VirtualBox "forgetting" that an instance is running -> data corruption

[csillag]

I have seen this many times.

I'm not sure how to reproduce this, but something must be fundamentally broken if this is can happen, so you should be able to figure this out my looking at the code.

Here is what happens.

I am working with guests. Suddenly, _something_ happens, which leaves the guest running, but gives VirtualBox the impression that it is not running any more.

So VirtualBox thinks that it's switched off.

This happens with both the GUI and if I use VBoxManager list runningvms.

Since it thinks it's off, clicking on it will start it again.

What happens then is that we get two instances running, with both having read-write access to the same underlying storage devices.

You can how this ends: with tears, blood and of course irrecoverable data corruption. (Two OSs writing to the same file system at the same time...)

This is messed up beyond words.

I am attaching a screenshot, which shows two instances of the UI, running on the same host, with the same user.

One shows the guest on, the other shows it off.

The only difference is that I have launched the other instance of the GUI a bit later, but there was no configuration change. There is no reason why would it show a different status.

You can also see the output of list runningvms on the same screenshot. (Empty.)

Btw the actual guest is only visible on the screen, which is showing another data corruption bug with virtio-scsi, about which I will open a separate bug report.

[csillag]

Log file saved from the UI

[csillag]

Screen show showing anomalous state

[csillag]

Screen show showing anomalous state

[csillag]

Screen show showing anomalous state

[csillag]

Screen show showing anomalous state

[csillag]

My UI is currenty in Hungarian, but you should still be able to understand what it says.

• "Fut" means running.
• "Kikapcsolva" means switched off.

(These are the two statuses given for the same guest, in two instances of the UI.)

[fth0]

Just adding a (somewhat useful) comment to "subscribe" to this ticket.

If you go to Preferences > Language in the VirtualBox Manager and change the Interface Language to English, the VirtualBox Manager immediately changes it in the UI. Helpful for further screenshots if necessary. ;)