[Solved] Guest addition uninstallation process crashing vm

[Faithful Observer]

I'm using Virtual Box 5.2.26 running on Windows 10 Enterprise 1803 64 bit with 16GB RAM. I have 2 guest vm setup with 8GB memory allocation running Windows 10 Enterprise 1709 and 1803 64 bit.

When I uninstall the guest addition, the guest VM crash in the middle of process (see captured.png for error output details). Same thing when try to replicate the problem in the fresh installed vm, downgrading to previous version (down to 5.2.20), and following guide from "Diagnosing VirtualBox Hardening Issues".

Although it looks like a simple uninstall error case, I'm worried if there any deeper issues of reliabilty start from this. Sometimes, I'm using VirtualBox to create reference image for OS deployment, so I have to make sure the result is clean from any potential problems.

Any suggestion will be appreciated, thanks.

[mpack]

It's early days yet, but I have a feeling this has to with changing the Graphics Accelerator type (VBoxVGA vs VBoxSVGA vs VMSVGA) in the VM settings, after the GAs are installed.

[Faithful Observer]

It's early days yet, but I have a feeling this has to with changing the Graphics Accelerator type (VBoxVGA vs VBoxSVGA vs VMSVGA) in the VM settings, after the GAs are installed.

Mpack, thank you for your kind respond. I don't find Graphic Controller Type option in vm guest settings or vbx file after GAs are installed.

[mpack]

You did not previously have 6.0.x installed perhaps?

Regardless, if you want to discuss this further then I need to see a VM log: not the hardening log you already provided. With the VM fully shut down, right click it in the GUI. Select "Show Log" and save "VBox.log" (no other file) to a zip file. Attach the zip here.

[Faithful Observer]

You did not previously have 6.0.x installed perhaps?

No, I did not installed 6.0.x version. I consider every fresh major number version as "too early to installed" and have potential to introduce irreversible bad impact to my system.

Regardless, if you want to discuss this further then I need to see a VM log: not the hardening log you already provided. With the VM fully shut down, right click it in the GUI. Select "Show Log" and save "VBox.log" (no other file) to a zip file. Attach the zip here.

Certainly, here's the vbox.log.

[Faithful Observer]

Mpack, sorry to bother you.

I know this is not supposed be your concern, but some preliminary finding/suggestion can be very helpful for me to decide if this current condition will affecting the Windows 10 deployment image creation reliability or not.

Thank you.

[mpack]

I'm not sure what you want me to tell you? I can't tell you what your VMs will do in the future, I can only say that I have never seen the error message described.

You seem to have a general problem that you have enabled 3D acceleration in the VM, but the host does not seem to be capable of provided hardware accelerated 3D. I am still thinking that the problem has been caused by enabling features, installing GAs, then disabling the feature. Perhaps implicitly (by moving VMs to a less capable host, e.g. one that does not support 3D).

Your host is an Asus X450JB Notebook? Notebooks don't typically have the best graphics (unless sold specifically for that purpose). You might find better luck disabling 3D acceleration and using 2D acceleration instead. That ought to be enough for typical business apps.


Incidentally, I see no evidence of a VM crash. Did you really mean that or did you only mean that you got an error message from an app inside the guest OS?

[Faithful Observer]

Incidentally, I see no evidence of a VM crash. Did you really mean that or did you only mean that you got an error message from an app inside the guest OS?

I think the word "freeze" is more appropriate than "crash" (sorry badly chosen word, I am not the native english speaker) . The Windows guest screen is "freeze" during GAs uninstallation process followed by short display blink and notification sound of device disconnection. No keyboard and mouse input response, just never ending freeze of last GAs uninstallation output error.

But I realize you have a point for not finding crash evidence. I never reset the guest, only restoring the previous snapshot. So now I wait for 20-30 secs after freeze and reset. Guest what? Windows guest looks fine and GAs is already uninstalled. Maybe host graphic driver needs to be updated to prevent this? I will check it out.

Your host is an Asus X450JB Notebook? Notebooks don't typically have the best graphics (unless sold specifically for that purpose). You might find better luck disabling 3D acceleration and using 2D acceleration instead. That ought to be enough for typical business apps.

I am using Oracle VirtualBox with Asus X450JB since 2015 and never had any major problem (including with GAs installed). I never enable 3d acceleration for my daily vm's work.

Thank you very much for your help Mpack. Sorry again for this confusion.

[mpack]

Thanks for reporting back. If I understand you correctly then the problem is now solved, so I'll mark the topic as such.

[Faithful Observer]

Well it's not exactly solved, but a bit annoying. At least now I know this is the case of freeze display, not crash or instabilty. If I remote the guest with teamviewer, it would allow to see the last changes and finish the uninstallation process, not forcefully reset.

[mpack]

Freezes are rather an inevitable consequence of having a single core assigned to the VM. When it gets busy, the foreground desktop freezes. You have a 4 core host, you can afford to allocate a second core to the VM. Windows 10 should work a lot better that way.