OSX host Windows 10 guest screen freezes

[Rune B]

Hi all,

I upgraded to VB 5 and installed a new Windows 10 guest about at the same time (I had VB 4.3 and Windows 7 before) so I'm not sure if it is VB 5 or Windows 10 that causes this.

The problem is that after a random time, the guest freezes. Some days I don't have this problem at all - other days it is so frequent I can hardly work.

When the guest freezes I can still click on objects and they work, but the screen does not update. I have placed a shortcut to a batch file that shuts down the guest on the desktop, and double clicking in the spot I know that shortcut to be shuts down the guest. I can not close the guest using the Close options on the Machine menu in VB - except the Power Off option. I have also tried to access the guest via remote desktop from the same host and while it connects, the screen is just black.

My host system is a MacBook Pro from 2015 running OS X El Capitan (10.11.4) and with an Apple Thunderbolt display next to it. The guest uses both screens in full screen mode. I should also mention that I move between two offices where I have the same setup in case that might cause some confusion somewhere.

I have attached a log file from a session that lasted only a few minutes. It exceeded 128K so I had to delete a few lines that I'm hoping were irrelevant to the issue (mostly related to file path information and CPU statistics).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

All the best,
Rune

[socratis]

It exceeded 128K so I had to delete a few lines that I'm hoping were irrelevant

They may very well be relevant, don't know. Instead of "cropping" the log, you could ZIP it.

[Rune B]

Fresh log from new crash today - complete and zipped.

This time my shutdown shortcut did not work and I had to use Machine->Power Off from the VB menu. Since the screen is frozen I don't know why. Could be an open app stopping shutdown due to unsaved data, but I'm not sure.

Thanks again,
Rune

[mpack]

Uh.. crash and freeze are opposites. You'll cause confusion if you misuse these terms. Throughout this topic you've talked about a freeze, that's what I'll assume you mean.

The log says that your host doesn't support OpenGL, so you might as well disable 3D acceleration in the VM settings: it isn't doing you any good, and it could do harm.

[Rune B]

Ok - thank you for the suggestion. I'll try that.

And sorry for the misuse of terms - this is not my field of expertise Freeze it is

[Rune B]

It turns out I have not enabled 3D acceleration. However, if memory serves, I had 3D acceleration enabled when I first installed the guest additions. When I install updates to the guest additions now, I am not allowed to uncheck the 3D support option.

[mpack]

It turns out I have not enabled 3D acceleration.

You have it enabled. The dialog is semi-lying to you because your host can't actually support 3D acceleration, therefore the dialog is telling you it isn't enabled. If you look at the .vbox file you'll see that it's enabled.

[Rune B]

Hi again,

From the vbox file:

Code: Select all

<Display VRAMSize="256" monitorCount="2" accelerate3D="false" accelerate2DVideo="false"/>

Am I looking in the wrong place?

[mpack]

No, that's the right place. How odd, the log clearly has mention of 3D acceleration (and that your host doesn't support it) - which shouldn't matter if it isn't enabled. My bad.

[Rune B]

I also tried uninstalling the guest additions and reinstalling them today. I am not able to unselect the experimental 3D support when installing. Could that be the cause?

[Rune B]

I switched on both 3D and 2D acceleration a couple of days ago, and since then I have not experienced any freezes. Certain operations, like scrolling up or down in a big file in Visual Studio, are now very slow, but at least it doesn't freeze.

[Pescatore]

I did not read all your posts and replies. But I had the problem of freezing screen (Host macOS, guest Win10). Do the following: shutdown the guest and change the display to a lower resolution, in my try I changed to VGA and everything works fine.

[mpack]

Do the following: shutdown the guest and change the display to a lower resolution

Hmm. As far as I know, that problem and solution only applies when you didn't configure enough display RAM in the VM settings, for the display size you want to use.

I like to go for around 10 frames of buffering, rounded up. So, e.g. if you wanted the guest to use fullhd then each frame requires 1920x1080x32bpp = 8.3MB, so x10 is 83MB, so any round number above that should be fine.

That's just for basic graphics in a desktop OS. If 3D acceleration is enabled then double it, or max it out if you can spare the RAM.