virtualbox.org

I would like to suggest that in the FAQ there be an article on how to enable, collect and submit logs to the bug tracker.

I am having great difficulty with my dELL laptop (Turion processor). It locks up tighter than MS-DOS 3.11 with a bad .sys file loaded when i try to load windows guests. I have tried to run Ubuntu 32 and 64 bit, and they run for a while, but eventually they will lock up (esp on network activity).

Most of the log information I see seems pretty generic. Should I collect strace information by starting the vm in suspended mode and then collecting the Vbox.log along with the vm .xml and the strace output, or is there some super special double secrete command line option to start logging cpu state? How about a CLI tool to collect this information in a bundle ready to upload? I would really like to use this laptop with Virtualbox guests, but it is time to get help, use the bloated VMWare server, or give up.

The log files can be gotten by opening the VBox program and clicking on machine show logs, or you can actually copy them from the machine folder of the VM you create. Located in /home/.virtualbox

But why not tell us a little about the system so we can see if we can help. How much RAM do you have in the host and what are the guest settings that you have set for the guest?
Also does the PC bios support hardware-v, and is it on?

Sorry for the Very long delay in getting back to this question.

System is a Dell Studio 1536
Host OS is Ubuntu 9.04-x86_64 + updates

cat /proc/cpuinfo

processor	: 
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 17
model		: 3
model name	: AMD Turion(tm) X2 Dual Core Mobile RM-74
stepping	: 1
cpu MHz		: 600.000
cache size	: 512 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 2
core id		: 1
cpu cores	: 2
apicid		: 1
initial apicid	: 1
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 1
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow constant_tsc rep_good pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy 3dnowprefetch osvw skinit
bogomips	: 4400.02
TLB size	: 1024 4K pages
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts ttp tm stc 100mhzsteps hwpstate

4GB of ram
320GB disk space Internal
1TB hitachi e-sata drive external. (backups and long term storage only, no guest VMs are run from the drive)
VirtualBox 3.0.6 (Sun) r52128 installed
I have tested the ram very thoroughly (several days [non-consecutive] of Memtest86+)
I have tested the system using the Dell Diagnostics.
The bios does support the AMD-V feature and it is enabled.

The issue is that when using VirtualBox on this system it (virtualbox) renders the guest and the host OS highly unstable. It will not only have the guest lock, but the host OS will lock as well. For a time I thought this issue was limited to 64 bit guests and used 32 bit guests exclusively, but recently my 3 32 bit guests are beginning to freeze or have sudden catatonic state onset for several minuets and then will resume normal operations (2-10 minuets in this state). All attempts to install Microsoft guests (32 or 64) is utter futility.

Now, when the guest VM freezes it takes the host OS with it. So after a reboot I have examined logs and I do not see anything to indicate that there is a problem. It would seem to me that the best course of action would be to run an strace on the running VM while trying to execute a process that is known to cause the VM to lock up. Attached is a log file of one of the most recent crashing systems.

Only thing that I see is the VBox version and the guest additions are out of sync. You are using version 3.0.6 but the GA reports 3.0.4
Try updating and see if this helps.

Other things that you can try is to disable the sound and the USB in the guest settings and see if it stop failing. Turn them back on one at a time to see which one causes the problem.

I have done all of the experimentation with turning off all peripherals and even with everything but video and hdd:

Windows
The dos screen where it says loading windows and then it freezes the whole system hard. 32 or 64 bit guests.

Linux
Ubuntu, RH, CentOS, Fedora 64 bit guests will load but then will freeze the whole system hard (cold starts).
Ubuntu 32 bit guests work most of the time. Recently though, when I have more than one guest active, and I am using them
at a fairly heavy load (Load avg >2) I have observed that they will lock up the laptop hard.

NB: For 64 bit guests, the AMD-v is enabled. With 32 bit guests, if I disable the AMD-v I can get them to run OK. If AMD-v is enabled, the system will freeze.

Attached is a tar of system "orange" There is a README file explaining what the differences are.

This is a bit of a change from the last time I did this for this reason: The mouse continued to work
post VM freeze up. Though I could not type anything in any windows. In 3.0.4 and before it would freeze so hard that no mouse movements would happen. The practical upshot is that it still froze the system. Even if I momentarily pressed the power button on my laptop (which normally brings up a manager for log off, or shut down) it did not respond, I had to press it for 5 seconds to get it to power off.

You know after looking closer at your log files I don't see that you have VMX and neither does VBox. I know you say that you have it and that it is on but for some reason it is not showing. I have heard others that had to upgrade their bios in order to fix this, and laptops are notorious for having it shut down in some other way. I would suggest that you contact Dell and ask them to confirm that you can use hyper-v technology and to assist you in getting it to work.

There was some stability improvement when I went from 3.0.0 to 3.0.4 but I still could not use AMD-v. I have spent a lot of time trying to get answers from DELL on this topic. See: http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16073 The bios is at the latest level. There is no information on HyperV support for this laptop.

While I feel your pain because I was told my motherboard would support hyper-v as well, but is does not due to the bios. It appears that it is a problem with the hardware as it is in my case. I have just come to realize that I can not use 64 bit guests because it is a must for the hardware to be able to use the hardware-v for VBox to be able to do 64 bit.

I have learned from posting to the DELL support forum and asking the (for lack of a better word) laptop Ombudsman on the sight (Dell Employee Bill-B) about hyper-v support for the Studio 1536. Though the BIOS claims to enable it, it is a dead switch. It is disabled in the bios. Though you may enable AMD-V in the settings it will not work. Dell has no plans to update the A05 bios to enable this feature. I guess it's off to Microcenter and Egg-head to cobble a white box PC together. I guess for my first Dell laptop I can say I am not pleased.

Though my laptop bios will prevent me from using AMD-v the question of what to collect and submit still stands.

So, if you have an issue where the system locks up and you can't get logs until a reboot, should you also collect strace or other cpu state traces?

Sure but to what end?
If you submit this because you can not get 64 bit OSes to work knowing you must be able to have VT-x/AMD-v it will simply be marked as closed.

The question of 'does my laptop support Virtual Machine Technology (VMT)', is answered and it is no.

The question of (advanced) log collection still is open (IMHO).

In my experience collecting logs is not just a one time thing. Now, if I go get a Mother board and CPU that are supposed to support VMT and I get similar behaviour. If I was analysing logs and see a VMT op code in the stack trace and then the CPU takes a trip in to Never-Never land I can point and say 'Gee check your bios. if VMT is enabled, then your hardware is hozed. Sorry.'

What would be nice is a freedos boot disk that holds a simple \.com program that would exercise VMT extensions to see if the machine would lock. That would help when in a BigBox retailer trying to figure out which system to purchase. I know that \.com programming has gone the way of Norton Utilities 1.0 but it's a nice wish.