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Unable to start VM after system upgrade

Posted: 18. Jul 2013, 13:54
by Dan82
Hello,

I upgraded VirtualBox to version 4.2.16 (including associated Extension Pack and Guest Additions on my Oracle Linux VM), everything was OK and the Linux VM restarted successfully.

After a moment, the system asked for system upgrade (516 components to be downloaded); download process was OK and then, system asked for a reboot.

Since that moment, Linux VM failed to complete startup process and remained blocked (See attached ScreenshotStartup and VBoxStartup.log files).

I can reset or shutdown the VM through VirtualBox menu (No error during shutdown). I also tested startup with other Linux releases (See VBoxReset.log anf ScreenshotLinuxVersion) but I always got same result.

As I'm not a Linux administrator, any help would be appreciated.

Dan

Re: Unable to start VM after system upgrade

Posted: 18. Jul 2013, 13:58
by Dan82
Here's last attached file.

Re: Unable to start VM after system upgrade

Posted: 18. Jul 2013, 15:47
by mpack
I see nothing wrong in the log. The VM has not hung, it seems to be responding normally. It looks like it's the guest software which isn't responding. If you can still launch the VM then the VDI header must be ok. It's possible that the grub boot or whatever has been messed up, but VBox wouldn't cause that.

Re: Unable to start VM after system upgrade

Posted: 18. Jul 2013, 16:17
by loukingjr
I know it's too late now but, in my experience, any time there are that many packages in a Linux guest to update, it will often fail. The only time I will take a snapshot of a guest is before a major update. That way if something goes wrong you can fall back to the snapshot. Or at least make a copy first. My two cents.

Re: Unable to start VM after system upgrade

Posted: 18. Jul 2013, 16:54
by Perryg
It sometimes takes a bit for the actual logon to happen when that many updates have been installed. Plus you may need to re-install the guest additions if the Xorg server was changed. I would wait a bit and then if the screen stays black try to open a TTY window and see if running the following will help: as su/sudo

Code: Select all

/etc/init.d/vboxadd setup

Re: Unable to start VM after system upgrade

Posted: 18. Jul 2013, 18:55
by Dan82
Hello,
loukingjr wrote:I know it's too late now but, in my experience, any time there are that many packages in a Linux guest to update, it will often fail. The only time I will take a snapshot of a guest is before a major update. That way if something goes wrong you can fall back to the snapshot. Or at least make a copy first. My two cents.
Unfortunately, I didn't have a backup or a snapshot; it will be my first action after re-installing my VM!

@Perryg : I waited for few hours but nothing happened

I have access to GRUB tool but I'm not familiar with this tool and I don't know if it could help me.

Dan

Re: Unable to start VM after system upgrade

Posted: 18. Jul 2013, 19:03
by Perryg
Usually I let it boot normally. This should give you a black screen where you can access TTY. (host+f2) works like ctrl+alt+f2 on metal
Other than that you would need to boot with the install ISO and use rescue to get to a root terminal.
https://access.redhat.com/site/document ... emode.html

Re: Unable to start VM after system upgrade

Posted: 19. Jul 2013, 20:33
by Dan82
Hello,

I decided to reinstall the VM in order to have a clean configuration (Oracle products are running on this VM) and then, I made a snapshot.

Thank's all for your help.

Dan