VirtualBox hangs host and client running on ubuntu 12.04 host and windows 7 client os

[itopia]

Happens very random, no significant entries in log file. Anything from 1 minute to 2 hours after bootup. Sometimes when I launch Microsoft Excel application, sometimes when I do something in visual studio 2010, and often the machine hangs after I had my teabreak i.e, doing nothing at all.

My system:Linux itopia-ubuntu 3.2.0-32-generic #51-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 26 21:33:09 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[itopia]

I will try to check back regularly - to see if you need more information - but you can mail me at jacquesjtheron@… if you need me to supply specific info. My host machine is a Dell Vostro 1520 laptop with 8 Gigs of RAM, core duo processor.I find the hanging will happen 2 to 3 times - then I am sometimes able to complete a days worth of work.( I use the virtual machine and windows environment in my day job.)

[itopia]

I performed a grep search in my /var/log folder for vbox - that only gave hits on the vbox-install.log which I uploaded as well. Also did agrep search for 'virtualbox' - that gave no hits. If you need me to look for any specific issue in the logs, please let me know. Seems pretty much as if the logs on the host does not have much clues in...

[itopia]

Happened again - this time the virtual machine was running, and I had logged in to it, but I was busy using the remote desktop viewer on the host machine and working on a remote machine - so VirtualBOX got no input from me and was not busy with any work I am aware of. I will upload log with today's date in the name...

[Frank Mehnert]

Currently no idea. Did you observe this problem with an older release of VirtualBox as well or did you never check an older release? Actually I'm not aware of similar problems which you describe. I can only suggest you the following:

• try to update your host BIOS
• try to disable 3D in the VM settings

Does this make your machine more stable?

Oh, and could you also attach your /var/log/messages file from the host when this happened (please compress the file)? There might be also a hint in this file.

[itopia]

Hi I cannot truly guarantee its always been the same problem, but I have had this issue with as far as I can remember every version of virtualbox I've used. This goes back to before Oracle took over. At that point the seamless machine was so unstable I could not use it - I ran a headless vm to which I connected remotely (I do not recall the details but the machine was started in a way where it listened on address 0.0.0.0.) After about the third of forth update from Oracle, I found the seamless version worked much better and started using that - but it always seemed to sometimes hang my system, and sometime to just restart on its own. (Ive also had spontaneous restart issues with just my ubuntu system (but these I think were associated with a clogged up cooling system. I reapplied thermal grease and now run the machine on a base with fans). I see no reason to think these ubuntu restart issues are related to VirtualBox problems - but I might be wrong. As for my BIOS I did update that to version A08 - which is the latest one recommended for the Dell vostro 1520. The update was likewise recommended because the old BIOS A02 was blamed for laptops running too hot. I do not have /var/log/messages, but will attach dmesg.log ( is that the equivalent??)

[itopia]

I did now disable 3d - will let you know if this helps

[itopia]

For the last 2 days with 3d disabled in the vm settings, things seems more stable. If I find this to be a false illusion I will update this ticket again. Thank you for looking into the problem and making suggestions.

[itopia]

While I was writing the reply above, the VM crashed (aborted) - I was working on the chome browser of the host machine - so not doing anything inside the guest vm. I will attach a log with the data(21Nov) imbedded in its name...

[itopia]

The machine ran 30 minutes or so, then aborted. I was working on it looking at a mssql profiler capture file, trying to find a sql query which is not returning correct data. This time around, the vm machine crash did not affect the host machine in a noticeable manner. Really disruptive though - unless I can get a resolution I will need to start looking for other virtualization solutions...

[itopia]

the machine ran for 20 minutes - then freezed up the entire notebook - I needed to restart the computer by forcing a power down with the power button. This was the exact behaviour that prompted me to open the ticket a week ago. the unstableness seems so bad as to make the virtualisation almost unworkable... (At the time I was waiting for a web page served by the Visual Studio 2010 IDE, running on the guest machine to load. VS2010 project running in debug mode, without any breakpoints active) I will attach another log file...

[Frank Mehnert]

Sorry, still no idea. I also did not see any problem in your dmesg files so during your host hang, no sensible information is logged. And no problem is shown in your VBox.log files. Please also disable the 2D video acceleration for your VM to rule out any 3D drivers on the host though.

Do you experience any instability with other applications, especially with applications consuming a lot of memory? If you ever try an alternative virtualization solution, please update this ticket as well. I can only assume that this is some strange incompatibility between VBox and some SMM functionality of your host.

[itopia]

Hi I did disable the 2D some days ago -so with the incidents yesterday, it was already disabled. I doubt if I ever run anything consuming as much memory as a VM on my host system without - but I have had virtual box running 2 vm's - one with windows 7 and another with either xp or windows 7. Cannot say this was more unstable. I did on occasions run MySQL with queries on a myisam database with million big records in - but that did not show problems... From the searches I have done on the net I sort of got the feeling VMWare will also be giving the same problems. But in the absence of work arounds I probably need to look at an alternative pretty drastically. Often I set up a test (which can take 10 - 20 minutes, only to have the machine crash - it is causing me to loose a lot of productive time...)

Thank you for looking through those log files...

[itopia]

Based on the fact that you found no significant messages in the log files I submitted, both from the host machine and virtual box, and coupled with the update processes of ubuntu which was a bit unstable (reporting that my version of Ubuntu is no longer supported, despite it being version 12.04), I decided to rebuild my machine and to a fresh install of Ubuntu. (The version I had on my laptop was freshly installed as a version 9.04, and always just upgraded with upgrade manager.... Lately it began to have dependency issues with some packages - like if I wanted to install some package it would remove lots of libraries and install alternative versions, and so on...) Seems this may have removed the problem completely. (Too soon to say with absolute certainty, but what I do find on my virtual guest system is much better support for the different graphic resolutions on offer. And the machine has not crashed or hung for more than 12 hours....

[Frank Mehnert]

Please reopen if still relevant with VBox 4.3.2.