MacOS Sonoma ready?

[DoubleUGee]

Hello everyone,

I want to install the new macOS 14 Sonoma on my MacBookPro 2019 and continue to use Win 10 as a guest system.
So far I have used virtualbox 7.0.2 r154219 (Qt5.15.2) (the latest version) with macOS Ventura 13.6.

Does anyone already have experience with Sonoma as a host system?

I am looking forward to your feedback.
thanks a lot in advance!

Many greetings
DoubleUgee

[scottgus1]

Answering the topic title directly:

Ventura isn't ready yet, either. The official list of supported host OS's https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01. ... tossupport stops at Monterey, because Ventura flipped enough of the Virtualbox paradigm with the no-kexts policy that the devs have not got everything working completely yet. The devs continue to work on getting Ventura fully supported. Sonoma will probably come eventually too.

I'd suggest having a complete restorable disk image or three of your computer, if Apple allows you to do that. Or see if you can fresh-install Sonoma on an external drive, if Apple allows you to do that. Then your existing OS and Virtualbox can remain untouched while you test the new OS.

[DoubleUGee]

Hey scottgus1,

thanks for your fast reply and your suggestions.
I'm not a computer expert. So I'll wait for an official version of Sonoma.

Best regards
DoubleUGee

[KSCbase1]

If you try Sonoma, then please let us know how you make out.
If anyone else has tried Sonoma, then please let us know.

DoubleUGee: if you use Time Machine then make a backup before upgrading to Sonoma. This way you can quickly downgrade the OS back to Ventura, using Time Machine and a few button clicks. Just remember that you will lose any new files that you created since the Ventura "Time Machine" backup that you take prior to your Sonoma upgrade.

Eventually, I'll give it a try, but it will be a while. I'll be happy to let you know, if no one beats me to it.

I'm in the same boat as you (except, my guest is windows 11 and a slightly different VB)...

Host: MacBook Pro 2019 (intel), OS is Ventura 13.6
Guest: windows 11

It works beautifully (for some time now) with...
VirtualBox Version 7.0.8 r156879 (Qt5.15.2)
and guest additions 6.1.40 (r154048)

[Helmut4]

Hi everyone,

I did the flip and updated to Sonoma (14.0) today on my prod system - MacBook Pro 2019.
So far everything is working as expected with vbox 7.0.10 r158379

I'm running a second Mac OS on the same mac already with 14.1 (Beta) and it is working their as well.

Generally I'm a bit surprised (positive), that I haven't been able to run into a non supported app I'm using for daily work (I'll stick here to "normal" apps like office, coding, file transfer, ...)

Ben

[KSCbase1]

This is very good to know! Thanks so much for the heads up!

[DoubleUGee]

Hello everyone,

after the upgrade to Sonoma at Helmut4 worked without any problems, I dared according to the suggested procedure of KSCbase1 (backup before upgrade from Ventura to Sonoma via TimeMachine).

After the upgrade, of course, I immediately tested virtualbox and it works

Many thanks to scottgus1, KSCbase1 and Helmut4.

My configuration:
Virtualbox version 7.0.2 r154219 (Qt5.15.2) - latest version.
Host: MacBook Pro 2019 (intel i5), OS was Ventura 13.6 and is now Sonoma 14.0.
Guest: Windows 10

DoubleUGee

[KSCbase1]

Excellent! Glad to hear it worked out OK for you. And thank you for letting us know it works fine!

[JiF_Brodeur]

Glad to report that I've updated to Sonoma yesterday night and at first nothing worked, VBox would not start, Reboot and everything is working fine thus far, my setup: Macbook Pro i9 2018, OS: Sonoma 14.0, Vbox 7.0.10 with Oracle Linux as a Guest OS.
THanks
Jean-François

[Clothears]

Answering the topic title directly:

Ventura isn't ready yet, either.

Is this still the case (the doc says it is, but perhaps the docs are out of date on this point) ?

Or see if you can fresh-install Sonoma on an external drive, if Apple allows you to do that.

I did exactly this today, and thus built a Sonoma 14.2.1 system on an external drive with all apps, users etc.

Then your existing OS and Virtualbox can remain untouched while you test the new OS.

That's the concept. I've been running VB 6.1.x under Catalina with Mint and w10 VMs for app testing. Since I want to test the apps under Sonoma I'd like to be running VB under Sonoma also, just to avoid moving apps and their data around, and for debugging.

My 6.1.x VMs didn't run under Sonoma, probably because the required kernel extension was not loaded. But I do observe that some folk seem to have success running VB 7.x under Sonoma, so I have this question: Does VB 7.x run VMs created under VB 6.1.x or would I have to recreate them anyway?

[scottgus1]

My 6.1.x VMs didn't run under Sonoma, probably because the required kernel extension was not loaded.

The kexts are needed in 6.1 for running Virtualbox, not for running the VMs.

6.1 VMs should run under 7.0, barring bugs. A backup on the 6.1 VM folders and files would be a good idea.

[fth0]

The kexts are needed in 6.1 for running Virtualbox, not for running the VMs.

Hmm ... I'd expect the opposite to be true: The VirtualBox Manager doesn't need the kernel extensions, only VirtualBoxVM and VBoxHeadless do need them when running VMs.

[scottgus1]

Interesting, fth0! I was thinking of the whole host installation of Virtualbox with all the parts and exe's needing the kexts, since a VM made in kext-requiring 6.1 & earlier can run in no-kext 7.0, too.

[fth0]

The concept is more or less the same on all major host OSes: The macOS kernel extension VBoxDrv.kext, the Linux kernel driver vboxdrv.ko and the Windows kernel driver VBoxSup.sys are needed when VirtualBox uses direct hardware access (VT-x) and not needed when not using direct hardware access (NEM).Similar reasoning goes for the VirtualBox network (VBoxNetAdp, VBoxNetFlt) and USB (VBoxUSB) drivers.

For a real life example, see the screenshot in Problem after instalation macOS Ventura / Virtual box Version 6.1.40 r154048 (Qt5.6.3) with the running VirtualBox Manager being unable to start a VM.

[toddmh70]

This is great thread. I'm posting here as I think my issue is related to the configuration the OP has. 2020 13" Macbook Pro (quad core Intel Core i7, Intel graphics, 16GBB LPDDR4X) host on Sonoma 14.3 running VirtualBox 7.0.14 (r161095) with Windows 10 (WN10P64-10.0.10.0) guest OS. VM is running on an external SSD card exclosure connected with a USB-C cable. No change on the hardware side.

I don't use this VM much. I only use it to run Excel macros in a workbook that aren't supported on Office 365 for MacOS.

My Office365 Excel () ran on Win10 with no issues a few months back. The changes to the config since then are: Update Macbook to Sonoma and update VirtualBox to v7.

Now the VM will freeze after a few minutes of using Excel (especially when running macors). Note: using the same Excel macro file now that I used before when this worked.

Testing and actions:

• I've left the VM overnight (Excel not running) without issue.
  I've repaired Office 365.
  I've installed/updated the guest extensions.
  Checked VM settings to used Hyper-V and disable 3D acceleration. Increased processors from 2 to 3 (of 8 total). Set memory from 4GB to 8GB (of 16GB total on host).

The log file is attached. There's a few things in the log (graphics related [3D not support]), that may be indicating an issue but not technical enough to know if that's truly an issue.

Any ideas?