Assertion Error

[Jinwah]

I have a virtual machine that I created with Windows Vista running on it. Everything went fine. However I have just tried to start the virtual machine but immediately I get Virtual Box GUI has stopped working. When I check the error log it says there was an assertion Error. I have pasted the log details below

I was really happy with Suns VirtualBox as the networking just works unlike MS Virtual PC which was a complete pain!

00:00:00.469 VirtualBox 2.2.2 r46594 win.x86 (Apr 27 2009 19:32:09) release log
00:00:00.469 Log opened 2009-05-10T14:09:04.171201900Z
00:00:00.469 OS Product: Windows Vista Home Premium Edition
00:00:00.469 OS Release: 6.0.6001
00:00:00.469 OS Service Pack: 1
00:00:00.469 Package type: WINDOWS_32BITS_GENERIC
00:00:00.473 SUP: Loaded VMMR0.r0 (C:\PROGRA~1\Sun\XVMVIR~1/VMMR0.r0) at 0x86ca4060 - ModuleInit at 0000000086cb3170 and ModuleTerm at 0000000086cb31d0
00:00:00.473 SUP: VMMR0EntryEx located at 0000000086cb3ac0, VMMR0EntryFast at 0000000086cb3340 and VMMR0EntryInt at 0000000086cb3330
00:00:00.473 SUP: windbg> .reload /f C:\PROGRA~1\Sun\XVMVIR~1/VMMR0.r0=0x86ca4060
00:00:00.473
00:00:00.473 !!Assertion Failed!!
00:00:00.473 Expression: pVM->offVMCPU == RT_UOFFSETOF(VM, aCpus)
00:00:00.473 Location : C:\vbox\branch\win-2.2\src\VBox\VMM\VM.cpp(516) vmR3CreateU

[Perryg]

Have you moved, deleted files of changed drive mappings, changed VBox settings?
Anything that you might have done in between the last time it worked and now?

[Jinwah]

I have made no changes... I literally created the virtual machine, installed the Vista OS, Let it boot for the first time all was fine. Then I closed it down that all was normal to. Then I came back a few hours later to start it up and got an Assertion error?

[Perryg]

How much memory do you have and what have you assigned to the guest. Also send me the values of the settings for the guest.

[Jinwah]

I went for the standard settings:

On the virtual machine 512MB Ram and Dynamically expanding drive..

The host machine has 3GB of ram.

I am leaning towards the problem being my host pc's firewall. It seems that for whatever reason the virtual box is not running properly the second time I run it. However if I reinstall the VirtualBox software (after a full uninstall) the virtual machine does boot.

I wonder if this is because the network address for the virtual machine is changing each time it is run? Maybe my firewall is just being akward?

[Perryg]

Actually it sounds more to me like something has not registered properly on the Install of VirtualBox. For some reason it is not allowing the proper writing to the files that it needs to update upon stopping the guest. You can try re-installing VirtualBox and selecting repair to see if it finishes the install properly. I also suggest that you right click on the install file and left click on run as administrator. This gets around the ACL and moves it out of the equation as a probable cause.

[Jinwah]

Thanks for your help

It could all be academic as I have just discovered that dynamic hard drives only grow to a maximum set when you create them, so now I have nearly filled the 20GB, I was under the impression dynamic resizing would mean growth when needed but I see it means dynamic but with a fixed size limit... and no way to resize it.

[Perryg]

Actually there is a way to resize it.

Tutorial: All about VDIs