guest windows 7 (32 or 64 bit) almost hangs when changing guest network card settings => fixed in svn

[Mihai Hanor]

Host: XP SP3 32 bit, fully updated, E6400, 2GB RAM
Guest: Windows 7 RTM, 32 bit unpatched, 64 bit unpatched, then patched; all clean install, no guest additions, no other programs/drivers; VT enabled, 1 virtual cpu, 512MB guest RAM, 2D/3D acceleration disabled, two Intel 82540EM network adapters enabled (or more), all in bridged mode; audio set to null, usb off

Steps to reproduce:

1. You need a clean install; by default, the network adapters have all network protocols enabled and tcp/ip is set to auto (dhcp enabled).
2. Access the Properties window of one adapter (Local Area Connection)
3. Uncheck all the following protocols: Client for Microsoft Networks, QoS Packet Scheduler, File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks, Internet Protocol Version 6, Link Layer Topology Discovery IO Driver, Link Layer Topology Discovery Responder. Don't close the window yet.
4. Access the Internet Protocol Version 4 Properties windows and manually set an IP address and a gateway (eg. 192.168.0.123, 255.255.255.0)
5. Click OK, then Close. After clicking Close, the guest could hang. If it doesn't, try the same steps with the following adapter. If that doesn't work, reset the settings of all the adapters (TCP/IP V4 to DHCP auto, and recheck all protocols), shutdown the VM, then restart it.

If the guest hangs occurs, the VirtualBox.exe host process consumes all processing time of one CPU core. The process is one of those listed as MSVCR71.dll!endthreadex+0x31. See the attached file. The VM will respond to input (keyboard and mouse) every few seconds or tens of seconds, for a fraction of a second. Several times I've managed to recover the VM, by starting the guest's task manager with ctrl+shift+esc, although that could be a coincidence.

[Mihai Hanor]

3.1.4 final log+minidump while hanged

[Mihai Hanor]

btw, I can reproduce it (almost) every time, tell me if you require additional info

[Mihai Hanor]

"The process is one of those listed as MSVCR71.dll!endthreadex+0x31"

what I meant to say was the process's thread that eats CPU time

[Mihai Hanor]

I can reproduce it on a 2nd host machine: Athlon64 3500+ single core, XP SP3 32 bit, AMD-V and NX enabled, no audio, no usb, no 2D and no 3D acceleration, no guest additions, two 82540EM network adapters (bridged), guest Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

[Mihai Hanor]

VB 3.1.6 hangs too...

More readable instructions:

1. You need a clean guest install and at least two 82540EM guest adapters; by default, the network adapters have all network protocols enabled and tcp/ip is set to auto (dhcp enabled).
   
2. Access the Properties window of one adapter (Local Area Connection)
   
3. Uncheck all the following protocols: Client for Microsoft Networks, QoS Packet Scheduler, File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks, Internet Protocol Version 6, Link Layer Topology Discovery IO Driver, Link Layer Topology Discovery Responder. Don't close the window yet.
   
4. Access the Internet Protocol Version 4 Properties windows and manually set an IP address and a gateway (eg. 192.168.0.123, 255.255.255.0)
   
5. Click OK, then Close. After clicking Close, the guest could hang. If it doesn't, try the same steps with the following adapter. If that doesn't work, reset the settings of all the adapters (TCP/IP V4 to DHCP auto, and recheck all protocols), then try again. Restarting or shutting down the guest isn't really necessary

[Mihai Hanor]

it's the same thing with VB 3.2.0 beta1

[Mihai Hanor]

idem 3.2.2.r62321
it only occurs if both virtual 82540EM cards are attached to the same network interface of the host machine

[Klaus Espenlaub]

Reproduced, and fixed in the svn tree. Most likely the first release with this fix will be 4.0.14, but plans might change.

[Frank Mehnert]

Fix is part of VBox 4.1.6.