The Windows 10 host system freezes completely, about 15 seconds after any virtual machine is running. VBox: 7.0.14

[toxi]

The Windows 10 host system freezes completely, about 15 seconds after any virtual machine is running. You have to restart the entire system using the “Reset” button or the “Power” button on the system unit.

My virtual machine is Debian and/or Ubuntu without a graphical shell, only a console.

Version VBox: 7.0.14 r161095 (Qt5.15.2)

[fth0]

I don't see a clear indication of the cause in the TestUbuntuDebian-2024-02-23-17-41-20_VM.log file, but the TestUbuntuDebian-2024-02-23-17-40-40_VBoxHardering.log file indicates that a Dr.Web software invaded the memory of VirtualBoxVM process.

I'd suggest to uninstall the Dr.Web software for a test. Then reboot the host and see if the issue persists.

[klaus]

The hardening log points strongly at your Anti-Virus software which shows a behavior worse than a rootkit. It injects large amounts of untraced code (not mapped from an executable file from disk and therefore not bearing a verifiable signature) and also seems to patch various DLLs in memory. VirtualBox gets rid of such untrusted activity (by undoing the changes and freeing the unexpected memory content), but that can have side effects later if the AV software simply assumes its injected code is there.

Would you be able to disable it temporarily when starting a VM? Uninstalling would be even better, but let's start with small steps.

[toxi]

Disabling and uninstalling the antivirus program did nothing. The host system also continues to freeze after some time. It's not 15 seconds anymore. It can hold out for a minute or five and freeze.
In the log of the virtual system itself, I noticed that the guest OS starts throwing disk access errors and after that the guest OS probably freezes and somehow affects the host system.
I managed to take screenshots before the host system froze.
https://ibb.co/3vmwHh1
https://ibb.co/JnyhwBT
https://ibb.co/Tkzrkdf
https://ibb.co/3yvVKGZ

[klaus]

Can you check the Windows settings under "Core Isolation" (works nicely as a search string in the start menu) have "Memory Integrity" set to "off"? This has caused trouble before (not just because it's enabling Hyper-V in some setups).

The hardening log looks a lot cleaner than before.

[toxi]

Can you check the Windows settings under "Core Isolation" (works nicely as a search string in the start menu) have "Memory Integrity" set to "off"?

Yes, off

[fth0]

The screenshots show "READ FPDMA QUEUED" and "WRITE FPDMA QUEUED" errors. According to a lot of Internet threads, on physical hardware those errors can indicate SATA cable issues, SATA controller issues and SSD issues. Did you check if disk I/O on the host is working without issues?

@klaus:
Would the guest OS see those errors through the virtual hard disk controller, if they were generated on the host side?

[toxi]

The screenshots show "READ FPDMA QUEUED" and "WRITE FPDMA QUEUED" errors. According to a lot of Internet threads, on physical hardware those errors can indicate SATA cable issues, SATA controller issues and SSD issues. Did you check if disk I/O on the host is working without issues?

The disk is actively used, works without problems and the host system does not report any problems with the disk. Even when it gets completely clogged, there are no problems with it.
The virtual machine file is located on hdd.
Alternatively, you can try to transfer it to the ssd on which the system is installed and check whether the virtual OS will generate errors.

I can run a disk check after a while so that the host system can additionally check the disk.

[klaus]

Image file access problems can cause errors to be signaled to the VM, yes. When the error is for the data accesses.