4.3.16 VBox crashes Windows 8.1 with two running VMs open

[marcbaas]

Hi all,

For QA purposes I am running two VMs simultaneously:
1) Ubuntu 12.02 with the system to QA
2) Ubuntu 14.04 with a simple Selenium server setup

In order to let the two communicate with one another, I am using the 'host only adaptor' on both.

I have noticed some instability issues when using this setup, and up to two times VBox actually crashed Windows. Yes, BSOD (or should I say 'sky blue' screen of death?) and VBox indicated as the cause of it. And no, I cannot give you guys the precise process that crashes it, because I have no intention to reproduce this, since it already hosed my main test environment. That's about a day's worth of work gone.... And, while I am typing this, I'm downloading the Windows SDK to analyse the actual crash report.

I'm running the following system:
Windows 8.1 x64
CPU: Intel i7-4770
Memory: 16 Gb
HDD: 1Tb with about 500Gb free
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth Z87

One VM has 4 Gb assigned to it, the other 2 Gb of memory, one has 2 cores assigned to it, the other just one.
They are both sharing the same host only adaptor.

Is anyone aware of any potential issues with my 'type' of setup?

This is a fairly critical issue for me, since if VBox is not good at these kind of setups, I might be forced to explore other options.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Marc

[Perryg]

No one can tell without precise diagnostic information. We would need the exact error message followed with the guests log file just after a crash.
So far all we know is what you have and that is not enough.

[marcbaas]

No one can tell without precise diagnostic information. We would need the exact error message followed with the guests log file just after a crash.
So far all we know is what you have and that is not enough.

Hi Perryg,

Thanks for your reply. I understand that you would need log files, but like you probably understand, reproducing a system crash is not that easy. Also, on a work environment, not something I prefer to do, considering the risks involved.

I did manage to get the crash log viewer from MS downloaded and installed, but there seems to be no crash dump. Go figure...

As I mentioned at the end of my post, I am merely trying to find out if there is a 'known issue' with my type of setup. Maybe other people are having issues running two VMs at the same time, that are sharing a 'host only' adaptor? Or, maybe there are people who are not having any issues at all with a setup like this.

That's all I am asking.

By the time I get (if needed) to the technical part, and I have all the logs needed, I'll be happy to share them. So far though, Windows did not do a crash dump despite crashing, and the VBox log files are not very informative on the issue either. Hence the reason for the more generic question.

[Perryg]

Crashes are unique to a machine and software I am afraid. There are some issues with Windows versions 4.3.14 - 4.3.16 but the guest usually refuse to start due to new hardening and in particular virus software that uses dll injection to work.