saved sessions cannot be continued

[Peter-493]

Dear all,

I usually save my sessions of my Win XP guest on my Lion host. Always worked, but now I get this error when I try to restart the VM from its saved state:

Für die virtuelle Maschine XP3 konnte keine neue Sitzung eröffnet werden.
No error info.
Fehlercode:
NS_ERROR_CALL_FAILED (0x800706BE)
Komponente:
ProgressProxy
Interface:
IProgress {c20238e4-3221-4d3f-8891-81ce92d9f913}

The VM is not broken, instead I have to restart and fully boot the VM.

I read somewhere that rights management on the host can cause problems like this. And in fact, I have recently downgraded my admin account to a restricted user account. Though, I double-checked the file permissions of the VM-vdi´s and all the accompanying files. I suspect there must be another location where the files are kept, e.g. the session information. I remember having seen some of these hibernation files, but just cannot find the location again. Not in Library, not in ~/library or else....

Anyone some ideas on the problem?

Thanks so much!

Peter

[noteirak]

You don't mention which version of Virtualbox you use but if you're on 4.x, all the files of the VM are located in the same folder. In 3.x, they are a bit more scattered.

[Peter-493]

Hi noteirak,

Sorry for the missing information. The version I am using is VirtualBox 4.2.10 r84104. I have also updated my signature - good point, thanks!

So that would mean that if for the entire folder I have read/write permissions, the problem should not be connected to me downgrading my user account? I shall investigate a bit more into other directions then... Any clue where to start or at least how to narrow it down?

Thanks!

Peter

[Peter-493]

Hi there, just checked, I have the following permissions:

xy.vdi: rw
xy.vbox: rw
xy.vbox-prev: rw

Logs-folder: rwx
but all xy.log only rw

Snapshots-folder: rwx
but all xy-diff.vdi only rw

Hm, do I need rwx for the files? On the other hand, the VM works, it just cannot "hold" the saved sessions.

One note to your comment, noteirak, that all files are kept under the VM folder. As I mentioned, there is another file and I have just searched via file size and found it. It´s here:

private/var/vm/

In this folder are files without suffix: sleepimage (8 GB), swapfiles1-3 (each 50-250 MB).

Those seem to be the saved sessions, I assume. Permissions only rw, too.

any idea?

Peter

[noteirak]

saved sessions are into a .sav file, located into the VM folder.
In fact, all files relating to a VM are stored within the VM folder, since version 4. So you don't need to look anywhere else.

Could you attach as zip the Guest log file. Instruction here

[Peter-493]

Good morning,
Sure, I will collect all the information and attach them. Quick one: do you need only the main log-file or the other logs (log1, log2, log3) as well?

Peter

[mpack]

All that is required is one log which shows the problem. The .1, .2 files etc are backups of older logs. They aren't required unless asked for.

[Peter-493]

Thanks, mpack, for the advice.

Attached the zip-file. Thanks so much in advance.

Peter

[mpack]

00:00:03.331069
00:00:03.331070 !!Assertion Failed!!
00:00:03.331071 Expression: !VMCPU_FF_ISSET(pVCpu, VMCPU_FF_INTERRUPT_PIC)
00:00:03.331072 Location : /Users/vbox/tinderbox/4.2-mac-rel/src/VBox/VMM/VMMR3/PDM.cpp(902) int pdmR3LoadExec(VM*, SSMHANDLE*, uint32_t, uint32_t)

Not hugely informative. An assertion failure normally means a bug, because the software is asserting something which it assumes must always be true, hence failure means that the coding assumptions are wrong.

However, it could also mean that you've done something unexpected that the software was not designed for, such as upgrading the software while the VM was in a saved state, or moving the sav file between hosts, or some other VM platform is running and using VT-x etc etc. In any case discarding the saved state is the usual fix. If that doesn't fix it then you had best raise a BugTracker ticket for it, linking to this discussion.

[Peter-493]

Hi mpack,

thanks for the advice to discard the saved state. Actually, this is what I´ve been doing for weeks now. Both my XP-Pro guests cannot save the state and I keep getting the error. The error itself discards the saved session and the VM is reset to the last snapshot. Interesting observation: when I save the session state and re-open the VM within say a few minutes, the VM starts from the saved point. When I leave it longer, though, I get the error. Weird, isn´t it? Like a timebomb on some diff-files....

So, better a ticket?

Peter

[mpack]

Yes, a ticket I think.

Incidentally, sav files are not diff files (even though it gets saved in the Snapshots subfolder for want of somewhere better), they are basically core dumps. That's why they can only be used to fully restore a state if everything not in the dump remains exactly as was.

[loukingjr]

I just noticed saved state no longer works. It brings up the dialog when you select saved state and appears to be saving but there is nothing in the snapshots folder and when restarting the guest it just boots. I'm actually running 4.2.13 at the moment because of some fixes for USB but perhaps they removed the saved state function?

[mpack]

I presume there is a ticket for the USB problem, which would be a better place to mention that the fix has a side effect.

[loukingjr]

I presume there is a ticket for the USB problem, which would be a better place to mention that the fix has a side effect.

I'm not sure it's a side effect. It's been at least two years since I've even tried saving a session. I could downgrade and check but I wasn't planning on it.

edit: I mentioned it in the ticket. 7462