Virtualbox Manager GUI unresponsive, no preview Window

[MKANET]

I have a clean install of VirtualBox Manager 6.1 on Windows 10 (Version 2004). The host OS is extremely stable with 8GB's of RAM and an SSD. All other apps and services run 24/7 without any issues.

Every couple of days, my VM becomes unresponsive. When I open the VM VirtualBox Manager GUI, it shows that my VM is "Running". However, the preview window isn't showing. The Virtualbox GUI itself is frozen, requiring me to kill the processes related to VirtualBox and start my VM again.

The only setting I have enabled that wasn't enabled by default is, "Use Host I/O Cache" for the virtual controller. There are some CPU related hardware accelerations that are enabled automatically such as: VT-x/AMD-V, Nested Paging, PAE/NX, and KVM Paravirtualization.

What's the quickest way to avoid this issue; other than uninstalling VirtualBox and using a different VM software?

[scottgus1]

Start the guest from full normal shutdown, not save-state. Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the guest from within the guest OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window for the guest with the Power Off option set.

Right-click the guest in the main Virtualbox window's guest list, choose Show Log. Save the far left tab's log, zip it, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

[MKANET]

Start the guest from full normal shutdown, not save-state. Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the guest from within the guest OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window for the guest with the Power Off option set.

Right-click the guest in the main Virtualbox window's guest list, choose Show Log. Save the far left tab's log, zip it, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

Thank you so much for the surprisingly quick response. I will try to do exactly what you say and post here as soon as it happens again.

[MKANET]

I finally figured out what was wrong. If I add all my USB devices to the USB filter, except for a device I need in the VM, the VM works correctly and very stable.

However, when I add these USB devices to VirtualBox's USB filter, this completely disables these devices on the entire PC (HOST). It doesn't just disable them within the VM. If I wanted to completely disable these USB devices from the entire PC, I would just unplug them completely from the PC.

How can I configure VirtualBox to filter these devices only within the VM... so these USB devices can still be used by other applications outside of the VM?

[BillG]

You can't. USB devices are pretty simple. They were not designed to be shared. They must belong to one device only.

[MKANET]

Thanks. But, I'm not trying to share my USB devices. I wanted one USB device to be dedicated exclusively to VirtualBox; and, the rest of my USB devices exclusive to the HOST only.

EDIT: Maybe, there's a way I can have a USB hub and respective devices dedicated to VirtualBox and another USB hub and it's respective devices dedicated to the HOST. If so, how would I do that?

UPDATE: I think I might have gotten lucky. I switched VirtualBox's USB settings to use USB 1.1 OHCI instead of USB 2.0 OHCI + EHCI. This seemed to resolve the issue where VirtualBox was allowing a conflict between my USB devices. Ill have to test this more.

[scottgus1]

If you are having trouble with USB, and switching to USB1 solves it, then there may be a problem with the installed Extension Pack, or lack of one.

You have not posted the zipped log. All this thrashing around you're doing may very well damage your guest beyond repair, and we would not be able to help.

[MKANET]

UPDATE:

Okay.. my VirtualBox VM Manager GUI did the same thing again. It's completely frozen. This is what it looks like:
Screenshot:
https://bit.ly/2C7iZFT

Since the process is hung, the only thing I could do is kill the process and open the GUI again. I was then able to save the log file:

Logfile:
https://bit.ly/2Cx5wHy (zipped)
https://bit.ly/3ep8ECe (not zipped log file)

I am hoping someone can help resolve this issue soon. It took me a long time to setup the VM; so, hopefully, we can prevent this from happening before my VM gets damaged. Looking forward to hearing back.

PS: I'll wait to hear back from you guys on what to do. I didn't want to start experimenting without getting official instructions.

[multiOS]

Please upload your screenshots and zip files using the "Upload attachment" tab on the message posting screen. Not many people here will use unknown external file links to download files.

[scottgus1]

To reiterate MultiOS's instructions:

post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.
(this was posted in the second post, asking for logs six days ago)

In addition to following instructions, you should read carefully what those instructions are.

[MKANET]

My apologies. Please find the screenshot below of the VirtualBox VM Manager described in the OP of this thread. It was completely responsive; requiring for me to kill the process and open the VirtualBox VM Manager app again to get access to the latest log.

VirtualBox-VM.jpg (30.08 KiB) Viewed 2245 times

Zipped log immediately after issue occurred below:

HASSIO-2020-07-12-21-19-40.zip

VirtualBox VM Log

(18.76 KiB) Downloaded 3 times

PS: I tried disabling the setting: Enable PAE/NA and Enable Nested Paging. However, that didn't make any difference. The issue still happens.

Thank you for your assistance.

[scottgus1]

What made you believe these would help?

I tried disabling the setting: Enable PAE/NA and Enable Nested Paging.

The log does not end in a guest shutdown. In fact the last line is only 14 seconds of running time. You did mention that:

Every couple of days, my VM becomes unresponsive

That is substantially more than 14 seconds of run time.

I reiterate my previous advice:

In addition to following instructions, you should read carefully what those instructions are.

Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the guest from within the guest OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window [then post the log]

You have a very old CPU and all CPU cores in the guest OS:

00:00:03.168381 Full Name: "Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz"
00:00:03.168010 CPUM: Physical host cores: 4
00:00:01.977079 NumCPUs [in the guest] = 0x0000000000000004 (4)

Reduce guest processor count slider to two. Then follow the directions if you see the guest go unresponsive again.

[MKANET]

Solution:
I was able to resolve this issue completely by adding my USB device (that I needed for the VM) to the USB filter. I got this idea per the recommendation of the USB troubleshooting guide. It looks like there was a conflict between this USB device and another USB device one on my Windows host. Before doing this, I was just mapping the USB device's COM ports to the VM.

The only odd thing is that I have to manually insert the USB device after I start the VM. This appears to be by design; per the USB troubleshooting guide. I'm curious if there is any way to automate disconnecting/reconnecting the USB device via software so I don't have to manually/physically re-insert the USB device each time I reboot the HOST OS.

Update:
Since the USB filter needs me to manually plug in the USB device to the host after the VM starts up (so it's detected by the VM), I used a special switchable USB hub and a script to automate this action:
https://www.yepkit.com/products/ykush
My script tells this USB hub to connect the USB device to the HOST PC when the VM starts up.