Win2k Server hangs during boot in headless mode

[GeoffL]

VirtualBox 4.2.0 installed from the .run file linked under "all distributions" on the VirtualBox DOT org download page. Extension Pack installed.
Host: CentOS 5.8 (Final) on an HP-Compaq, model unknown but Pentium 4 with 1GB RAM
Guest: Windows 2000 Server SP4 configured as a domain controller; 384MB main RAM; 16MB video RAM; RDP enabled on port 3389
Guest log is attached.

Until a few days ago, the guest was running on a WinXP Pro host. Unfortunately, the host machine 'died' and so I'm not completely sure which version of VirtualBox it ran (but probably 4.0). I created a fresh VM on the Linux host using the latest backup (two days old) of the VM's virtual hard disk (vdi). This machine runs fine in graphical mode, but hangs when started in headless mode with "VBoxHeadless --startvm GJCTS03". The hang point is at 00:00:26 in the log following these two entries:

Code: Select all

00:00:26.026364 PATM: Stop monitoring IDT handler pages at 827cda24 - invalid write 827cd5bc-827cd5c0 (this is not a fatal error)
00:00:26.029782 PATM: Stop monitoring IDT handler pages at 827cd164 - invalid write 827cd510-827cd514 (this is not a fatal error)

The machine responds to the CLI poweroff command.

I tried starting the VM from the command line but with the GUI open to monitor the machine via the Preview pane. The machine hangs with the graphical boot progress bar (as opposed to the initial text progress bar) at about 2/3. Searching this board turned up a known bug with the Guest Additions where the additions failed to start, which delays the boot by over a minute. However, disabling the Guest Additions neither sped up the boot in the GUI nor prevented the hang when started from the command line. My searches didn't turn up any other clues.

Hopefully I've missed something simple, but any help will be gratefully received.

Geoff

[Perryg]

GAs =< 4.1.8 do not show this wait time on w2k.

From the hosts terminal type VBoxManage showvminfo <VM Name> --machinereadable and post here. Replace <VM Name> with the actual name of the VM. Use " " if the name has a space in it.

[GeoffL]

Thanks for the reply. The requested output follows. I did this with the VM running in the GUI, please let me know if you want me to do this with the VM shut down, or running (hanging) in headless mode:

Code: Select all

name="GJCTS03"
groups="/"
ostype="Windows 2000"
UUID="a1a80f2d-ac48-4866-9cc2-0f338384fbf1"
CfgFile="/root/VirtualBox VMs/GJCTS03/GJCTS03.vbox"
SnapFldr="/root/VirtualBox VMs/GJCTS03/Snapshots"
LogFldr="/root/VirtualBox VMs/GJCTS03/Logs"
hardwareuuid="a1a80f2d-ac48-4866-9cc2-0f338384fbf1"
memory=384
pagefusion="off"
vram=16
cpuexecutioncap=100
hpet="off"
chipset="piix3"
firmware="BIOS"
cpus=1
synthcpu="off"
bootmenu="messageandmenu"
boot1="floppy"
boot2="dvd"
boot3="disk"
boot4="none"
acpi="on"
ioapic="off"
pae="off"
Time offset=0rtcuseutc="off"
hwvirtex="on"
hwvirtexexcl="on"
nestedpaging="on"
largepages="off"
vtxvpid="on"
VMState="running"
VMStateChangeTime="2012-09-30T16:03:46.164000000"
monitorcount=1
accelerate3d="off"
accelerate2dvideo="off"
teleporterenabled="off"
teleporterport=0
teleporteraddress=""
teleporterpassword=""
tracing-enabled="off"
tracing-allow-vm-access="off"
tracing-config=""
autostart-enabled="off"
autostart-delay=0
storagecontrollername0="IDE Controller"
storagecontrollertype0="PIIX4"
storagecontrollerinstance0="0"
storagecontrollermaxportcount0="2"
storagecontrollerportcount0="2"
storagecontrollerbootable0="on"
"IDE Controller-0-0"="/var/virtualdrives/GJCTS03.vdi"
"IDE Controller-ImageUUID-0-0"="889edb73-41c1-41f8-a980-17cda66a2598"
"IDE Controller-0-1"="none"
"IDE Controller-1-0"="emptydrive"
"IDE Controller-IsEjected"="off"
"IDE Controller-1-1"="none"
bridgeadapter1="eth0"
macaddress1="080027A29C91"
cableconnected1="on"
nic1="bridged"
nic2="none"
nic3="none"
nic4="none"
nic5="none"
nic6="none"
nic7="none"
nic8="none"
hidpointing="usbtablet"
hidkeyboard="ps2kbd"
uart1="off"
uart2="off"
lpt1="off"
lpt2="off"
audio="alsa"
clipboard="disabled"
draganddrop="disabled"
VideoMode="640,480,8"
vrde="on"
vrdeport=3389
vrdeports="3389"
vrdeaddress=""
vrdeauthtype="null"
vrdemulticon="off"
vrdereusecon="off"
vrdevideochannel="off"
vrdeproperty[TCP/Ports]="3389"
vrdeproperty[TCP/Address]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[VideoChannel/Enabled]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[VideoChannel/Quality]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[VideoChannel/DownscaleProtection]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableDisplay]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableInput]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableAudio]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableUSB]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableClipboard]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableUpstreamAudio]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableRDPDR]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[H3DRedirect/Enabled]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Security/Method]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Security/ServerCertificate]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Security/ServerPrivateKey]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Security/CACertificate]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Audio/RateCorrectionMode]=<not set>
usb="on"
ehci="off"
VRDEActiveConnection="off"
VRDEClients=0
GuestMemoryBalloon=0
GuestOSType="Windows2000"
GuestAdditionsRunLevel=1
GuestAdditionsVersion="2.1.4 r42893"
GuestAdditionsFacility_Graphics Mode=0,1349021046299

Thanks again,

Geoff

[Perryg]

Did you power off the guest between using the headless start or saved state?

[GeoffL]

Thanks for your further response.

I'm not sure what you're asking, but I'll do my best to answer. The guest has hung every time I've attempted to start it in headless mode and for each 'headless' start except one, I've stopped the guest with "vboxmanage controlvm GJCTS03 poweroff" rather than rebooting the host or killing the relevant process. Where I didn't stop the guest this way, I left the machine running for an hour or so and when I got back the GUI Manager showed the machine had "Aborted". That said, I have rebooted the machine on two occasions after using VBoxManage to 'power it down' in case that helped. The machine is currently running fine in GUI mode, as it was when I did "VBoxManage showvminfo GJCTS03 --machinereadable". I've tried starting in headless mode following normal shutdown from GUI, normal shutdown using Windows Remote Desktop, and also after rebooting the host following a normal (GUI) shutdown of the guest. The guest hung in headless mode each time.

For completeness, to give you the output from the machine in hung state, I did the following:

1. Logged onto the guest as Administrator, then shut it down using the Start menu.
2. Attempted to start it in headless mode with "vboxheadless --startvm GJCTS03 &"
3. Waited for the guest to hang and then done "VBoxManage showvminfo GJCTS03 --machinereadable"
4. Posted the result below (then powered it down with VBoxManage and restarted it in GUI mode):

Code: Select all

name="GJCTS03"
groups="/"
ostype="Windows 2000"
UUID="a1a80f2d-ac48-4866-9cc2-0f338384fbf1"
CfgFile="/root/VirtualBox VMs/GJCTS03/GJCTS03.vbox"
SnapFldr="/root/VirtualBox VMs/GJCTS03/Snapshots"
LogFldr="/root/VirtualBox VMs/GJCTS03/Logs"
hardwareuuid="a1a80f2d-ac48-4866-9cc2-0f338384fbf1"
memory=384
pagefusion="off"
vram=16
cpuexecutioncap=100
hpet="off"
chipset="piix3"
firmware="BIOS"
cpus=1
synthcpu="off"
bootmenu="messageandmenu"
boot1="floppy"
boot2="dvd"
boot3="disk"
boot4="none"
acpi="on"
ioapic="off"
pae="off"
Time offset=0rtcuseutc="off"
hwvirtex="on"
hwvirtexexcl="on"
nestedpaging="on"
largepages="off"
vtxvpid="on"
VMState="running"
VMStateChangeTime="2012-09-30T18:38:05.265000000"
monitorcount=1
accelerate3d="off"
accelerate2dvideo="off"
teleporterenabled="off"
teleporterport=0
teleporteraddress=""
teleporterpassword=""
tracing-enabled="off"
tracing-allow-vm-access="off"
tracing-config=""
autostart-enabled="off"
autostart-delay=0
storagecontrollername0="IDE Controller"
storagecontrollertype0="PIIX4"
storagecontrollerinstance0="0"
storagecontrollermaxportcount0="2"
storagecontrollerportcount0="2"
storagecontrollerbootable0="on"
"IDE Controller-0-0"="/var/virtualdrives/GJCTS03.vdi"
"IDE Controller-ImageUUID-0-0"="889edb73-41c1-41f8-a980-17cda66a2598"
"IDE Controller-0-1"="none"
"IDE Controller-1-0"="emptydrive"
"IDE Controller-IsEjected"="off"
"IDE Controller-1-1"="none"
bridgeadapter1="eth0"
macaddress1="080027A29C91"
cableconnected1="on"
nic1="bridged"
nic2="none"
nic3="none"
nic4="none"
nic5="none"
nic6="none"
nic7="none"
nic8="none"
hidpointing="usbtablet"
hidkeyboard="ps2kbd"
uart1="off"
uart2="off"
lpt1="off"
lpt2="off"
audio="alsa"
clipboard="disabled"
draganddrop="disabled"
VideoMode="640,480,0"
vrde="on"
vrdeport=3389
vrdeports="3389"
vrdeaddress=""
vrdeauthtype="null"
vrdemulticon="off"
vrdereusecon="off"
vrdevideochannel="off"
vrdeproperty[TCP/Ports]="3389"
vrdeproperty[TCP/Address]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[VideoChannel/Enabled]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[VideoChannel/Quality]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[VideoChannel/DownscaleProtection]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableDisplay]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableInput]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableAudio]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableUSB]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableClipboard]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableUpstreamAudio]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Client/DisableRDPDR]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[H3DRedirect/Enabled]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Security/Method]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Security/ServerCertificate]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Security/ServerPrivateKey]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Security/CACertificate]=<not set>
vrdeproperty[Audio/RateCorrectionMode]=<not set>
usb="on"
ehci="off"
VRDEActiveConnection="off"
VRDEClients=0
GuestMemoryBalloon=0
GuestOSType="Windows2000"
GuestAdditionsRunLevel=1
GuestAdditionsVersion="2.1.4 r42893"
GuestAdditionsFacility_Graphics Mode=0,1349030337098

Hopefully the above gives you what you wanted to know?

HTH & again thanks,

Geoff

[Perryg]

Yes that explains it well, however I am not able to reproduce this. CLI and GUI work equally well for me, and what I can see of the information you have provided it should work equally well for you. Have you tried to install another copy of W2K as a test to see if it behaves the same?

[GeoffL]

Thanks for staying with me.

I haven't tried another W2k VM (or any other guest OS, for that matter) but I'll try some experimentation to see if I can run any guest (Linux or Win2k) in headless mode. I'll have to build the test machines in GUI mode first and I suspect this might take some time ...

Thanks again,

Geoff

[GeoffL]

... I've built a test Win2k VM (called 'Test'). All seemed well with this one until I tried to log on, when it hung with the message "Loading personal settings". I gave it half an hour then powered it down using VBoxManage, to which the machine responded. I've attached the guest log in case you can help further, but I suspect I need to uninstall VirtualBox completely (which is going to be fun since I installed it with the downloaded .run rather than yum, rpm, etc.) and then try one of the versions I've just found in my host OS's Package Manager after finding out how to enable the VirtualBox repo!

Thanks again for your help,

Geoff

[Perryg]

Read the logs. This can cause your problem

VRDP: Statistics created: [full], enabled: 0.
00:00:00.179331 VRDP: VRDP: VD: Frames=10 MinMS=15 MaxMS=300 HistoryMS=2000 VideoMS=300
00:00:00.181785 VRDP: TCP server failed to bind to a port: 3389 [3389]
00:00:00.181875 VRDP: TCP server closed.
00:00:00.182248 VRDP: Failed to start VRDP-IN thread, rc = VERR_NET_ADDRESS_IN_USE
00:00:00.190504 VRDE: Warning: failed to launch VRDE server (VERR_NET_ADDRESS_IN_USE): 'VirtualBox Remote Desktop Extension server can't bind to the port: 3389'
00:00:00.214426 SUP: Opened VMMR0.r0 (/opt/VirtualBox/VMMR0.r0) at 0xf8e08020.

Uninstalling is as easy as running the *.run with --uninstall switch

[GeoffL]

Thanks again.

Read the logs. This can cause your problem

That was (probably) due to my assigning the same (default) port to Test as I did to the original (and running in GUI) VM. The boot process continued for some time past that, but I take your point. Unfortunately, I needed the original machine running to authenticate against when logging on to the second! So I changed the port for Test to 3390 and tried again. The Test VM hung at the same point.

Uninstalling is as easy as running the *.run with --uninstall switch

Thanks, much appreciated.

Edited to add: the --uninstall switch wasn't recognised. I did

Code: Select all

./VirtualBox-4.2.0-80737-Linux_x86.run --uninstall

and got back the following:

Code: Select all

Unrecognized flag : --uninstall
Makeself version 2.1.5
 1) Getting help or info about ./VirtualBox-4.2.0-80737-Linux_x86.run :
  ./VirtualBox-4.2.0-80737-Linux_x86.run --help   Print this message
  ./VirtualBox-4.2.0-80737-Linux_x86.run --info   Print embedded info : title, default target directory, embedded script ...
  ./VirtualBox-4.2.0-80737-Linux_x86.run --lsm    Print embedded lsm entry (or no LSM)
  ./VirtualBox-4.2.0-80737-Linux_x86.run --list   Print the list of files in the archive
  ./VirtualBox-4.2.0-80737-Linux_x86.run --check  Checks integrity of the archive
 
 2) Running ./VirtualBox-4.2.0-80737-Linux_x86.run :
  ./VirtualBox-4.2.0-80737-Linux_x86.run [options] [--] [additional arguments to embedded script]
  with following options (in that order)
  --confirm             Ask before running embedded script
  --noexec              Do not run embedded script
  --keep                Do not erase target directory after running
                        the embedded script
  --nox11               Do not spawn an xterm
  --nochown             Do not give the extracted files to the current user
  --target NewDirectory Extract in NewDirectory
  --tar arg1 [arg2 ...] Access the contents of the archive through the tar command
  --                    Following arguments will be passed to the embedded script

So I'd welcome any other help to uninstall the existing version!

Again, thanks.

Geoff

[Perryg]

Sorry don't use the -- just uninstall See below

Code: Select all

$ sudo ./VirtualBox-4.2.51_OSE-r43462.run uninstall
[sudo] password for perryg: 
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox for Linux installation...........
VirtualBox Version 4.2.51_OSE r43462 (2012-09-28T13:36:07Z) installer
VirtualBox 4.2.51_OSE r43462 has been removed successfully.

[GeoffL]

Sorry don't use the -- just uninstall See below

Thanks, that uninstalled what I had. I then installed the same version (4.2.0 r80737) from the repo and now both Win2k machines hang in both GUI and headless modes

... I'll persevere for a little longer but I suspect the only way I'm going to get this to work is to reinstall the OS and start again.

Thanks again for your help.

Geoff