Windows 8.1 (released) host Critical Structure Corruption

[Steve Prior]

I upgraded a Windows 8 machine running Virtualbox 4.3.0 to Windows 8.1 (released today). The Windows 8.1 machine is acting as a host OS to 64bit Linux running as the guest. After the upgrade the host OS crashes every few minutes with a CRITICAL_STRUCTURE_CORRUPTION error and reboots. I collected 5 minidumps which I have uploaded to https://www.dropbox.com/s/5pm12sbe0fu8evb/minidumps.zip

I wonder if the Virtualbox drivers are experiencing compatibility issues with the now released Windows 8.1.

[maxiwell]

Same problem here. Windows 8.1 host and Ubuntu 13.04 guest under VirtualBox 4.3. Windows crashes (BOSD) with Critical Structure Corruption.

[a_ok]

Same problem here. Windows 8.1 host and Ubuntu 12.4 guest (64bit) under VirtualBox 4.3. Windows crashes (BOSD) with Critical Structure Corruption. To reproduce you need to run Virtualbox for a while it does not crash immediately.

[AprilHare]

Forgive me for intruding, however how did you manage the upgrade?
I have Windows 8 and have been puzzled as to how to upgrade without losing applications.
(Using VirtualBox 4.3 under Mac OS X.)

[Steve Prior]

Posted thread on the Microsoft forums here:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... 8itproperf


Got this reply:
A register inside the CPU (MSR) is unexpected altered/corrupted:

CRITICAL_STRUCTURE_CORRUPTION (109)
This bugcheck is generated when the kernel detects that critical kernel code or
data have been corrupted.
Arguments:
Arg1: a3a01f58925d4a70, Reserved
Arg2: b3b72bdee4dd4d0b, Reserved
Arg3: 00000001c0000103, Failure type dependent information
Arg4: 0000000000000007, Type of corrupted region, can be


7 : Critical MSR modification

[tostasqb]

Same issue here.
Please try and disable the "bridge connection" on your VM. I did that and for now it seems to be stable but I'm still not sure. The previous version of VirtualBox had a problem with windows 8.1 and bridge connections (would't even let the VM initiate) so it let me thinking that the problem may subsist.

[Ramshankar]

Working on a fix. Will try put out a test build soon.

[tostasqb]

I take back what I said about bridge network...crashed again after 1 hour of work.

[chtse53]

Just to say: same problem with my upgrade from Windows 8 to 8.1 using VB 4.3.0 which solved the bridged network problem but showing this Critical Structure Corruption error. I messed up my whole OS drive while trying to repair the OS. The drive file system is finally not recognizable. Luckily I could to a bare metal recovery from my backup on WHS 2011.

[Soichiro]

I am having this issue as well, with 64-bit Windows 8.1 host and 64-bit Gentoo Linux guest. The BSODs are random (no set action in the guest OS seems to cause them) but always occur when the VM is running and always give the CRITICAL_STRUCTURE_CORRUPTION error. I am glad to hear that someone from Oracle is working on it, as this is what I would consider a maximum priority bug. I've lost a huge amount of productivity being unable to use Virtualbox.

[MikadoTM]

Same here.

MikadoTM

[Steve Prior]

Some more info. I'm not using the bridged network interface in this situation, the guest OS has two network interfaces, one NAT and one HOSTONLY - I ssh from the Windows host to the Linux guest.

Another clue that may be useful or not is that I first noticed the crashing when I was assigning two virtual CPUs to the guest. Today I changed that setting to just one and didn't have a crash all day. Of course since this is an intermittent issue that could mean something or I could just have gotten lucky.

[Ramshankar]

The bug (from my analysis so far) is a timing related issue in the core hypervisor code (VT-x only). It is not related to bridged, USB, guest additions etc. It -does- however depend on whether or not the guest uses the TSC Aux MSR. Most OSes use this MSR to hold the cpu index (APIC id) so it might be possible that the guest doesn't write this MSR if it only has one CPU.

[mcasperson]

I had the same issue.

Windows 8.1 Pro x64 Host
VirtualBox 4.3
Fedora 19 guest running KDE

I get a CRITICAL_STRUCTURE_CORRUPTION error just as I try to log into the KDE desktop.

I have not installed the bridged network as it was causing intermittent network dropouts.

[lukethegeek]

Exactly the same issue here (CRITICAL_STRUCTURE_CORRUPTION bsod)

Just upgraded to Windows 8.1 x64 and Virtualbox 4.3. Probably not relevant but I had to reinstall virtualbox post 8.1 upgrade as it no longer detected my network adapters and VMs refused to boot as a result.

VM:
Ubuntu 13.04 x64
bridged networking
VT-X
2 CPUs
1GB RAM

My system has BSOD twice now - each within around 20-30mins of booting the guest. System is stable with no guest running. I've not found any correlation between any specific actions within the guest and the bluescreens occuring.

Zipped minidumps (and windbg analysis) attached.

Arguments:
Arg1: a3a01f589dbf6690, Reserved
Arg2: b3b72bdef03f6763, Reserved
Arg3: 00000000c0000103, Failure type dependent information
Arg4: 0000000000000007, Type of corrupted region, can be
	0 : A generic data region
	1 : Modification of a function or .pdata
	2 : A processor IDT
	3 : A processor GDT
	4 : Type 1 process list corruption
	5 : Type 2 process list corruption
	6 : Debug routine modification
	7 : Critical MSR modification