virtualbox.org

I am using XP SP3 as host with Ubuntu guest, both latest versions and with latest updates. Virtualbox is version 4.2.0. Over the last couple of weeks, all of a sudden, sometimes the host, guest or both respond very slowly or not at all. Virtualbox may or may not be open, it doesn't seem to matter. I've had XP for at least 5 years installed on this PC and haven't had a problem up until recently. I ran Virtualbox with aforementioned host/ guest for several weeks with no problems until I started having the freezes. I've tried to have the Windows Task Manager open and looking at the processes when this occurs and it doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary. At first I thought "system idle process" was to blame as it would be 99 under the CPU category, but it's reading up to that occasionally right now and nothing is slowing down. Any ideas as to the cause and solution would be appreciated. Thank you, Josephine

Do you have resident antivirus installed? Did it update itself recently?

Yes, anti-virus did update several days ago. Is it not supposed to be running when having Virtualbox installed?

An update here and still looking for a resolution. After disabling my virus scanner software yesterday, I found the same symptoms (very slow, almost non-responsive host and guest). It seems to happen the most if I leave the PC unattended for a while and then return and if I leave the Virtualbox guest opened. I can VERY slowly (takes 10-15 mins) then close Virtualbox and then suddenly my system seems to behave normally.

I don't have any hibernate modes enabled or anything else on this PC, so if I leave for a while, I should be able to resume where I left off without problems.

There are no memory issues. Like I said before, this problem didn't start happening until that last week or so and everything was working fine before that. There were updates to both the Win host and virus software, but as I said, even if virus scanner is disabled, I'm still having the problem.

Any ideas? Sometimes I need to access my PC quickly, so having to take 15 mins to shutdown VB is something I hope I don't have to keep doing.

Thanks,
Josephine

IMHO, a PC that suddenly does its own thing for extended periods is usually a PC that has antivirus installed. This is easily checked in the tasklist - look for a task taking an excessive CPU or IO share.

Personally I consider antivirus cures to be worse than the disease, but those who are want to use them are free to do so, and must accept the performance issues.