virtualbox.org

Problem: Im running 6 different virtual boxes, 5 of those are Linux, one is windows XP. ALL are behaving accordingly except the Win XP which is going through the roof with the RAM usage. Its capped at 300 mb RAM (tried higher/lower, same problems), but if I left that win xp guest working for 30 minutes+ i can easily come back to 1-2 GB+ of ram usage (Its capped at 300 mb!) by that certain virtualbox.exe process. Its stealing about 1mb RAM every 3 seconds, no matter how long i keep it on. Restarting DOES reset it, but it only takes a few minutes to go over its own RAM cap usage.

Process checker in Windows 7 Host shows this:
i58[DOT]tinypic[DOT]com/1zxabo5.jpg
(Process checker in that bad XP guest shows nothing out of the ordinary, all applications etc WITHIN the guest are only using around 100 mb tops.)

Any possible solutions/tips/workarounds are welcome; ive spent days researching old forum posts/tickets, they all come down to some "Fixed in next version!" crap.
Ive tried several VirtualBox versions, im now back up at the newest VB, still not fixed.

Windows 7 Host system specs: Win 7, 64 bit, 8GB Ram
Windows XP Guest specs (which virtualbox.exe in host process list is leaking):
300 MB RAM, 50MB Graphics memory, Acceleration: 3D and VT-X/AMD-V, Nested Paging, PAE/NX. Harddrive set to 8 GB.

What ive tried so far:
- Installing a fresh copy of windows xp guest, at idle nothing happens but as soon as i do anything inside that guest that requires ram, no ram is "returned", ie it just keeps ticking up.
- Cloning the guest.
- Adding: -disable-memballoon / --disable-vminfo / --disable-vmstats /--diasble-control /--disable-cpuhotplug /--disable-timesync/ --disable-vminfo
in the guests virtualboxservice registry @ HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VBoxService\ImagePath

If you read it all, thank you; id be happy to provide more info if needed.

Did you search the forums at all before asking this question? Because the question has been asked and answered many times, and it always turns out to be same thing: ReadyBoost on >=Vista Windows versions, caching VDI file accesses. Come back to us if any app actually fails to run due to lack of memory - because this kind of "idle" memory allocation is supposed to be freed up if anything needs it.

Ive searched for days, both the forums and old tickets submitted in by people all the way back to 2008 etc. It all came down to one of the things i mentioned in my first post.

But hold on, what did you mean by that sentence, I barely know what readyboost is,am I supposed to turn it off/on in my host or guest, if so where? Slightly confused.

I did search around with ReadyBoost as a keyword, and I did indeed stumble upon a few threads ive already visited related to memory leaks, still unsure of which steps I need to take though.

No, there's no need for you to take any action, since I'm pretty sure you don't have a problem. You are seeing data being being cached, that's all. As I said above, come back to me if you get applications actually failing to launch due to lack of memory.

Do you really have a problem with your system when you see this "high" memory usage?
It is just using available free mem to cache disk access. The memory should be automatically released when another application requests more memory.

mpack wrote:... since I'm pretty sure you don't have a problem.

I can guarantee you I do. There is a real memory leak here of some sort; its sucking up all my RAM if i leave it on for a good while and everything else (including the other VB guests) drop in performance.

Martin wrote:Do you really have a problem with your system when you see this "high" memory usage?
It is just using available free mem to cache disk access. The memory should be automatically released when another application requests more memory.

Yes. When I start it along with the other guests, the performance is alright, my system can handle that. At that time each Guest is taking about 100 mb each. After 30 minutes ish, ill be back to one of the guests (The win xp i mentioned) being up at around 700 MB in ram usage (the others stay at their 70-130mb range), while still performing the same task it always has. This issue started a while back, not sure what i could possibly have changed or modified, ive tried alot of things by now. .

When it goes up to about 500-600m+ i start to notice quite the performance issue on my host system. I usually dont let it go above 1 GB or itll just turn into a big mess.

This is a real issue

notleavingwithoutmyRAM wrote:This is a real issue

Nothing you have said so far provides evidence of a real issue. You are describing what seems to be perfectly normal cache behaviour, especially on Windows Vista and later. I suggest that you read the following link and note especially how applications are treated if they do a lot of I/O, and consider the effect a large file size would have.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976618

mpack wrote:

notleavingwithoutmyRAM wrote:This is a real issue

Nothing you have said so far provides evidence of a real issue. You are describing what seems to be perfectly normal cache behaviour, especially on Windows Vista and later. I suggest that you read the following link and note especially how applications are treated if they do a lot of I/O, and consider the effect a large file size would have.

1 out of the 6 virtualbox.exe processes (the windows xp guest) is eating more and more ram until i close it/restart it; how is that not a problem, why would all the other linux guests act normal. How can this be a normal issue when its only happened to me past 1-2 weeks, ive been using VB for years now. Ive never had this problem until, I updated VB I think. Then tried to revert to older versions etc.
If I leave my windows xp guest on it will slowly make it impossible to do anything cause of the RAM feast. We're talking + ~1 MB per second.

If this was simply some cache that returns when other applications need it, how come my PC host and guests drop in performance the longer I let that bad win xp memory leaking host run? Those are not just some numbers, theres an actual performance loss.

notleavingwithoutmyRAM wrote: 1 out of the 6 virtualbox.exe processes (the windows xp guest) is eating more and more ram until i close it

Probably because the XP guest is doing a lot more disk I/O than the others, for example running Windows Update and/or indexing the disk. Windows Update will of course affect performance too.

I think I've said the same thing in plenty different ways, so I'm done here.

Indeed youve said the same thing over and over, and ive given you the same answer in different ways, this is an actual problem, not "something thats only showing in the numbers." If it was it wouldnt be affecting my performance.

mpack wrote: Probably because the XP guest is doing a lot more disk I/O than the others, for example running Windows Update and/or indexing the disk. Windows Update will of course affect performance too.

Once again, another fine guess, but No, sorry. Ive monitored the processes inside the guest, everything is running perfectly, nothing is jumping up in RAM usage inside the guest; ontop of that there is no sort of updates/heavy disk usage inside that host, its doing almost the identical simple task as the other 5 Linux guests are doing.

You cant tell me an insane jump in RAM usage and a severe drop in performance out of the blue after years of using this VB happens to be 'normal'; you sure do know alot more about me than VB no arguing that, but I refuse to accept it as anything else but an error or bug.

Suspicions of bugs should be reported at bugtracker with accompanying data showing exactly how to reproduce the issue.

As Don says these memory issues are rarely due to VirtualBox but it can happen. Be sure to provide all of the hosts information as well because if this is a true memory leak it has to be unique to your system especially since the Linux guests do not seem to trigger the issue.

Perryg wrote:Suspicions of bugs should be reported at bugtracker with accompanying data showing exactly how to reproduce the issue.

As Don says these memory issues are rarely due to VirtualBox but it can happen. Be sure to provide all of the hosts information as well because if this is a true memory leak it has to be unique to your system especially since the Linux guests do not seem to trigger the issue.

Ahh the infamous perryg, i think you posted on all the threads/bug tickets ive been researching past few days hah, consistent like no other, I respect that.
And fair enough sir, thank you all for your posts and time, ill dig into the details since the forum seems to be the wrong place for this issue for now. Thank you.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
And since Windows XP is the most used guest VM, I'm betting that someone would have noticed. You keep describing the symptom, and you may very well be right about what you're observing. But filing a bug report without any further proof or steps to reproduce, it would be nearly impossible for the developers to track it down and (possibly) resolve it.

socratis wrote:"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
And since Windows XP is the most used guest VM, I'm betting that someone would have noticed. You keep describing the symptom, and you may very well be right about what you're observing. But filing a bug report without any further proof or steps to reproduce, it would be nearly impossible for the developers to track it down and (possibly) resolve it.

Oh yes I agree on that sir. You wouldnt believe how many hours ive spent this week trying to modify/add/remove/disable/clone everything to find the root for this cuase. Im 70% sure this happened when the last VB update came out. I updated, something went wrong, i installed it again, it 'worked', shortly after that i realized the performance issues and all that were showing up. At first i was suspecting some sort of registry keys gone wrong, but ive uninstalled VB completely, then reinstalled with both the latest and older versions.

Im not sure tbh, I do think this is a unique problem though, I mustve messed up somewhere along the road and the easiest fix might just be a re-format of my Host, cause im stuck searching for a needle in a haystack right now.

Fixed this, the issue was a confusing little thing. It was an outdated browser on windows XP, sure enough i have been using it for a long time, but using that browser inside of the guest caused the host RAM's virtualbox.exe (for that guest) to continue endlessly on to the point where it was taking up all the hosts ram, no matter what the limit was. The RAM usage was perfectly fine INSIDE the guest though.


What caused it exactly I dont know since ive been using the same browser in that guest for years, but i know its definitely that. Switched browsers on all my Guests, works fine now on all.


Updated/bumped just to be nice incase someone might have this problem in the future too, take a look at the programs youre using inside that guest. Damn Internet Explorer (I know...)