Kernel panic with USB-C dongle attached on laptop

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Nanaki
Posts: 4
Joined: 6. Nov 2017, 09:58

Kernel panic with USB-C dongle attached on laptop

Post by Nanaki »

Hi!

I'm having a strange issue I was hoping someone could help me with.

I'm using a laptop (Lenovo Yoga 920) running Manjaro (XFCE) and in order to get an external monitor attached I'm required to use a USB-C dongle, which I attach to one of my Thunderbolt ports (I've tried both of my available ports and the same issue appears regardless). The issue does not occur when I'm attaching my power cord to the same ports, so it's definitely the dongle.

With my dongle attached (even without any screen or anything else attached through my dongle) VirtualBox refuses to start. I get a kernel panic as soon as I try to start the application.

The ports, and whatever are attached to them, are irrelevant for my virtual machines, so disabling the ports would be fine though I'm not sure how.

Otherwise, where would you suggest I start looking to debug this? I'm a bit new to debugging VirtualBox issues so I'm not sure what logs to review for this type of problem?

Thank you in advance! :-)
michaln
Oracle Corporation
Posts: 2973
Joined: 19. Dec 2007, 15:45
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: PUEL
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Re: Kernel panic with USB-C dongle attached on laptop

Post by michaln »

Providing the details of the kernel panic would be a good start. Without that, no one will even try to guess what might be happening.
Nanaki
Posts: 4
Joined: 6. Nov 2017, 09:58

Re: Kernel panic with USB-C dongle attached on laptop

Post by Nanaki »

Hi!

Thanks for your reply.

I've been trying but cannot actually find any log entries. It's probably me looking in the wrong place though :-/

I've tried using journalctl but no entries appear when the crash occurs. I've checked exactly what's in it before I attached my adapter, waited a few minutes, attached it and re-checked the log after a reboot.

I've looked at the VBox.log file as well and cannot find anything in there either.

I've also checked faillog but that didn't provide anything either.

While testing I did manage to get one machine to boot while my adapter was plugged in, however that's the only time it ever worked.

While testing I noted that the crash occurs if the adapter is attached when I start VirtualBox. If I start VirtualBox without my adapter attached I can attach it afterwards, but I get a crash if I try to start any of my machines. I can power off already running machines though.

I've been trying to find out where any other relevant logs may be located but I seem to come up short, could you enlighten me where to look to find any relevant information?

Thanks in advance for any help :-)
michaln
Oracle Corporation
Posts: 2973
Joined: 19. Dec 2007, 15:45
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: PUEL
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Contact:

Re: Kernel panic with USB-C dongle attached on laptop

Post by michaln »

I don't think Linux is very good at saving the panic information. Even a photo of the panic screen would help, the text just needs to be legible.
Nanaki
Posts: 4
Joined: 6. Nov 2017, 09:58

Re: Kernel panic with USB-C dongle attached on laptop

Post by Nanaki »

I read up a little on debugging kernel panics, I’m not too familiar with it but I will figure it out.

I will post back here when I have gotten any new information. Thanks for replying at least, I understand it’s difficult to give advise without any real information about the problem I’m struggling with :-)
Nanaki
Posts: 4
Joined: 6. Nov 2017, 09:58

Re: Kernel panic with USB-C dongle attached on laptop

Post by Nanaki »

So I got everything working, although I wouldn’t exactly call it a proper solution. I switched distro to Ubuntu and now everything works perfectly (thus far).

I was anyways just playing around Arch and since I do not have time to debug this any further I will just stick with Ubuntu.

Thanks anyways for the help!
michaln
Oracle Corporation
Posts: 2973
Joined: 19. Dec 2007, 15:45
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Any and all
Contact:

Re: Kernel panic with USB-C dongle attached on laptop

Post by michaln »

Thanks for the update. That sounds like the panic was caused by some bug in Linux which is either fixed in Ubuntu or more likely, not there yet. If you know the working/not working kernel version that might tell us something.
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