virtualbox.org

this has been going on at least since 3.1.2. Occasionally whenever I try and start a guest, the Close Virtual Machine dialog window pops up and I have to hit cancel in order for the guest to boot. Is there something I can do to fix this? A small problem indeed but still a tad annoying.

thanks

Exactly how are you starting the guest?

I am hitting the start button? I assume you mean as opposed to dbl-clicking the guest in VB's list.

p.s. this mostly occurs if I had a previous guest open. shut it down then opened a different one. Although I can't swear it happens every time.

Well I must admit this is a new one to me. I have never seen nor heard of it before.
So when you try to start the guest it actually pops up the do you want to close this screen? Can you post a screen shot the next time this happens and the guest log at that time (as an attachment)?

sure, where do I find the guest log?

here's the dialog box that pops open...

It appears that VirtualBox does not know the guest is not running, or it has not completely shut down.
So when you close/stop the guest down how exactly are you doing that?
I just tried to start a running guest and it just does nothing.

I am going out on a limb here but I have my suspicions that this may be MAC specific. If this is the case you may need to post this at bugtracker. You will need to setup an account there as it is on a different system.
It would also help if you can post the ticket number here so other can see the progress, add information, or see the final results.

You should find the log files in the main VBox GUI under machine show log

ok, the way I shutdown all guests is inside them using their shutdown commands. I do know one guest, although I forget which, actually doesn't shutdown but reboots into the login screen, then I can shutdown from there. They do seem to shutdown, all I'm left with is the VB GUI.

As far as the logs, I looked and I actually have 4, log, log.1, log.2 etc. should I clean all of them out then restart a guest or can I just post the last one?

It would be the log just after and just before the event. What we are looking for is some difference in them. the newest being just log to log3 being the oldest.
Also it would help if you could check (after you shut down the guest) to check and make sure the process for that guest is actually stopped.

ok, I see, well I have 11 Linux guests and 1 Windows XP guest. so that's a total of 48 logs to look through... lol. One thing I did manage to see is all the logs, all 4 for all guests end in changing vm state from destroying to terminated. I assume that means they did shutdown. I made a bugtracker ticket #6326 If I remember correctly. Guess we'll see.

oops, apparently I accidentally posted the same ticket twice, 6325 & 6326.

Yes I saw that you had made the post in trac. Thank you and now we wait for the experts to see what is going on.
I did notice that the log file you posted said that you had like 512MB available and assigning 512MB to the guest. This might confuse things due to the fact that the memory is so low. Just a speculation.

hmmm, that doesn't make much sense. I have 3GB installed and I normally don't run anything with VB except for a few background extensions. I have also run guests such as WIndows XP and 7, along with a few Linux guests with as much as 1GB with no problems. wonder why it said I only have 512mb available.

hmmm, could that be the memory available once the guest is open and running? I looked at a few logs and they all have different numbers, some of which are guests using 768mb and still have more memory available. beats me.

I too get the exact same message every few times I boot. My configuration is Mac OS X 10.6.2, Vbox 3.1.2 and 3.1.4 on different Macs. I am running XP SP 3 guest and Win 7 guest. I always log off using shutdown command and boot the guest using the start machine button. I will watch the bug report already submitted. Thanks.