Critical error from HostMemoryLow while running Ubuntu on Windows

[longtalker]

Hello everyone,

I use Virtualbox 4.2.12 to run a brain imaging software (Freesurfer) on guest OS Ubuntu, my computer's host OS being Win XP SP3 32-bit.

About 8 hours into a task started at the command line, which was supposed to run for a few days, I got a dialog from "Guru meditation" saying that "a critical erro has occurred while running the VM and the machine execution has been stopped". I restarted the VM session and relaunched the command inside Ubuntu, with the same effect. Restarting my PC and repeating all steps also didn't help.

VBox.log contains, towards the end, the line "VM: Raising runtime error 'HostMemoryLow' (fFlags=0x2)" which suggests a memory issue. My computer has 4GB RAM, and about 2500 MB were made available to the guest OS, an amount deemed sufficient by the software that I'm using inside Ubuntu (Freesurfer). At the suggestion of a previous thread on the forum that seemed to be describing the same problem, I reduced the Base Memory to 1320 MB, but that didn't help either; in fact, the whole terminal window disappeared soon after my command had been launched from there, even though the VM itself had not crashed.

Both virtualization options are enabled from the VM's System/Acceleration settings.

Given the number of threads with "HostMemoryLow" problems (none of which seem to have a clear solution), I'm assuming this is a VB problem, rather than my PC having too little memory (or making too little of it available to the guest OS). Can anyone suggest any workarounds?

Many thanks indeed!

[longtalker]

Hello again, I was wondering when I might get a reply about this problem. Since this seems to be a 'ticket' rather than a forum thread, I figured the waiting time is more predictable. I appreciate any replies, thanks in advance.

[longtalker]

Dear Virtualbox support,

Anyone at all interested to reply? I am still looking for a solution to this problem...

Thanks.

[Frank Mehnert]

Duplicate of #10121. Though running a guest with 2G on a 32-bit Windows host is a challenge anyway. Better try with less guest RAM (e.g. 1.5G) or use a 64-bit host. Also, check for some applications mentioned in #10121 (comment 24 of that ticket).