VBoxSVC uses > 100% of CPU, even if no VM is running

[ElectricSnark]

This is on a linux host (debian, 3.0.0 kernel), running version 4.1.18 of virtualbox.

Starting the "Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager" creates the VBoxSVC process which consumes > 100% of CPU, as reported by ps, before any VM is started.

See the forum posting at ​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=50342&p=230158#p230158 for some ps stats.

[ElectricSnark]

VBox.log

[Rich McAllister]

I'm seeing the same ~120% VBoxSVC cpu consumption behavior with Ubuntu 12.04 host, but only when the guest (also Ubuntu 12.04) is booted but essentially idle. VBoxHeadless is clocking about 60% usage at the same time, so total consumption is about 200% (quad core host.) Nothing interesting in VBox.log, host logs, or guest logs. Virtualbox 4.1.18, never saw this before on earlier Virtualbox releases.

[Leo]

I had similar issues. The kernels leap second bug turned out to be the reason in my case. Resetting the clock, e.g. using date -s "$(LC_ALL=C date)" fixed the problem for me. (Rebooting is another option.)

[Frank Mehnert]

Yes, the comment by rfm really looks like the leap second bug TuXator reported. But the original report looks different as no guest was apparently running. ElektricSnark, can you reproduce this behavior? If so, could you try the following:

1. Start the VBoxSVC service as a separate process with strace:

   strace -s128 -o ~/VBoxSVC.log -f /usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxSVC
   

   Wait a bit (~30 seconds or so) until the service started successfully
2. Start the GUI

Now wait a bit more (with strace everything takes a bit more time) and check if the host CPU load increases. Then terminate the VM, compress the resulting ~/VBoxSVC.log and attach it to this ticket.

[Rich McAllister]

Rebooting the host does seem to have cleared my problem, so it probably was the leap second bug for me.

[blast]

I'm have seen it on a Windows 7 host with Windows XP guests. My vdis are on a portable external hard drive if that makes a difference.

Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.4

VirtualBox (XP)COM Server 4.1.18 r78361 win.amd64 (Jun 5 2012 15:58:59) release log
OS Product: Windows 7
OS Release: 6.1.7601

It goes away if I restart the process and unfortunately it isn't always reproducible.