Windows Guest hangs on auto restart on Windows host

[tony_c]

Hi

I run a windows 10Pro guest on Windows 10 Pro host. For about the last year or so whenever the guest does an auto-restart it freezes at the blue "Restarting" screen.

I always update VB when notified of a new version so this has been a consistent problem for many versions.

I then have to power off the guest and restart it upon which it reboots ok (so far)

If I shutdown manually and it will startup with no issues.

Has anyone experienced this or tell me what may be causing this or how I diagnose the fault.

Thanks
Tony

[scottgus1]

whenever the guest does an auto-restart it freezes at the blue "Restarting" screen.

I always update VB when notified of a new version so this has been a consistent problem

Does this guest freeze only happen when updating Virtualbox?

[tony_c]

No the guest freezes on restart whenever I select update and restart when the guest is installing an OS update.
If I select update and shutdown then it boots up and completes the update correctly.
(I just installed the Windows 2004 update in the guest and every time it tried to restart it hung with a black screen. I had to power off the guest VM and strart it again each time but it seemed to complete the update)

[scottgus1]

I regret to say I have run into that problem before, with one or two XP guests that stuck during reboot when running updates, and I was never able to figure out what the problem was.

You might be able to use the Reset command to get the guest going again, instead of power-off and restart, saving a click.

My guests that did this were part of an office server with scripted backup routines, and when the guests' restart seized, the scripts were stopped until the guests were killed. I ended up writing an in-the-guest script that toggled a Virtualbox guest property every 30 seconds as a heartbeat, and when the heartbeat died off the backup script killed the guest and pressed on.

[tony_c]

I will try to catch a reproducible scenario but it is a moving target with windows doing it own thing with updates.
Much appreciate your reply and suggestions.