SnowLeopard 64 bit guest does not run with >= 2048 MB RAM -> fixed in SVN.

[Evan Hoke]

When I try to boot a SnowLeopard 64 bit guest on a SnowLeopard host, with the RAM for the guest set to 2048 MB or greater, after clicking start, the VM immediately gets stuck on the black screen. Booting with 2047 MB works correctly, as does booting a 32 bit SnowLeopard guest.

[vasily Levchenko]

Could you please verify the EFI ​build? After unpacking archive, please replace VBoxEFI32.fd with VBOX.fd and VBoxEFI64.fd with VBOX64.fd.

[Evan Hoke]

After replacing the VBoxEFI64.fd file, I was able to boot successfully.

[vasily Levchenko]

Thanks for feedback.

[vasily Levchenko]

Could you please verify the ​build? This are installation bits of 3.2 branch.

[Evan Hoke]

Yes, it's fixed in the newer build.

[vasily Levchenko]

Thanks for feedback.

[wyrdR]

This seems to be mentioned as fixed in the 3.2.6 Beta 1, but mine's still failing (See attached log).

[vasily Levchenko]

Replying to wyrdR:

This seems to be mentioned as fixed in the 3.2.6 Beta 1, but mine's still failing (See attached log).

Could you please download ​debug efi bits? unzip it and replace /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxEFI32.fd and /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxEFI64.fd with FV/VBOX.fd and FV/VBOX64.fd from archive (please save original bits in some safe place). Then please run your VM in the following way.

# export VBOX_RELEASE_LOG=dev_efi.e.l2
# export VBOX_RELEASE_LOG_DEST=file=efi.log
# VirtualBox -startvm <your-vm-name>

and please attach result log to the ticket. BTW does it start for you if RAM < 2048? Also could you please create empty vm without any attachments with EFI enabled and OS type e.g. Linux/Fedora 64 does EFI shell appear for you with the same memory amount?

[wyrdR]

does it start for you if RAM < 2048? Yes: At ≤2048 in 32bit or 64bit

Will run the tests within the next 12 hours and get back to you.

[wyrdR]

P.S.- Seems that the combo of >2GB RAM & >64 MB Video Memory is a bad one.

I'm at home at present on a Mac Book Pro running Snow Leopard 10.6.3. (A different physical machine).

Either though it's not the Xserve at work, I tried a little EFI test - As you suggested, an empty VM set to Linux/Fedora 64.

It worked (with all defaults left as normal). Then I set the Video Memory to 128 MB RAM like the VM OSX server at work.

It now aborted with > 2048 RAM.

When reduced from 128MB Video Memory to 64MB, it works with as much memory as the Macbook Pro could spare (e.g. 3072MB RAM).

But anything greater than 64MB Video Memory failed.

I'm gonna run this test as well as the test suggested by Hachiman on the Snow Leopard server (at work tomorrow) but I thought I'd let you know what I stumbled upon.

You can see in my previously attached log file that the Guest was using 128MB Video Memory:

00:00:00.550 VRamSize <integer> = 0x0000000008000000 (134217728)

[wyrdR]

Replying to wyrdR:

P.S.- Seems that the combo of >2GB RAM & >64 MB Video Memory is a bad one.

Log attached from Mac OS X 10.6.x server.

Confirmed that 64MB Video Ram is OK, but greater is BAD.

[wyrdR]

PS - After the crash, VirtualBox refuses to start, claiming VirtualBoxVM because it may be damaged or incomplete.

[wyrdR]

Please ignore/delete the last this.

Replying to wyrdR:

PS - After the crash, VirtualBox refuses to start, claiming VirtualBoxVM because it may be damaged or incomplete.

[vasily Levchenko]

Replying to wyrdR:

Replying to wyrdR:

P.S.- Seems that the combo of >2GB RAM & >64 MB Video Memory is a bad one.

Log attached from Mac OS X 10.6.x server.

Confirmed that 64MB Video Ram is OK, but greater is BAD.

Thanks for investigation.

[dsmoniker]

I'm regularly getting a similar error on snowleopard (i.e. VirtualBoxVM because it may be damaged or incomplete). Seems to be related to an unclean shutdown of the VM.

Workaround: A reinstall of the dmg fixes the problem, but then it occurs a few days later.

[Pieter]

I have the same problem here. Setting the video memory more than 64MB restricts the guest main memory to 2048 max. Setting the video memory to 64MB allows me to assign 4GB+ memory as main memory to the guest. I have Mac os x as the host.

[knoxville]

As of 12/5/2013 using VirtualBox 4.3.4-91027 this issue is still occurring. Host OS is 10.9 (Mavericks). Any attempt to use more than 2048M of memory for guest OS hangs at boot. Video RAM size >64M or <64M does not seem to affect this.

[knoxville]

I spoke too soon: hang occurs at 3457M or above. The max RAM I can actually boot the guest OS with is 3392, greater than that (and less than 3457M) causes an EFI "no mapping error", perhaps from the odd memory amount.

[Frank Mehnert]

Please provide a VBox.log file. Actually I assume your host runs in 32-bit mode and therefore providing more memory for your guest isn't possible.

[web007]

VBox.log for 4GB RAM boot

[web007]

I'm running Mavericks (10.9) 64-bit as both host and guest OS. Booting with 2GB of RAM and 16MB of video RAM works fine, but changing the system RAM to 4096MB causes the EFI loader to stall. Boot goes through to EFI until timestamp 00:00:27.703240, then system stalls. I waited a few minutes then shut it down.

[web007]

Tracking down actual limits, with 16MB video RAM:

• From 2048MB up to 3488MB success and boots to the OS
• From 3489MB to 3504MB the system fails and shows an EFI error "no mapping found"
• From 3505MB up to at least 4096MB the system fails to boot and shows just a blank screen

This is on a host with 16GB physical memory, VirtualBox 4.3.4r91027. OS was selected as "OSX 64-bit" in the setup dialog, and since the system has > 4GB it should definitely be running in 64-bit mode.

[voltagex]

Same kind of failure on Debian 7 on Windows 8 x64 host

[voltagex]

The same problem is happening when increasing an EFI Debian 7 guest's ram to 4096mb from 2048mb. I have attached logs.

[voltagex]

Sorry, I will re-raise this on #11103

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.

[TylerLoch]

Unfortunately, this is still a problem with guests as of 5.1.4 with an ICH9 chipset configured on an Ubuntu 16.04 host. I only came across this ticket after painstakingly finding the same exact 3504MB limitation by trial and error.

As mentioned before by web007:

From 2048MB up to 3488MB success and boots to the OS
From 3489MB to 3504MB the system fails and shows an EFI error "no mapping found"
From 3505MB and up, the system fails to boot and shows just a blank screen

Ticket #11103 is related.

[TylerLoch]

Simplest possible test VM to demonstrate the issue. If RAM set above 3504MB, no image ever appears on VM "screen", and VM does not boot. If RAM set below this limit, EFI posts.

[Socratis]

TylerLoch, please notice that this is about a Snow Leopard guest, i.e. OSX 10.6. You have an Ubuntu host. If you're running an OSX client, it's a Hackintosh. Stick to #11103 please and don't reopen all the bugs that contain the word EFI. #11103 is enough. You're increasing the number of open bugs ;)

[Socratis]

Can someone close this please? It works for Snow Leopard. Or any other OSX guest for that matter. Thanks.

[Frank Mehnert]

Thanks socratis!