Export Appliance Time Remaining Inaccuracies

[alan93]

I am attempting to export an appliance to a USB device. The original .vmdk for this appliance is 15 gb.
When it first started it said "18 minutes remaining" for the export.
Now, after 20 minutes, it has increased steadily to 2 hours and 8 minutes and continues to increase the time remaining.

I think Virtual Box designers don't have a firm grasp of the term "time remaining" , either that or there is a bug in that dialog display.

At this rate it will end up being 48 hours or something remaining!
I had to stop work when i shut down this appliance so I could export it. I really need to know how long this will take. Is there a way this can be determined?
If not, the text needs to be removed from the dialog and just have a snails pace progress bar.

[scottgus1]

I have seen several programs' "Time Remaining" progress counts be off depending on the write speed of the destination device. If your USB device is a thumb drive, really long write times could be expected.

As for the progress count being off, you can report it in the Bugtracker

Why are you exporting? If you are just moving a guest to another host PC running Virtualbox, you can copy it.

If you are exporting it for a backup, exporting (and cloning, btw) aren't recommended for backing up a VM. Either process changes some guest settings, and a change in the guest means there's no way to confirm the backup. The "Moving/Backing Up a VM" method linked above allows a simple FC file compare for backup confirmation and is compatible with encrypted guests. Additionally, Export tries to match the older OVA format and is intended for using a guest under another hypervisor besides Virtualbox. The OVA format is not compatible with encrypted guests: guests must be decrypted to export.

[alan93]

I will probably take your advice of copying it over.

The export seems to be broke.
After 1 hour it is now at "8 hours remaining" and progress bar has not moved.

What's worse is , the "Cancel" feature on it doesn't work either. This thing is a software bomb. It needs to be removed.

[alan93]

Well the copy idea doesn't work either.

I am now getting the message (On MacBook Pro) "The item box-disk2.vmdk can't be copied because it is too large for the volume's format.

The USB is a formatted 128 gb USB.

Now what?

[scottgus1]

In what file system is the USB stick formatted?

[alan93]

Nevermind, had to "exFat" the USB using Mac Disk Utility erase.