Lag with 4.3.16

[ebfortin]

I've been a long time user of virtual box. Since version 1. I've been using 4.3.14 for some time and installed 4.3.16 a couple of days ago. Something is wrong with it. It lags like crazy. Mouse response time is like two seconds. The window itself for a VM move slugghisly on the screen when I move it. Clicking on the system menu, which is technically outside the VM and belongs to the host, takes seconds. If I open the host task manager along with the guest task manager and double click something in the guest, I'll see the host CPU topping up while the guest CPU stays at about 0. There is something wrong with the events management between the host and the guest.

Anyone encountered the same?

[jamesl83]

I am having the same problem. Windows 8.1 x64 host with AMD graphics, all system and application updates applied. No errors are logged at any time, and 4.3.14 worked perfectly with all guests (GNU/Linux and FreeBSD).

[mpack]

Minimum information needed for assistance.

[jamesl83]

The version of VirtualBox you are using, and whether you have installed the Guest Additions (in the guest).

VirtualBox 4.3.16. Guests are Gentoo and Debian with guest additions installed from the ISO, also version 4.3.16

Host & Guest make and version including 32 or 64 bit, and the amount of memory available to both.

Host: Windows 8.1 64-bit
VirtualBox build: 4.3.16 r95972
Memory on host: 16G, memory available to guests 8G for Gentoo, 4G for Debian

Guest log file (as an attachment) See your VirtualBox users guide for how to locate this if using CLI or right click the guest in the VirtualBox main manager and select show log. Then choose save.

Attached. Two logs are from 4.3.14 and the other two are 4.3.16 where the "lag" problem surfaced.

[mpack]

@james. Try giving fewer cores to the guest. You have a quad core processor and you can't leave none for the host. Start with one, go to two if you must. I'd also reduce the RAM allocation unless the guest absolutely needs 8GB.

p.s. I only need one (relevant) log file. I deleted the 3 redundant ones. Two weren't even from 4.3.16.

[jamesl83]

Thank you for checking.

Despite the fact this guest has been running fine for 2 years pre-4.3.16 I tried the suggestions, reducing vcpus to 1 and ram to 4G. The problem remained exactly the same. Attached is the new log file generated while using your suggestion of decreased resources.

I have downgraded back to 4.3.14, put the guest cores to 2, increased RAM back to 8G, and the problems are gone. The issue is something with 4.3.16 in this environment.

p.s. I did not ignorantly attach logs that are irrelevant to the problem. 4.3.16 is where the problem appeared, it was logical to me to attach logs from before 4.3.16 in case something different could be seen that might help identify the problem.

[mpack]

The issue is something with 4.3.16 in this environment.

In that case you should be discussing the issue in the "Discuss the 4.3.16 release" topic. That's how the devteam finds out there is a problem.

[war59312]

Same here. Nearly same specs.

Will post over there when I have time.

Just letting you know your not the only 1.

On my system I am seeing 100% disk usage. Which is of course causing the lag.