Black screen of nothing

[LJS]

Hi there, I'm hoping for a bit of help here.

I've installed ubuntu-13.04-desktop-i386 on my Win 7 host but upon reboot I'm now seeing a black screen after login.

Memory and CPU allocation looks okay, as does the video memory and networking.

Would someone mind having a look at the attached log to see if they can spot the problem? I can't make much sense of it.

Thanks very much.

[mpack]

Please shut down the VM before grabbing the log file, as a log of a partial session is of limited use.

You should fix the extension pack version mismatch right away.

VirtualBox VM 4.2.16 r86992 win.amd64 (Jul 4 2013 15:51:44) release log
...
00:00:02.300954 Installed Extension Packs:
00:00:02.300993 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack (Version: 4.1.26 r84997; VRDE Module: VBoxVRDP unusable because of 'VBoxExtPackRegister returned VERR_VERSION_MISMATCH, pReg=0000000000000000 ErrInfo='VirtualBox version mismatch - expected 4.1 got 4.2'')

I would enable IO-APIC. I would also disable 3D acceleration for now.

Is this the 32bit version of Ubuntu?

Let's see where the above changes get you.

[LJS]

You should fix the extension pack version mismatch right away

VirtualBox VM 4.2.16 r86992 win.amd64 (Jul 4 2013 15:51:44) release log
...
00:00:02.300954 Installed Extension Packs:
00:00:02.300993 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack (Version: 4.1.26 r84997; VRDE Module: VBoxVRDP unusable because of 'VBoxExtPackRegister returned VERR_VERSION_MISMATCH, pReg=0000000000000000 ErrInfo='VirtualBox version mismatch - expected 4.1 got 4.2'')

OK, I've done this.

I would enable IO-APIC. I would also disable 3D acceleration for now

I've done this also.

Is this the 32bit version of Ubuntu?

It is, yes.

Please shut down the VM before grabbing the log file, as a log of a partial session is of limited use

Please see a fresh log file attached (taken post shut down). I've made the changes but still no joy.

[mpack]

00:00:36.595679 Audio: set_record_source ars=0 als=0 (not implemented)
00:00:36.596147 Audio: set_record_source ars=0 als=0 (not implemented)
00:00:36.606125 Audio: set_record_source ars=0 als=0 (not implemented)
00:00:41.963527 Display::handleDisplayResize(): uScreenId = 0, pvVRAM=0000000009310000 w=1024 h=768 bpp=32 cbLine=0x1000, flags=0x1
00:00:58.973063 2D video acceleration is disabled.
00:01:45.101168 Console::powerDown(): A request to power off the VM has been issued (mMachineState=Stopping, InUninit=0)
00:01:45.102133 Changing the VM state from 'RUNNING' to 'POWERING_OFF'.
00:01:45.102150 ****************** Guest state at power off ******************

You only seem to be leaving the VM for 45secs before closing the window. Network problems can easily cause delays which are longer than that. What happens if you give it longer? Try leaving it five minutes to see if it fixes itself.

Other things to try: enable VT-x. I see that your host is capable of VT-x but it isn't currently available, i.e. you may need to enable it in the host BIOS or disable any other app that's already using it (e.g. Hyper-v).

Also, I'm seeing weird messages in the log about remote desktop stuff. Do you have network boot enabled? If so, try turning it off.

[Perryg]

Without VT-x enabled it will take as much as 10 to 15 minutes to see anything since the software acceleration tuning (PATM) has all but stopped.
As for the remote errors I suspect the OP has enabled remote in the settings and has left the default port to 3389 which is the same port as Windows remote and should be changed.

Also Ubuntu 13.04 does not have fallback video and instead uses software rendering that will be extremely slow if you do not have 3D enabled in the guest and have the guest additions installed.

[mpack]

Ah, I see - remote display, so that's what it is. Not something I've ever needed to use.

I guess it's ok to re-enable 3D acceleration now we've established that disabling it didn't help.

[LJS]

Sorted.

VT-x enabled
VT-x enabled in BIOS
3D acceleration enabled
Remote display disabled (I must have enabled this inadvertently after install)

That's got me up and running. Boot time seems fair and I'm sure once the guest additions have been installed it'll clear up the latency, though I have heard there's more overhead running a Linux guest on a Windows host than the other way around.

Are there any further tweaks you might recommend to speed things up?

Thank you both for you help.

[Perryg]

Post the latest log file (as an attachment)

[LJS]

Right, I've installed the guest additions and that's sped things up quite a bit.

Attached is the latest log file.

[Perryg]

Since your processor supports EPT and it is enabled ( see below) large pages is already active

Code: Select all

00:00:03.507249   EnableLargePages   <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:03.507249   EnableNestedPaging <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)

This is one often overlooked settings to improve performance but you have it enabled already.
I see nothing out of the ordinary now except the Intel graphics adapter which has in the past had issues with virtualization products. Make sure that the host has the latest drivers.

[LJS]

I see nothing out of the ordinary now except the Intel graphics adapter which has in the past had issues with virtualization products. Make sure that the host has the latest drivers.

Super. That is good news. I'll update the drivers shortly.

Thanks again for lending a hand.

[LJS]

Hello again...

I've somehow managed to balls up (polite technical term) something in this VM, resulting in a lot of latency and my bridged connections not working. I suspect this is guest additions-related.

I'm unable to upload a log file at the moment as the forum is telling me the attachment quota has been reached. Does anybody have any pointers during the meantime?

Thanks

[mpack]

Did you compress the log? The forums have a strict file size policy, though offhand I can't remember what is. If you zip the file then you'll never encounter it.

I see you've deleted your older logs - AFAIK there is no personal attachment limit, so that wouldn't help.

[LJS]

I didn't compress it, no. I am still seeing a sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached message though, even with it compressed (roughly 20kb).

Unfortunately I no longer have the older logs.