Guru meditation on VirtualBox 6.1.2

[vboxbenutzer]

Hello from a new user!

Maybe, someone can help an old long time virtualbox user, who does not know what else to try.

I experience some strange "guru meditation" on a Linux host (OpenSUSE Leap 15) and VirtualBox 6.1.2.

VCPU1: Guru Meditation -4005 (VERR_VMX_UNABLE_TO_START_VM)

The machine is a Xeon 2650v2 with 32GB of RAM.
There are already five virtual machines running (without any problems) with different Windows and Linux versions.
I installed a Windows10-1909 update on a Windows7 virtual machine and need to install a "MSSQL Server Express".
Each time (reproducable!) the setup is running, the machine switches to guru meditation and is dead.
The CPU is running at 200% (Linux command "top -c") from this point in time (two cores).

Now the misterious thing: On the host, there are already two Windows10 machines with identical configuration (except hard disk and the uuids).

Only this updated machine reproducably crashes on the MSSQL setup.

I already tried (hopefully all of) the many advices here in the forum and linked by google:
- try different hypervisor settings
- try only one CPU
- try more or less RAM
- change virtualization settings
- change GPU and VRAM settings
- change PAE and pages settings

The problem persists. Before I switch back to an older virtualbox release, I would like to try and maybe get some usable advice from the many professionals here in the forums.
Even then it is possible that also the older release 6.0.x crashes; I did not try that, yet.

The VBoxLog is attached to this message. I hope it includes all the necessary information.
Please let me know, if anything else is needed for finding some hints in the right direction.

[fth0]

You are not the only one having this problem (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=96077). I don't have a concrete idea how to solve the problem, but would be interested in a 2nd VBox.log file using the following setup: Try only 1 vCPU and set System > Acceleration > Paravirtualization interface to Default (it was set to Minimal in the VBox.log file you provided).

Additionally, can you elaborate a bit on the MSSQL setup procedure, so that we can maybe guess what the setup intends to do at the moment the Guru meditation occurs?

[vboxbenutzer]

Thank you very, very much. I also try to update DATEV. I did not see that before, although I used the forum search before posting.
The crash occurs while installing the MSSQL Express package.

I also tried all the existing paravirtualization providers, but of course, I will provide another log file, see below (HyperV).

[vboxbenutzer]

Screenshot at guru meditation:
https://free-picload.com/images/2020/01 ... cf273a.png

[fth0]

You changed the paravirtualization provider, but still used 2 vCPUs. While this is probably the best setting for your productive VM, I'm more interested in seeing an 1 vCPU example of the crash.

[vboxbenutzer]

And once more, with one CPU.

https://free-picload.com/images/2020/01 ... 1cfa26.png

Log attached below.

[fth0]

If I understand correctly, you are installing Microsoft SQL Server Express 2014 as part of a DATEV software solution. Can you try and download a separate version from Microsoft (note that the German language DATEV software uses the English language version of the Microsoft software) and see if the crash also occurs when installing that? (The reason for this request is that a crash reproducible by a VirtualBox developer usually has a better chance of being addressed. )

[softjury]

Just wanted to let you know that I have the exact same problem.

We're using German Software https://www.datev.de/web/de/datev-shop/ ... ungswesen/ (DATEV Mittelstand Faktura mit Rechnungswesen) with VirtualBox.

Until last week we ran DATEV Software in Virtualbox 5.2.34 on Windows 7 on Host Ubuntu Xenial 16.04 LTS.

Last week I updated Windows 7 to Windows 10 --> no problems

Today I updated from VirtualBox 5.2 to VirtualBox 6.1.2 (host unchanged Ubuntu Xenial 16.04 LTS), installed Extension Pack 6.1.2 and then the VM was crashing randomly while our accountant was working with the DATEV Software.

In contrast to OP I'm not trying to install the DATEV software (MS SQL Server in particular) because we already have DATEV software installed. Of course, when the accountant is trying to work with DATEV Rechnungswesen software, MS SQL Server is working in the background.

Thank god I did a backup from ~/.VirtualBox before Upgrading to Virtualbox 6.1.2 so I downgraded to 5.2.36 and restored the backup for now.

[vboxbenutzer]

I saw some of the guru meditation crashes before with VirtualBox 6.1 running, but we used Windows7 until last week, so I did not think about it.
By now, the crashes still persisting in Windows10 and no workaround in sight made me downgrade to 6.0.16 again.

I still will have a look here in the forums from time to time, so maybe I can help investigating the reasons for the crash with a snapshot just before the setup process. (see other thread)

[softjury]

I can reproduce the Crash, please see https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/19171#comment:9 for details.

[vboxbenutzer]

Very good work! I intended to upload a DVD iso file, but that's not necessary anymore. Thank you!

[j.uha]

Ah, "good" to see that I'm not the only one with this issue (I'm the one of 96077).

Let me add one thing, in case it matters. When trying to find a solution back than, I reduced the number of cores from 8 to 4. Afterwards, DATEV also started to crash randomly when just using the software, not only when I tried to apply the update. So, same behaviour as softjury reported. With 8 cores, at least using the software didn't cause any trouble.

[softjury]

The cause of this issue was identified and a fix will be shipped with the next patch release of VirtualBox, see Ticket 19171.