Page fusion crashing VBox

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MKhaos7
Posts: 81
Joined: 6. Apr 2009, 16:19
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
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Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by MKhaos7 »

Just installed VBox 3.2 final and tried to use Page Fusion.
I had two WindowsXP Sp3 32 bits staying around so I enabled page fusion on both. But then every time i tried to run both machines at the same time they hang.
Running just one at a time is fine, and disabling page fusion all goes Ok as well.

Host: Ubuntu Lucid 64 bits
Guests: Window s XP 32 bits (Sp3)
Guest additions fully instaleld in safe mode.


Attached are the logs for both VMs, the problem happened on logs 2 and 3.
Thanks.
Attachments
Machine2.zip
(45.46 KiB) Downloaded 18 times
Machine1.zip
(37.71 KiB) Downloaded 14 times
scottford
Posts: 2
Joined: 21. May 2010, 18:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows

Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by scottford »

Same here. Tried with win7 x64 host and 2008r2 guest. Memory ballooning is working fine, but if I enable page fusion the guest locks up and I have to reboot the host to get it back to normal. I also tried it with Ubuntu 10.04 x64 as the host and I get similar results with the same guest or even a win7 x64 guest. I haven't tried any 32 bit guests.
BrightIdea
Posts: 11
Joined: 23. Jan 2010, 14:38
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux, OS/2, Chrome
Location: Western Europe

Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by BrightIdea »

Made the same experience: I was using 2 VMs created some time ago under VBox 3.0.4. Upgraded from 3.1.8 to 3.2.0 and manually ran "/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup" to rebuild the kernel modules. Both VMs are Windows XP SP3 32bit and run fine (unmodified) under 3.2.0. When I enable Page Fusion on both VMs, the first VM runs fine but 30 seconds after starting the second VM, the first and some times also the second VM locks up.

"VBoxManage controlvm VMNAME poweroff" also hangs but "kill PID" (PID=process ID of the hanging VBoxHeadless process) stops the VMs in a way that they can be reconfigured/restarted (no need to reboot host).

Host system has an Intel Q9400 (Quad) with 8GB RAM running Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04 amd64) and I'm using VBoxHeadless to start the machines. ACPI, IOAPIC, VT-x, VTX-VPID and nested paging are enabled, PAE and large pages are disabled.

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong here?
Last edited by BrightIdea on 26. May 2010, 13:39, edited 1 time in total.
Perryg
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VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
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Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by Perryg »

How many processors are dedicated to the guest?
I tried this on a core2duo which is a single processor with 2 cores. Setting the processors to 2 of course gives me SMP but the true processor count was one.
I changed the processor count to one and the guests booted properly. I have not run the tests as yet but hope to later today or tomorrow.
BrightIdea
Posts: 11
Joined: 23. Jan 2010, 14:38
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
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Guest OSses: Windows, Linux, OS/2, Chrome
Location: Western Europe

Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by BrightIdea »

Processor configuration of both VMs is like this

Code: Select all

Number of CPUs:  1
Synthetic Cpu:   off
CPUID overrides: None
Only running 1 VM works fine, problems start with the second VM
Perryg
Site Moderator
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Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by Perryg »

Don't know what to tell you. I have (2) XP pro 32 bit machines running with Page Fusion on.
Host is Ubuntu 10.04_x86-64 Allocated memory to guests is 512MB each
See Screen Shot.
PageFusion-Active.jpg
PageFusion-Active.jpg (146.01 KiB) Viewed 8656 times
BrightIdea
Posts: 11
Joined: 23. Jan 2010, 14:38
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: PUEL
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Location: Western Europe

Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by BrightIdea »

This is good news as it works in your configuration. I plan to create 2 fresh VMs today and re-test. I'll post the results here including the log files.
scottford
Posts: 2
Joined: 21. May 2010, 18:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows

Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by scottford »

Switching to 1 cpu in the guest fixed all my issues. I can run with ballooning and page fusion without any issues.
MKhaos7
Posts: 81
Joined: 6. Apr 2009, 16:19
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
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Guest OSses: Windows, Linux, BSD
Location: Brazil - Aracaju/SE

Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by MKhaos7 »

In my tests I was using one guest with one CPU and the other with two cpus.
As it seens this is the issue I'll test with one cpu in each guest and post the result latter today.

Cheers
michael55123
Posts: 2
Joined: 25. May 2010, 02:00
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 7, Windows 2003, Linux

Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by michael55123 »

Having the exact same issue with a linux 2.6.34 host, and Windows 7 guest. If I turn the CPU to 1 it's fine, anymore than 1 and I see a crash.
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
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Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by Perryg »

@michael55123,

How many processors do you have, (not cores), and how many did you select?
michael55123
Posts: 2
Joined: 25. May 2010, 02:00
Primary OS: Linux other
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Guest OSses: Windows 7, Windows 2003, Linux

Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by michael55123 »

I have 1 CPU, with 4 cores. I selected 1 cpu by doing a VBoxManage modifyvm vmname --cpu 1 .

Actually I'm seeing the same issue with just one CPU, it's just not as bad.
MKhaos7
Posts: 81
Joined: 6. Apr 2009, 16:19
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux, BSD
Location: Brazil - Aracaju/SE

Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by MKhaos7 »

Yeap,

With just one core in each VM all seens normal.
And using VBoxManage metrics, i cann see that there is shared pages among the VMs.

So the issue is caused when running with more than one vcpu.
BrightIdea
Posts: 11
Joined: 23. Jan 2010, 14:38
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: PUEL
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Location: Western Europe

Re: Page fusion crashing VBox

Post by BrightIdea »

As two older WinXP VMs "randomly" hang with page fusion enabled, I created two new VMs and installed WinXP 32bit SP3. For the VM creation and XP installation I used defaults wherever possible. With those newly created VMs I could not reproduce the hang with page fusion enabled.

There are many differences between the new (working) and the old (hanging) XP virtual machines. As time permits, I will try to isolate the problem and post again in this thread.
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