Solved: Black screens (2) when starting VirtualBox Manager GUI?

[MOKANMAN]

I have been using VirtualBox on my Ubuntu 18.04 host for 5 days now so my ignorance may have inadvertently caused the problem I need help solving. Anyway, I successfully created an XP Home 32 bit VM and have been using that without issue for 5 days. Yesterday I decided it was time to check out Ubuntu 20.04 64 bit in a VM. When I first tried to create that VM I found that there were only 32 bit options available. After researching online I went into my bios and enabled the SVM option and when I booted back up found that VirtualBox now had 64 bit OS environment support available for installs (yay!). I then successfully created an Ubuntu 20.04 64 bit VM and spent a few hours installing the OS and configuring it's environment for my intended purpose (installed several software applications, deleted LibreOffice applications which had been installed by default, etc). At that point I found that I needed to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions as I wanted to share a folder and clipboard between guest and host machines. As I had already done that for the XP VM I already knew how that was done so I installed and I believe this is when my problems may have started.

Since the VirtualBox Manager GUI was already running at this point I was not experiencing any problems with that, but weird behavior started occurring when I tried to go back into the Ubuntu VM. The start-up of the Ubuntu VM seemed normal and I would get all the way to the login screen but once I entered the password the screen then went black and did not show a cursor and did not respond to mouse or keyboard. All I could do was use the manager to end that session. I tried this several times with the same result every time. I then decided to close the Virtualbox Manager GUI and get back in to see if that would solve the problem. Wrong! That is when I first started experiencing two black screens, the first one that popped up may have been the manager attempting to open and display and the second one popped up seemingly simultaneously had a window title of VirtualBox - Warning. While these screens were being displayed my host machine was unresponsive to mouse and keyboard. After a few seconds more those screens close and my host machine is once again responsive. At this point I thought maybe a reboot of my host machine might help. Nope! Same problems occur.

I found that I can use the CLI to start my XP VM and it still runs flawlessly. I can also use the CLI to start the Ubuntu VM and it still follows the same problematic behavior mentioned above. I don't know if the two problems are related (black screen in Ubuntu VM and black screens when starting Virtualbox Manager GUI) but they both started occurring around the same time so it seems possible. I do not see a log for the Virtualbox Manager itself and I do not see anything obvious in the log for the Ubuntu VM though I have uploaded a zipped copy here. I have not been able to find any postings here relating to this problem and Google hasn't got anything for me either.

Don't know if the following information would be relevant but here it is. My XP VM setup is all on my host's main drive. My Ubuntu VM setup has the VDI on a secondary drive and is set up quite large (dynamic 1.3TB on a 3TB drive) though it currently is only using 11.3GB. The shared folder for the Ubuntu VM is also on that same drive. I have had (what I would consider) unusual behavior with that drive when used with qBittorrent where if I don't open some file (any file) before opening qBittorrent (which is configured to download to that drive) then qBittorrent's internal torrent lists display as incomplete and I have to close it, access some file and then when I reopen it qBittorrent then displays all the lists correctly. There is probably some setting in Ubuntu that I need to change to make that drive visible all the time and I'm hoping it is not related to the drive spinning down for inactivity as I am a big fan of drive's spinning down for many reasons. Anyway, I have accessed other files on that hard prior to running the VM but it does not seem to make any difference.

Anyway, I hope my confusion is not too confusing. I would appreciate any suggestions/assistance anyone can offer to resolve these black screens. I really don't want to have to reinstall unless my VM setups can stay untouched. Of course, if there is no solution other than that then I will have no choice.

[scottgus1]

You have lots of mismatch in your installed versions of Virtualbox, Extension Pack and Guest Additions:

VirtualBox VM 5.2.42_Ubuntu r137960 linux.amd64 (Jun 5 2020 08:26:08) release log
00:00:04.003728 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack (Version: 6.1.12 r139181;
00:00:21.277751 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 6.1.10 r138449 '6.1.10_Ubuntu'

Your Virtualbox and GAs are also the Ubuntu forks, which we don't support here because we can't see what Ubuntu might have modified. Also the EP should match the Virtualbox version.

Further, you have lots of these after the guest gets itself booted:

00:00:47.416688 VBVA: InfoScreen: [0] @0,0 1920x979, line 0x1e00, BPP 32, flags 0x1
00:00:47.416731 Display::handleDisplayResize: uScreenId=0 pvVRAM=00007f54ade38000 w=1920 h=979 bpp=32 cbLine=0x1E00 flags=0x1
00:00:47.416780 GUI: UIFrameBufferPrivate::NotifyChange: Screen=0, Origin=0x0, Size=1920x979, Sending to async-handler
00:00:47.416861 GUI: UIMachineView::sltHandleNotifyChange: Screen=0, Size=1920x979
00:00:47.416868 GUI: UIFrameBufferPrivate::handleNotifyChange: Size=1920x979
00:00:47.416883 GUI: UIFrameBufferPrivate::performResize: Size=1920x979, Directly using source bitmap content

Something somewhat similar happened in another topic where forum guru fth0 identified as the guest OS having possible trouble starting the display.

I would uninstall the Extension Pack, then uninstall Guest Additions, if it is possible to start the guest in some kind of Safe Mode, or scrap this guest altogether and start over, then uninstall Virtualbox. Then install Virtualbox 6.1.12 from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads, also the EP, and the GAs like you did with XP. Do the GAs first to see if everything works.

If you decide to keep the existing guest, it is using the old VboxVGA video card, which no longer has 3D acceleration. Switch the video card to VMSVGA before installing the new GAs.

[MOKANMAN]

scottgus1, thanks for your quick and detailed reply. Based on your analysis of my very messy VirtualBox installation I have decided to scrap it and reinstall per your suggestion. I have actually uninstalled but before I reinstall I want to make sure a problem that is now occurring on my system is not relating to possible remnants from the previous install. I was only able to uninstall using the Ubuntu uninstaller so I'm not sure if anything else was left behind. I checked with Synaptic and did not see anything obvious but I'm no guru so not sure how else to check to see if Guest Additions or Extensions is still entrenched somehow/somewhere.

Anyway, the problem I am experiencing occurs while using ffmpeg and it just started happening but the timing could be related to the very recent security fix they implemented in that program. What happens is while using ffmpeg to convert a video file to another format my host system reboots with no indication of why. It is very consistently rebooting when using ffmpeg to convert any file on any disk. To see if my motherboard's SVM mode (AMD secure virtual machine) was related I disabled it in the BIOS but it did not change the behaviour as the machine still reboots (albeit not as quickly but still does it). I have not been able to find anything on this forum or through Google that mentions this problem. Any ideas or suggestions?

[scottgus1]

before I reinstall I want to make sure a problem that is now occurring on my system is not relating to possible remnants from the previous install.

All the guests remain behind after the uninstall of Virtualbox, as well as the global settings in /home/{username}/.config/VirtualBox, see https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch10. ... configdata. For a complete fresh install, rename or delete the above 'VirtualBox' folder. Also, manually delete the undesired guest folders & disk files. Guests you want to keep can be re-registered in the reinstalled main Virtualbox window's Machine menu Add command.

The Extension Pack is installed inside the Oracle/Virtualbox installation folder on Windows hosts, probably on Linux too. The easiest way to change the EP is to reinstall Virtualbox then swap out the EP in the main Virtualbox window's File menu, Preferences, Extensions. (On Windows, Virtualbox must be Run As Admin to change the EP, you might need sudo on Linux.)

You will need SVM enabled to run Virtualbox.

I regrettably have no idea if or how the problem with ffmpeg is connected with Virtualbox or the host rebooting.

[MOKANMAN]

All problems solved. I reinstalled from the Virtualbox web site per your suggestion and now Virtualbox works just fine for everything I set up. As to my reboots I found someone online who mentioned many unexpected reboots are due to the CPU getting too hot. I installed temperature monitoring software and indeed found that my CPU and GPU temperatures skyrocketed while running ffmpeg right before it would crash. I'm embarrassed to admit it but I knew the inside of my PC was filthy so I opened it and gave it a thorough vacuuming and it looks brand new in there. That didn't solve the heat problem though and more research indicated that thermal paste (compound, grease or whatever your favorite term) actually goes bad with age and even has a shelf life in it's original tube. I started researching thermal paste best practices and while looking at my motherboard and CPU information to see how the heat sink disengages I found that a BIOS update was issued just last month. Fan control issues were evidently resolved in that update so I downloaded that and updated my BIOS. Also, ffmpeg had an update that just came out so I installed that as well. When running ffmpeg I just witnessed all four cores of my CPU running at 98-99 present and CPU temps shot up to mid 50's centigrade and stay there (the specs for my CPU shows it can safely run up to 90). Anyway, everything is running great and I'm glad I didn't have to mess with reapplying thermal paste! Thanks for all your help.

[scottgus1]

Great! Glad you're up and running.