virtualbox.org

Configuration: Mac Pro 4,1 (Intel Nehalem) 8-core 2009, 24 GB, MacOS X 10.6.8, Virtualbox 4.1.10 + extension pack.

Hello,

I'm experiencing kernel panics of the host system - a grey screen appears instructing to power off the system. The apple crash reports show a kernel panic, without showing any clue or pattern regarding the cause. The cause seems random, while moving the mouse, switching the from Virtualbox to the desktop or clicking a dock icon, sometimes by doing nothing at all. For what it's worth, the kernel panics seem more likely when running more than one guest OS and having a USB drive attached and captured.

I already ran the Apple Service Diagnostics (ASD) to check RAM, etc. but no problems found.

What is the best way to troubleshoot this issue?

Kind regards.

I can confirm these frequent problems. There seems to be no pattern. My guests are varied.. Windows xp, ubuntu 11 desktop or server 32 bit or 64 bits. Twice it happens on shutting ubuntu 11 desktop. Once it happens on booting into xp. I run some guest server instances headless virtual boxes.

I also think this frequent crashes started only recently (less than 6 months). I am a long time user of vbox and it used to be very stable.

imac late 2009. 12GB ram. 2.8GHz i7. OS 10.6.8

I had run apple diagnostic test (extended test). it didn't report problem with this machine.

For what it's worth, I had troubles after 4.0.18 -- with anything from 4.1.0 through 4.1.6 -- under OSX 10.7.2.
Downgrading to VBox 4.0.18 seemed to get away from that problem.
I tried 4.1.6 again with OSX 10.7.3 and had fewer problems.
After OSX 10.7.3 came out, I have had localhost crashes but no kernel panics since 10.7.3.

Have you tried going down to a late VBox 4.0.x version since you're using an older OSX 10.6.8?

(I'm very new and know nothing, just wondering)

I have 40 VM's installed, mainly x86 and x86_64 Linux distributions, some of them with different Oracle database installations. I use it for research and software compatibility testing. Going back to an old 4.0 version of Virtualbox might be an option, but I will have to reinstall all the Guest additions and will loose some features. I'm not sure which one was the lesser evil.

I used Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion for a while and have a license, but I don't like the way these products organize their machine lists. I don't need or use MS Windows or 3D support, which seems to be the main focus of these products recently. Virtualbox has more features in regard to customizing the virtual hardware for Unix systems and better snapshot processing features.

Could my old USB Kensington Expert mouse be the cause for some of the Virtualbox trouble? I still have VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop 7 installed. During the crashes, none of the other products were running though, but all of them still have system extensions installed. Unfortunately I'm not completely finished switching to Virtualbox. I've been migrating to and from different VM products and thought Virtualbox 4.1 finally had the issues solved.

Could there be some Virtualbox problem with the user interface? I'm not sure if the crashes are more likely after creating a new virtual machine, but I think it is some bug. When the machine Install wizard prompts for the OS installation DVD or iso file, the modal vs. non-modal window options seem messed up. When moving out of the select ISO window and to the Finder Desktop, I cannot go back to the Virtualbox window because it is hidden behind some other Virtualbox Windows, a strange window showing "processing virtual machine, or similar"

I downgraded to 4.0.16 and it hasn't crashed for a week now. I think 4.1 is useless.

I had a few more crashes without having any USB devices attached. The apple system crash reports do not give any clue beside Kernel Panic, different CPU's, sometimes VirtualBox VM and sometimes other random processes like AppLauncher, etc. The last couple of recent crashes seem to be associated with shutting down an Oracle Linux 5.7 (64-bit) virtual machine. My host OS Snow Leopard 10.6.8, set to run in 64-bit kernel mode. The problem is getting very annoying, but downgrading to 4.0 is not a solution for me. I have too many virtual machines that are tuned for 4.1. Some of the machines may be using older versions of the VBox additions, e.g. 4.1.8. Could this cause such trouble? It would sometimes run for days without trouble and then usually all of a sudden, even without touching the system the grey screen of death shows up, but only if VirtualBox is running, at least it seems.