No sound on Win VM, Linux host, VB 6.0.10

[mrzenwiz]

I discovered yesterday that the sound in my VB Windows 7 VM no longer works. I believe this happened since I upgraded to VB 6.0.10, as I know for a fact it was working a few weeks ago. I'm running on an Xubuntu 18.04 host, and the native apps get sound just fine.

I've tried turning the audio output and inputs off and on, but still no sound. I don't even get the Windows "coming-up" chime.

I also tried changing the sound device from the default (Intel HD Audio) to both of the other options, neither of which works.

How do I go about resolving this?

Thanks!

[mrzenwiz]

Here's some more detail:

I went back to VB 6.0.2 with the same results.

The VM is using the PulseAudio driver and the Intel HD Audio device.

I tried changing the audio deviec to both of the other two options (ICH something and Sound Blaster) - no effect.

I tried switching to teh ALSA driver, which caused the VM to crash shortly after login (BSOD). I also tried the OSS driver - same result.

However, now it always crashes shortly after login - every single time. I have a BSOD image, but I'm not sure how to post that here or if it will help.

Here's what the recovery window (safe mode, networking enabled) says - well, I can't do that because the bidirectional clipboard also appears to be broken, but that's a subject for another post.

I was able to boot my secondary Win 7 VM, which also gets no sound, At least it does not crash.

This is a matter of som eurgency to me - I use the primary VM for work from home and it is dead now.

[socratis]

We need to see a complete VBox.log, from a complete VM run, where the problem occurs:

• Start the VM from cold-boot (not from a paused or saved state) / Observe or recreate the problem / Shutdown the VM (force close it if you have to).
• With the VM completely shut down (not paused or saved), right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log".
• Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response. See the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form.

[mrzenwiz]

Exact sequence:

Cold boot VM.
When the user choice screen showed up, I waited until the disk accesses stopped, then entered my password.
Within a few seconds, I got the BSOD.
When it started to reboot, I force-stopped the machine.

Zipped copy of the log is attached.

PS: I wne tback to my original Win 7 VM, cloned it and brought it up - no problems, but also still no sound.

[mrzenwiz]

Updates:

1) The crash is incorrigible. AFAICT, the "Win 7 New" VM is corrupt beyond use. I'm not sure where to find a repair for it, and I'd really like one... I don't even know where to look. It does boot in safe mode, so I suppose there should be a repair in there somewhere.

2) The sound problem may well not be in VB. I uninstalled 6.0.10 and went back to 5.2.32, and there is still no sound in either of the working Win 7 VMs.

Also, I disabled the audio on the Win 7 New VM and it still crashes every time it starts up, shortly after login.

Assistance welcomed.

[karolbe]

What I always do when I resume VM is change volume level inside the VM (just a bit from e.g. 90% to 89% - whatever, what matters is that it is changed). I do it for both output and input, otherwise there is no sound in Windows 7.
This is some bug in VirtualBox I suppose because when I was using VBox 5 it just worked fine. Hope it helps.

[mrzenwiz]

Thanks for the option, memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=13822, but unfortunately the sound also still not work now that I'm back on 5.2. Changing the volume level had no effect.

The crash is more worrisome as it has entrenched itself and probably corrupted the VM image.

[socratis]

No kidding you don't have sound in your guest! According to the VBox.log, you don't have a soundcard enabled!!!

[mrzenwiz]

According to my machine settings, sound is enabled for audio output - see the attached screen shot.

[socratis]

According to my machine settings, sound is enabled for audio output

And according to the log, the [/Devices/hda/] section is nowhere to be found, not there!

I want to see the recipe of the VM, the ".vbox" file. Right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager, select "Show in Finder/Explorer/FileManager/Whatever". ZIP the selected ".vbox" file and attach it to your response.

[fth0]

@socratis:
The VBox log file indicates that the VBox XPDM driver is used. Would it make sense to uninstall the Guest Additions, reboot, and reinstall the Guest Additions with the VBox WDDM driver selected instead?

[mpack]

I can't offhand see why that would affect audio. The GAs bundle doesn't include an audio driver AFAIK. Specific hardware is emulated so that native guest audio drivers are used.

It would be useful to see evidence that audio is not muted in the guest, and also what audio device appears in the Device Manager of the guest.

[socratis]

1. The GAs indeed have nothing to do with the audio. GAs means shared folders, shared clipboard, drag and drop, pointer sharing (for PS/2 mice), guest control, enhanced graphics support. Not all of them on all guests, e.g. no enhanced graphics on everything.
2. There's no point in looking for the guest's volume control/settings since there's no [/Devices/hda/], [/Devices/ichac97/] or even a [/Devices/sb16/] section in the log, which means that there was no sound card at all configured.
3. Either the log is not the correct one (the OP was experimenting at the time), or something really funky is going on here...

[fth0]

@mpack, @socratis:
Thanks for your explanations regarding the content of the GAs and the audio virtualization.

I think I didn't make myself clear enough, so I'll try and explain myself:

This thread evolved from audio problems to (possibly unrelated) crashing problems, and I was thinking about the combination of an rather old XPDM driver and a rather new VBox 6.0 version ...

[socratis]

Use the Title Luke, let go Luke... Luke trust me...

• • • • • Obi-Wan to Luke