virtualbox.org

Hi, I just upgraded to 1.6 on Ubuntu 8.04 32b. Everything seems to have gone fine. I got the note about my guests' config being migrated. I clicked around in the properties for the guests to see if anything changed. Everything looked ok so I started up my XP guest.

The guest window popped up but before even the bios POST screen showed up (what used to be the innotek virtualbox logo in 1.5 - probably a sun logo now) the whole host computer froze. The caps lock key light was blinking on and off and no keyboard combinations I could think of did anything (alt+f1, ctr+alt+f1, ctr+alt+del). The only way I could progress was to hold the power button in for 10s to force the computer off.

I am able to repeat this consistently and it doesn't seem to matter what programs are running on the host.

The guest never boots, the bios doesn't even post.

I don't know how to get further diagnostic information but if it will help let me know how to get the info you need and I'll do so. (this problem is easily and consistently reproducable)

Do you by change have an AMD processor that has AMD-V? And did you turn that on for the VM? If so, disable AMD-V and try again. A friend of mine has a new computer and has about the same problem, only with Windows as Host. The whole system freezes, music repeats the last few seconds and only a reset helps.

Sasquatch wrote:Do you by change have an AMD processor that has AMD-V?

I have an Intel Core Duo cpu which has the Intel equivalent virtualization extensions. It is enabled I will try it disabled after a bit (too many programs open at the moment - I don't want a hard lock). But still, the computer's performance will suffer without the extensions enabled, I don't think this is a good solution.

Hmm, I have an Intel T2300 processor in my laptop that supports VT-x and I have it enabled without any problems. In fact, I'm currently running Ubuntu Server on it without problems.
Have you tested your memory for errors? Do you have any memory left when starting the VM? These two can cause problems.

Well, I was running 1.5.6 earlier today without problem. Then I shut down my guest, installed the deb file for 1.6 and now I can't run vb without locking up the computer.

I do have plenty of RAM (3G) so that's not an issue. I don't think my computer's RAM suddenly went bad while installing vb 1.6 either.

I was talking to the kernel devs on #ubuntu-kernel and they suggested I try unloading the kvm kernel module since there is no standard for locking between different virtualization vendors. I do use kvm though I haven't used it today.

If this fixes the problem it will be a shame since it means I have to choose between kvm, which I use for running server guests and vb which I use for desktop guests. (I can't get VB to run using "Host" networking which I need, and I love VB's seamless mode for XP)

I have to finish my work before I can test again since a hard lock is very likely.

newz2000 wrote:Well, I was running 1.5.6 earlier today without problem. Then I shut down my guest, installed the deb file for 1.6 and now I can't run vb without locking up the computer.

I was talking to the kernel devs on #ubuntu-kernel and they suggested I try unloading the kvm kernel module since there is no standard for locking between different virtualization vendors. I do use kvm though I haven't used it today.

OK, confirmed Fixes the problem and allows virtualbox to run.

Now I'm really torn - I like to use kvm for testing server applications and I like to use virtualbox for desktop applications. In part because I'm using a laptop with wifi networking and 'Host Interface' networking doesn't work so while I have no problem running a server OS in VB, I can't test my server applications.

Is there a way to use virtualbox 1.6 with VT-x at the same time as kvm? If I end up going back to 1.5.6 in order to be able to run them at the same time, what do I lose?