[virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

Potomac · 2014-08-17 23:14:34

virtualbox 4.3.14-3 has a weird bug since a recent upgrade of virtualbox-host-modules and kernel 3.16

I have randomly a kernel panic in host and sometimes a freeze screen ( keyboard and mouse don't react ) if I load the virtualbox-host-modules ( modprobe vboxdrv && modprobe vboxnetadp && modprobe vboxnetflt ) and run virtualbox,

the kernel panic :

kernel panic - not syncing: fatal exception in interrupt
kernel offset : 0x0 from 0xffffffffff
panic occured, switching back to text console

the problem has began recently since the kernel 3.16 and the upgrade of virtualbox-host-modules ( 4.3.14-3 -> 4.3.14-5 ), one of this 2 packages ( or both ) are probably guilty,

I have archlinux 64 bits, I use the radeon driver ( I have an ati HD4650 Pcie graphic card )

the bug is easily reproducible :

- load manually the modules : modprobe vboxdrv && modprobe vboxnetadp && modprobe vboxnetflt
- start virtualbox ( for example an archlinux guest )
- after a few minutes a kernel panic in host, a freeze or a crash of virtualbox will occur

Last edited by Potomac (2014-08-18 10:45:19)

ewaller · 2014-08-17 23:36:43

Does the host kernel crash, or does the VM kernel crash?

Potomac · 2014-08-17 23:48:12

the kernel panic occurs in the host OS ( archlinux ),

the bug occurs few minutes after starting virtualbox, 5 or 10 minutes later a kernel panic ( host ) occurs, but sometimes it's a system freeze ( keyboard and mouse don't react )

Last edited by Potomac (2014-08-17 23:49:46)

ewaller · 2014-08-18 00:07:04

I don't have any good suggestions, but I am going to probe for some more information.

Does your host support Vt-x ? If the guest is a 64 bit machine, it must. If it is a 32 bit guest, then it does not have to be.
How much RAM have you in the host. How much is being allocated to the guest?

Potomac · 2014-08-18 00:24:13

the week before my virtualbox machine worked well,

the problem occured recently, I think the guilty is the kernel ( 3.16.x ) or virtualbox-host-modules,

my host supports Vt-x, the guest is an archlinux i686,

I have 4 Gb ram, 1 Gb is allocated to the guest,

I will to try to downgrade some package ( kernel, virtualbox-host-modules ),

if it's not work then the problem may be a corrupt vdi file ( virtualbox image ) ?

Last edited by Potomac (2014-08-18 00:27:19)

ewaller · 2014-08-18 00:33:05

Potomac wrote:

if it's not work then the problem may be a corrupt vdi file ( virtualbox image ) ?

I would hope not. I am not saying it is impossible, but nothing that happens inside the VM should be able to crash the host. Should being the operative word.

I agree that it is one of the packages you had mentioned. I ask about the Vt-x because that allows the guest to be a bit more tightly coupled to the host. As you are running i686, try turning off Vt-x. You don't really need it and it might work as a temporary workaround.

Potomac · 2014-08-18 00:52:36

I found the culprit : it's the kernel 3.16.x !

I downgraded linux 3.16.1-1 to 3.16-2 and the bug is still here,

but if I downgrade linux 3.16.1-1 to linux 3.15.8-1 then the bug is gone :

pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/linux-3.15.8-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz /var/cache/pacman/pkg/linux-headers-3.15.8-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz /var/cache/pacman/pkg/virtualbox-host-modules-4.3.14-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

so there is a bug in linux 3.16.x related to the virtual machines features ( Vt-x ? ), who can trigger a kernel panic,

my cpu is a pentium Dual-Core E6800 3.33 Ghz

ewaller wrote:

I ask about the Vt-x because that allows the guest to be a bit more tightly coupled to the host. As you are running i686, try turning off Vt-x. You don't really need it and it might work as a temporary workaround.

Vt-x is usefull even with a guest i686, because if I disable the Vt-x option in virtualbox then my guest i686 is very slow,

but your suggestion is interesting in order to test if the bug is related to a Vt-x bug in kernel

Last edited by Potomac (2014-08-18 01:26:40)

Potomac · 2014-08-18 01:39:34

I reinstalled kernel 3.16.x and I tested with "Vt-x" disabled in virtualbox :

---> the bug still occurs, this time I don't have a kernel panic, but only a freeze of virtualbox,

so the workaround is to downgrade kernel to the 3.15.8 version

d.chung · 2014-08-19 19:00:46

I'm glad I'm not the only one!

I recently updated my system and noticed that I frequently encounter kernel panics when I have a guest OS running in VirtualBox.

One symptom I'm experiencing is that the NTFS partition that my virtual machine resides in suddenly disappears. So it's either I lose that partition (I can no longer mount it because ntfs-3g (I think) claims that the partition is locked) or I get a kernel panic.

So I downgraded to linux-3.15.8-1 and virtualbox-host-modules-4.3.14-3 and all is fine.

In case it's any help, I'm on a Lenovo Yoga2 Pro.

Potomac · 2014-08-20 13:17:48

in the french forum of archlinux we found that moving the virtual machine to "/home" instead of using a fuse filesystem ( like an usb harddrive NTFS or a mounted NTFS partition ) can solve the bug,

d.chung what is the output of the command "mount | grep fuse" ?

if your virtual machine is located on a ntfs partition mounted with a "type fuseblk" then the workaround is to move the virtual machine to your "/home" ( an ext4 partition for example )

Last edited by Potomac (2014-08-20 13:28:21)

d.chung · 2014-08-20 20:44:41

Potomac wrote:

d.chung what is the output of the command "mount | grep fuse" ?

fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)
/dev/sda5 on /media/windows type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096)
/dev/sda7 on /media/data type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)

Potomac wrote:

if your virtual machine is located on a ntfs partition mounted with a "type fuseblk" then the workaround is to move the virtual machine to your "/home" ( an ext4 partition for example )

Downgrading is a satisfactory workaround for me. I don't experience symptoms involving the virtual machine residing in an NTFS partition with the downgraded versions.

Potomac · 2014-08-25 23:07:36

I can also reproduce the bug by using "qemu/kvm" instead of virtualbox,

so there is a real problem in the kernel 3.16 related to "fuse filesystem", I created a bugreport here :

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=82951

colegui · 2014-08-26 12:16:34

Thanks @Potomac for reporting the bug, me too affect this bug:

https://plus.google.com/108983381304520 … SZFSQUmXdT

Best Regards.

Potomac · 2014-08-26 12:59:42

Hello Colegui,

can you tell me if your virtual machine is located on an ntfs partition ? ( or fat32 ? )

colegui · 2014-08-26 14:15:08

Potomac wrote:

Hello Colegui,
can you tell me if your virtual machine is located on an ntfs partition ? ( or fat32 ? )

Hi, @Potomac, the virtual machine (.vdi) is located in ntfs partition.

Regards.

Chris Cromer · 2014-08-30 20:05:00

I also have the same problem, and yes my virtualbox files are located on an NTFS file system. Unfortunatly I don't have kernel 3.15.8 to do a downgrade, so I am stuck without being able to use virtualbox... any ideas? Or would someone be kind enough to share the x64 binary?

nhasian · 2014-08-30 21:11:38

I'm glad I checked here in the forum. I was having trouble as well and my first thought was that my laptop was developing a hardware fault. I will try creating a new virtual machine within /home instead of using an external ntfs drive.

d.chung · 2014-09-02 20:32:31

Chris Cromer wrote:

I also have the same problem, and yes my virtualbox files are located on an NTFS file system. Unfortunatly I don't have kernel 3.15.8 to do a downgrade, so I am stuck without being able to use virtualbox... any ideas? Or would someone be kind enough to share the x64 binary?

Hi Chris, as others have stated, one workaround is to move your virtual machine to a non-NTFS partition. However, if that workaround isn't acceptable for you, I can share my packages.

glebtv · 2014-09-13 11:44:35

Hi, i also encountered this.

I also had one ntfs-3g crash with new kernel (filesystem got unmounted and won't remount)

Is this a problem with kernel, ntfs-3g or virtualbox? Is there an upstream bug link?

jaco · 2014-09-13 12:41:46

The upstream bug link is mentionned on post #12...

d.chung · 2014-10-28 18:37:58

The upstream bug report mentions that a fix is in since 3.17.1 and I can confirm after upgrading to linux 3.17.1-1, that I am no longer experiencing this issue.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-08-17 23:14:34

[virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#2 2014-08-17 23:36:43

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#3 2014-08-17 23:48:12

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#4 2014-08-18 00:07:04

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#5 2014-08-18 00:24:13

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#6 2014-08-18 00:33:05

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#7 2014-08-18 00:52:36

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#8 2014-08-18 01:39:34

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#9 2014-08-19 19:00:46

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#10 2014-08-20 13:17:48

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#11 2014-08-20 20:44:41

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#12 2014-08-25 23:07:36

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#13 2014-08-26 12:16:34

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#14 2014-08-26 12:59:42

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#15 2014-08-26 14:15:08

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#16 2014-08-30 20:05:00

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#17 2014-08-30 21:11:38

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#18 2014-09-02 20:32:31

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#19 2014-09-13 11:44:35

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#20 2014-09-13 12:41:46

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

#21 2014-10-28 18:37:58

Re: [virtualbox] kernel panic and screen freezes

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