, 10:34
Primary OS: Ubuntu 8.04
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows XP, Windows 2003

Re: Wakeup a frozen machine on a different computer

Post by durval »

Hello Alex,
alexbird wrote:I have a similar problem, except I'm waking up from the frozen state on the SAME machine, just in a different host OS. The CPU is exactly the same!
The machine was frozen in Ubuntu, and defrosted in OSX. Ubuntu is running OSE from the repository, OSX the current download package.

It says:
cpum#1: x86_CPUID_FEATURE_ECX_OSXSAVE mismatch: host=0 saved=1 [ver=12 pass=final]
verr_ssm_load_cpuid_mismatch

Result Code:
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component:
Console
Interface:
IConsole {1968b7d3-e3bf-4ceb-99e0-cb7c913317bb}

Can anyone help me out?
This is another error: x86_CPUID_FEATURE_ECX_OSXSAVE, instead of VERR_SSM_LOAD_CPUID_MISMATCH. Perhaps you would be better off opening a new topic here on the forum, not only because it's a different issue, but also because VirtualBox maintainers seem not to care about the original issue (almost 2 years and no responses at all, even with many people reporting the issue and a ticket open... sheesh).

What little help I can offer: I don't think there's any quick way out but discarding the "saved" state and restarting the VM. You can do the discarding via the "VBoxManage discardstate" command. I would make a backup copy of the VM directory before trying that, as there's a chance of corrupting the VM disks by discarding the current state (think about unsaved filesystem metadata in OS in-memory buffers).

Good luck.

Cheers,
--
Durval Menezes.
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