WindowsXP guest crashes while installing Avast.

[Mark A.]

My Windows XP guest crashed while downloading AVAST anti-virus software. The box of text that appeared told me to contact you. I was making some text entries into a notepad-like file in the Windows 10 host during the download when the crash occurred. It was my first download using the guest and I did not think using the host at that time would be a problem. Attached below is the only log file this web page would allow me to upload. I entered Windows XP in safe mode twice since the crash and found only the "MyDocuments" subdirectory not showing any files. All the files in that subdirectory, however, could be accessed from C:\. Many AVAST files were already installed before the crash. I re-installed VirtualBox, keeping the old XP hard drive by temporarily renaming that sub-directory, but that did not fix the problem.

Is there some way to fix this or should I just start over with a new VM for Windows XP? I've spent a lot of time installing stuff but nothing significant would be lost since I'm still learning the system.

Thank you.

Mark

[mpack]

Unfortunately, the log you provided is not one which shows a crash. Instead it shows a normal user requested shutdown, and is therefore mostly useless for diagnosing the crash.

I do wonder why you only provided 250MB to the VM. First, that isn't the usual power of 2, and second your host has 5GB available RAM, so I see no point in being so stingy. Your graphics RAM is even worse: just 16MB there.

Also, I rather doubt that the VM crashed. It is possible that software running on XP crashed, but that is a VERY different matter. The most obvious cause of a guest software crash is the aforesaid lack of RAM.

I would increase RAM to 1024MB, and graphics RAM to 128MB. I would also enable VT-x. Also, I would stop using snapshots.

p.s. Please zip your logs in future, it conserves server space.

[mpack]

I had a bit of time so I took a closer look at your log. I see this :-

00:00:33.717171 VMMDev: vmmDevHeartbeatFlatlinedTimer: Guest seems to be unresponsive. Last heartbeat received 6 seconds ago
00:00:58.728502 PIIX3 ATA: execution time for ATAPI command 0x4a was 24 seconds
00:00:59.179164 Display::i_handleDisplayResize: uScreenId=0 pvVRAM=000000000a0f0000 w=800 h=600 bpp=32 cbLine=0xC80 flags=0x0 origin=0,0
00:00:59.957000 VMMDev: GuestHeartBeat: Guest is alive (gone 32 339 802 393 ns)
00:01:00.376402 EHCI: USB Suspended
00:01:29.803285 VMMDev: Guest Log: VBOXNP: DLL loaded.
00:01:29.803809 VMMDev: Guest Log: VBOXNP: vbsfIOCTL: Error opening device, last error = 2

ATAPI is the disk controller emulation (IDE).
VBOXNP is the VirtualBox v6 Guest Additions shared folder service I believe.

Taken together, I think I'm seeing lockups when the VM accesses the host filesystem. It may be worth running "chkdsk" on it.

[Mark A.]

Many thanks for the help. Except for the hard disk size, I just accepted the defaults when I created the VM. I increased the memory when I got an error message saying I needed at least that for something to work. I'll make the corrections and see what happens.

Mark

[mpack]

One final thing I noticed. This is probably the nail in the coffin.

00:00:06.192956 CPUM: Physical host cores: 1
...
00:00:06.193172 Full Name: "Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 650 @ 3.20GHz"

The i5-650 is a 2 core, 4 thread CPU.

The only way I know of for a Windows 10 host to report 1 core to the VM is if the host OS is itself a VM. That makes XP a nested VM, which is not supported on Intel hosts, and not recommended on any host.

[Mark A.]

Thanks for the help.

I was able to get the VM started again by doing what you suggested and then having windows recall a restore point that allowed Windows XP to start up again. When I tried to re-install the AVAST software, however, it crashed the VM at exactly the same point as the first time. I was able to start the VM up again using the restore point again. Everything seems to be back except the USB connectivity. The only way I could get that back the last time was to re-install everything and start over.

I just checked the number of CPU's available on my host machine and while it was four a few days ago, with only one active (it is supposed to be a dual core), now there is only one CPU active and only one available. This sounds related to what you were saying.

Any additional suggestions? My computer seems to work like it did before.

Mark

[socratis]

First of all (before I forget), I changed the title of your thread from "Re: WindowsXP guest crashes while downloading software." to "WindowsXP guest crashes while installing Avast." to better reflect the situation. You're not getting a crash because you're downloading software, you're getting a crash when trying to install a very specific software. Huge difference, changes the whole ... context.

The box of text that appeared told me to contact you.

What you're describing is a Guru Meditation, which is technically a crash, but a very specific kind of crash, one that involves a Guru:

Attached below is the only log file this web page would allow me to upload

As mpack told you, compress your logs first. That would have allowed the proper log to be uploaded, the one with the Guru Meditation. We don't need to see a generic VBox.log from "a" run. We need to see the complete ZIPPED VBox.log, "The Log" where/when the problem occurs.

Chances are that you got a VERR_REM_VIRTUAL_CPU_ERROR Guru. At least that's what the previous people were getting:

• Windows XP crash after attempt to install Avast Pro Antivius
• Guru meditation on Win XP virtual machine

Avast wants to use hardware virtualization, something that's not available in a VM. Also known as "won't work".

As far as the discrepancy between what the CPU can do, and what's reported that the CPU can do... I don't see any signs that this is a nested VM as mpack suggested. On the other hand, HP has been known to tweak the configuration in the BIOS to cripple some cheaper models, on purpose. They build the same computers for efficiency, but they cripple some of their cheaper models because of marketing. Go to your BIOS and make sure that you are supposed to see what you're supposed to get.