Windows 10 guest crashes after boot since VBox 7 update

[Greygeek]

i have a Windows 10.vdi file that is my Windows Virtual guest running on Debian (MX Linux) Host. The Host Machine is Intel Corei7 "Sandy Bridge" 2600K CPU with 16Gb RAM and a AMD Radeon 6900 GPU. This has been working well for me for the past three years -- but then my Linux distro update on July 29 removed Virtualbox 6.1.40 and replaced it with VirtualBox 7.1.10.

Since then, I cannot keep the Windows 10 Pro guest system running for more than 3 to 10 seconds after booting it up and logging in. It just disappears, and the Status (in VirtualBox) is *Aborted* instead of "Shut Off" as with a normal shutdown.

I have managed to boot the Win10 VM into Windows SAFE mode, where I was able to install Guest Additions 7.1.10. My Windows VM
appears to work and remain stable, but of course, I am limited in what I can do when in Safe Mode. (I have rescued many important files, but I REALLY need to get this working after nearly three weeks of troubleshooting).
I've tried disabling 3D Graphics, using different Graphics drivers / resolutions, turning off Devices one-by-one (USB, Serial, etc.), uninstalling Guest additions and re-installing, and rebooting the VM and host countless times, all to no avail.

The .vdi file is 409Gb in size, with over 155Gb free on the Guest's "C:" drive and over 185Gb free on the Linux Host's primary NVME disc. I have images and video work I do on the VM. I have 256Mb VBOX Graphics memory configured for two monitors, though I only use one SVGA Monitor, and keep the 2nd monitor for the Linux Host. There's 2-CPUs and 8Gb RAM configured for the Win10 Guest VM.

I have noticed dozens of online posts about similar problems with VirtualBox 7.x.xx versions here and in forums focused on different Linux distros.
Does anyone here have ideas about what I should be looking for in Log files that might give me a clue on what to try next?

Thank you !

[scottgus1]

my Linux distro update on July 29 removed Virtualbox 6.1.40 and replaced it with VirtualBox 7.1.10.

Anything that automatically updates your host should be taken out and exterminated with extreme prejudice. Virtualbox does not auto-update ever.

You might actually be running the Linux fork of Virtualbox, for this auto-update thing to happen, or if you were getting Official Virtualbox from www.virtualbox.org your package manager did it.

New Linux updates might mean new kernels, and new kernels may mean that the test builds and development snapshots of Virtualbox have to be tried.

[fth0]

Please reproduce the issue and provide a (zipped) VBox.log file from that VM run.

[Greygeek]

Hi -
Thank you. The "update" to VBox was part of a normal security update from the publishers of my Linux distro. I've confirmed that the file installed by the APT package installer is the same as the Ver 7.0.10 .deb file I downloaded from the VirtualBox download site. My current thoughts are that if I'm going to uninstall it and re-install it, I would just install Ver 6.1.40, which was working fine. The significant number of other users having this problem have me thinking that VirtualBox Ver 7.x isn't ready for prime time on a Debian 11 Linux system. A number of those posts have just reverted to VBox version 6.x.xx (6.1.40 is a favorite it seems ...)

I'll collect a vbox.log file and post it (as an Attachment? I'm new to this forum ) later today when I return home.

[Greygeek]

Hello and Good Morning -

I have booted up my Linux host, started the VirtualBox app, and then started the Windows 10 system I have configured. It told me that Windows had terminated abnormally (true), but I asked it to just continue, and immediately after entering my Windows guest system logon password, the VM window disappeared, and the VirtualBox application shows a status of "Aborted" for my VM.

The Log File is attached as a ZIP file to this post.
I really appreciate your taking a look to see if any approaches to fixing this can be gleaned.

[scottgus1]

Thanks for the log. There are a few things we could tweak, though I don't know if they're causing the problem or not.

Host CPU status:
00:00:01.729205 CPUM: Physical host cores: 4
00:00:01.729555 Full Name: " Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz"
Guest CPU settings:
00:00:01.489101 NumCPUs <integer> = 0x0000000000000004 (4)

Though the number of processors in the VM is really the number of "thread sets" that the host runs for the VM, more "processors" in the VM does not make the VM run better, unless there is 3rd-party multi-core-aware app running in the VM. In fact, more processors in the VM makes the VM run slower, due to more scheduling oversight required on the host. 2 VM processors are sufficient for a modern OS with typical web-browsing usage. (Note that this is probably not the cause of the problem, but you can ease up on the host if you only do tiny things in the VM.

00:00:01.413987 Host RAM: 15973MB (15.5GB) total, 9191MB (8.9GB) available
00:00:01.489103 RamSize <integer> = 0x0000000200000000 (8 589 934 592, 8.0 GiB)
00:00:01.489448 VRamSize <integer> = 0x0000000010000000 (268 435 456, 256.0 MiB)

RAM is really tight. Try reducing VM RAM to 4GB for now, or start the VM as soon as you log in on the host, so the VM can get its RAM.

00:00:01.442419 Guest OS type: 'Windows2016_64'
00:00:46.148645 VMMDev: Guest Log: 02:32:57.676894 main OS Product: Windows 10

I don't know if this matters but, technically speaking, Windows 10 is not Server 2016. There are separate VM templates for 10 and 2016, could be something different under the hood. See the VM's General settings, Version dropdown.

All of the above, if the VM were set like this under 6.1 and successfully running, might be safely ignored. I just brought them up to make you aware of them. If you do decide to change any of them, back up the VM by copying the whole VM folder to other media first.

************************

00:00:01.455626 File system of '/home/BarryZ/VirtualBox VMs/Win10-BZ1/Snapshots' (snapshots) is ext4
00:00:01.455635 File system of '/home/BarryZ/VirtualBox VMs/Win10-BZ1/Snapshots/{6551acbd-965d-4a7e-bbdf-14159c05fa5a}.vdi' is ext4

You apparently have a snapshot on this VM. I don't understand all the implications, but there is a possibility that 7.0.10 has a bug regarding snapshots. If you don't need the snapshot, back up the VM by copying the whole VM folder to other media, then delete the snapshot in the VM's Snapshot settings inside the VM folder. If you do need the snapshot, you may want to go back to 6.1 for now.

[fth0]

In the VM configuration, reduce Display > Screen > Monitor Count to 1 and see if it makes a difference.

---

There is one thing that I don't understand:

00:00:09.904189 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 6.1.18 r142142 '6.1.18'
[...]
00:00:35.107035 GIM: HyperV: Reset initiated through MSR
[...]
00:00:41.010965 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 7.0.10 r158379 '7.0.10'

During the first guest OS startup, the VirtualBox Guest Additions 6.1.18 (!) are started, and after the reboot initiated by the guest the expected VirtualBox Guest Additions 7.0.10 are started. That could somehow be related to Windows Safe Mode or Windows Hybrid Sleep. Can anybody explain that?

[scottgus1]

I saw that too, and thought the VM was upgraded from 6.1.18 to 7.0.10 Guest Additions in the first run, then reset instead of rebooted. Curiously, there is no reference to the GAs or any other .iso in the CD drive that I noticed.

[Greygeek]

For your comments and feedback, THANK YOU Gentlemen!
I am reticent to introduce more configuration settings to the VM setup that I've run successfully for over 2.5 years. Yes, I did try different video settings (1 monitor, different graphics driver) and it usually resulted in a black screen after a reboot. I could see some activity, and I could send a "shutdown" signal using VB controls on the host (which would result in a normal shutdown and a "Turned Off" status in VirtualBox.)

I can run reliably in Windows Safe Mode + Network turned on. So something that gets enabled between "Safe" mode and full-Windows mode is causing VirtualBox to abort the Windows guest. I can get into Windows Safe Mode when it offers a Troubleshooting link after a partially completed re-boot notifies me that Windows did not shut down normally.

When I've got Win10 up and running (in Safe Mode), I can see Guest Additions Ver 7.0.10 is installed in Windows. No reference to other versions of Guest Additions in the Windows Installed programs lists. I'll manually check Windows Registry for any rogue references to Version 6.1.18.

Regarding your comments on Snapshot restore points, there could be something there because I did have to trim (delete) two intermediate snapshots, as the Snapshot files are large given the 409Gb size of my .vdi file. That was done a year ago in whatever version of VB 6.x was running at that time. Given the 409Gb size of the .vdi file, it is time consuming to copy it for backup/restore.

TO GO BACK TO VB 6.1.4x, I'm assuming I only need to manually uninstall the VB 7.0 package and then re-install the older one from the .deb executable I've downloaded from the VirtualBox site. Is there anything else to watch out for? Where do I find the older Guest Additions executeables for Windows?

Thanks again!

[scottgus1]

Guest Additions will come bundles inside the Official Virtualbox download.

It would be curious, if you have not already done so, to uninstall Guest Additions from your VM and see if it can boot normally.

[Greygeek]

Hi -
Some Success! Per your suggestion, I completely uninstalled GuestAdditions 7.0.10 from the Windows VM, and it booted up in full mode without crashing. I ran Google Chrome and couple of programs to read eBooks, edit PDF files etc. and it's up and running. My big storage drives on the host are no longer mounted of course, but I am surprised by this.

TLDR: The very first time I ran VB 7 and started up the Win10 VM, there was an approx 45 second delay in the boot, with a black screen containing white flickering lines (like an old TV). Seems that the graphics driver had to recover from something. Anyway, Win10 completed booting up, but was flakey. It crashed about 30 seconds after logging in. I re-started and was able to run Guest Additions installer to what appeared to be completion. (no, it hadn't completed I found out - the old GA was still there). Anyway, I believe that the LogFile ref to v 6.1.18 is from that first restart, before I was able to install the current GA package.

Then VB 7 aborted Windows (this with the old GuestAdditions 6.1.40 still installed). I went to safe mode to install the current Guest Additions, thinking that was the problem. Got GA 7..1.10 installed, then re-booted, then got the nearly immediate abort.

A manual search of the Windows VM registry, I do find (many) references to the "Containers-Guest-Gated-Package" modules with version 10.0.1904 (1503 or some other sub-build), and I have kept (all along this VirtualBox journey...) Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor disabled.
Anyway, I believe that the LogFile ref to v 6.1.18 is from that first restart, before I was able to install the current GA package.

Regarding the reference to Windows 10 2016 Pro that I have installed -- that's the version I used when I created this VM in 2017. It was the offered "Upgrade from Windows 7" package, so my Win7 key worked to authenticate it.

[scottgus1]

Maybe the Guest Additions install didn't go well. You could try installing 7.0.10 GAs again, or try 7.0.6's https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/ (7.0.8's GAs had some bugs).

If you want to start a new topic we can try to get the external drives back into the VM too.

[Greygeek]

Hello Again -
As noted above, when I remove GuestAdditions 7.0.10 from Windows VM, the VM boots fine, and I can work on it to the extent it is more limited without the Windows Additions installed.

So during this little honeymoon, I let Windoze run its updates, and I rebooted a couple of times (successfully). So I got brave and reloaded the GuestAdditions.iso that was left for me by the Linux package manager that installed VBox 7.0.10.
As with the very first time I ran it, it appears that it finished, but no --- it aborted Windows before the install finished.
And I can't boot up the Window VM without having it Abort right after login as before.

Windows logs don't indicate that Windows terminated the program (it's not even really installed yet) ...seems to be VirtualBox 7 doing this.

I don't have time to re-download the GuestAdditions.iso file from the VBox website to check if I have a bad .iso image for GuestAdditions.

But ... the "good" news is that we can see this problem is tied to Guest Additions, and that the Windows VM appears to be intact despite all of the unscheduled terminations.

If you have any more suggestions to try ...

[fth0]

I saw that too, and thought the VM was upgraded from 6.1.18 to 7.0.10 Guest Additions in the first run, then reset instead of rebooted.

Show me how to do that in 25 seconds.

Seriously, there would have been a lot of other log messages in that case. I can pretty much rule out that the VirtualBox Guest Additions 7.0.10 have been installed during the time covered by the log file (even if you allow their automatic installation/upgrade new in VirtualBox 7.0) .

[scottgus1]

I don't have time to re-download the GuestAdditions.iso

Must be on really slow dial-up...

https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/7.0.6/