Windows 10 guest won't start from saved state

[ejstubbs]

I built a Windows 10 Home 64-bit VM in VirtualBox using a new VM and Windows 10 install DVD. Everything seemed to go OK, even to the point where Windows Update said that the VM met the spec required for Windows 11.

Unfortunately the VM is now refusing to start from a saved state. I get the following error:

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0X80004005)
Component: SessionMachine
Interface: ISession {c0447716-ff5a-4795-b57a-ecd5fffa18a4}

I can set the VM back to the powered-off state using the "Discard saved state..." option, and it starts up with no problem. But if I then quit the VM and tell it to save the machine state, the VM won't then start from that saved state. If I power the VM off via the Windows menu it will restart from that state just fine.

At the end of the day I suppose I can just about live with having to power off the VM every time I've finished with it, and powering it back on again next time, but it is time-consuming. I would much prefer to be able to save the machine state and start it up from that.

All my other VMs - Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 10 Home Premium 32-bit - start from the saved state without a murmur of complaint. It does look as if it's this particular VM that's somehow got borked. If all else fails I am prepared to build a new VM from scratch, but it's a long process working through the Windows 10 installation and I'd rather avoid it if there are other, easier potential solutions.

So far I have tried:

• Uninstalling VirtualBox using the uninstaller supplied on the installation disc image, and re-installing it from said disc image;
  Re-installing the guest additions to the VM.

Neither of the above approaches yielded any useful results.

I'm running VirtualBox 7.0.10 r158379 on Monterey 12.6.8, with the 7.0.10 VB extensions pack installed, and the 7.0.10 guest additions installed on all VMs.

Any suggestions?

EDIT: Here is the log from the VM the last time I started it up from powered off, at 16:33 today, saved it 3 minutes later, then tried to start it from the saved state 5 minutes after that:

Windows 10 Home 64-bit-2023-08-14-16-41-36.log.zip

(35.2 KiB) Downloaded 23 times

[mpack]

00:00:14.382404 VMSetError: tpm#0: Config mismatch - saved cbCmdResp=3968; configured cbCmdResp=0 [ver=1 pass=final]
00:00:14.382497 SSM: LoadExec failed for 'tpm' instance #0 (version 1, pass 0xffffffff): VERR_SSM_LOAD_CONFIG_MISMATCH
00:00:14.382524 SSM: Unit at 0x4dbce8f9, current position: offUnit=0x57 offUnitUser=0x17

Saved state info is not guaranteed to be portable across VirtualBox versions. You need to right click the VM in the manager and discard the saved state.

In the modern era of fast SSDs, you might wish to consider how saved states benefit you. I rarely bother with them myself. I have Linux VMs that revert display sizes etc if I do not save state, but I've never had that problem with a Windows guest.

[ejstubbs]

Saved state info is not guaranteed to be portable across VirtualBox versions.

This is all happening under VB 7.0.10. I've lost track of the number of times I've deleted the saved state trying to find a way around this.

[fth0]

This issue has been reported by a few users lately. Details can be found in VirtualBox 7.0.10 not load from snapshot saved state and #21773 (Virtualbox 7.0.10 Snapshot run creates error " Referenced memory" "The memory could not be written").

[ejstubbs]

@fth0: Thank you so much for this - I was going mad trying to work out what I'd done to break my VM! I just tried again on 7.0.10 with the problematic VM and lo and behold: turn off TPM and starting from saved works like a charm. Good to know that it wasn't my fault after all.

You need TPM for Windows 11, though (barring registry hacks), so it looks like I'm going to have to roll back to 7.0.8 for now if I want a usable Windows 10 VM that can take the Windows 11 upgrade.

Thanks again for pointing me at the earlier thread.

[fth0]

This issue should be fixed in the VirtualBox test builds 7.0.11r159210 and newer.