Arch Linux

ugjka

Member

From: Latvia

Registered: 2014-04-01

Posts: 1,862

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

To be more precise, it looks like a kernel issue which will be solved in the next version of Virtualbox. So we must wait for the next version of Virtualbox, which, fortunately, seems to be imminent.

If so, why is the lts kernel affected too

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marzor

Member

Registered: 2020-08-24

Posts: 1

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

I changed kernel to 5.4.60-1-lts and not having freezing issues anymore

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,650

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

My desktop virtualbox has been unaffected by these upgrades but my laptop virtualbox has suffered the same freezing and locks. I experimented with the different options mentioned here but none of them worked.
However I tried using Hyper-V instead of KVM as accelerator and it seems to have fixed the freezing so it's another thing to try.

Edit: Ignore these last comments. I haven't got the solution for my laptop.

Last edited by d_fajardo (2020-08-24 20:23:29)

Sourav

Member

From: India

Registered: 2019-04-22

Posts: 84

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

I have a Linux Mint VM, which was not booting after installing 5.8.3-arch1-1. The VM freezes after the Plymouth. It starts successfully.

I have also tried 5.8.3-zen1-1-zen.

I found the thread here. As others suggested to change the network connectivity. I have no idea how, but changing the Network from Bridge to NAT works for me! Changed back to bridge again, didn't work.

The host system's internet is running off of wifi. I have a separate driver installed for my USB wifi dongle, 8192eu-dkms (from AUR).

Also, genymotion worked absolutely fine out of the box.

If this has to do something with the freeze...

Last edited by Sourav (2020-08-25 19:15:23)

r2d2

Member

From: Planet Earth - The Internet

Registered: 2018-02-06

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

Same issue. The VM and/or virtualbox GUI freeze after a couple minutes but host system stay stable. Some VM did not start without setting USB to USB1 but other VM with USB disabled also freeze. Also tried without extension pack installed. Everything is updated. I will try switching the kernel to LTS.

Edit: LTS kernel fix freezing issue but VM still wont start with higher than USB1 settings.

Last edited by r2d2 (2020-08-25 04:18:13)

geonicz

Member

Registered: 2020-01-08

Posts: 1

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

Environment:
Linux archigeorge 5.8.3-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri, 21 Aug 2020 16:54:16 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Oracle VM VirtualBox VM Selector v6.1.12Oracle VM VirtualBox VM Selector v6.1.12
Oracle Extension pack same as VB, latest version(shown as 6.1.12r139181).

VMs:
Windows 10, Windows 7 x64, Windows XP, Ubuntu server 18.04.3

USB controller test: all machines can not be started with any type of controller other than 1.1(OHCI).
Ethernet controller test(using two types of adapters: wifi and lan separately for every test):
  WinXP: starts and works both adapters.
  Win7: hangs down and makes the whole VBox app freeze if bridged networking is selected. Haven't dig into details(VBox guest extensions versions, other things... bla-bla-bla.).
I've stopped testing on Win7 and bridged networking. Maybe the problem is somewhere in vbox host drivers. They've used to fuck up with bridged modes of ethernet adapters(I used to have troubles previously). But for today additional thing rised up: USB controller. Don't know, just guessing.

gps1539

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2013-11-06

Posts: 134

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

My system froze twice running VB (6.1.12 r139181) since updating to 5.8.X. This has not happened after rebooting to LTS kernel (5.4.60-1-lts)
Note. I did not remove the extensions, or disable USB 2.0

Opensuse users seem to hitting something similar
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=99310

EndUserOnly

Member

Registered: 2017-05-31

Posts: 81

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

I have been following this conversation; quietly - because I too am having trouble with VB hanging both host and guest system. However, I boot okay - at some point everything hangs.... nothing in the logs. My guest system is Win 10 Pro. Okay, so I am not altering USB. When I loaded the guest it defaulted to NAT (not sure why others did not). However, I have been looking into some potential "adjustments", because VB has a poor "crappy" response. Added 16 GB of memory (total 24) - 8 GB allocated to Guest. Still crap. After listening to your conversations I did the following; 1) cleaned-up the firewall access in Win 10. Too much was being allowed, unnecessarily (meaning programs allowed through firewall). 2) I went into BIOS and disabled USB legacy Emulation. Came back and Guest is now running like a normal system. But I am hurrying to end this post in case it locks my system, again. USB legacy emulation is only necessary for systems old enough to not recognize USB.

uname -a: Linux toshiba 5.7.18.a-1-hardened #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed, 26 Aug 2020 18:29:27 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Last edited by EndUserOnly (2020-08-27 09:37:35)

wopfel

Member

Registered: 2013-11-13

Posts: 16

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

Quick post: I've updated my system to linux-5.8.4.arch1-1. Still OS freeze happening.

EndUserOnly

Member

Registered: 2017-05-31

Posts: 81

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

Based on my results, I doubt the cause can be narrowed to any singular fix that would fix all of the issues. Fortunately, after disabling legacy USB in BIOS my VB is now responding like the VB we know and love. I have had 1 system hang since, and will continue to investigate the cause. At this point, I am not certain it is VB.

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,650

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

Based on my results, I doubt the cause can be narrowed to any singular fix that would fix all of the issues.

Part of it is I think hardware related but which part I don't know. I say this because on my desktop, I have no problem with VB and my VMs whatsoever and everything is full upgrade. I am also quite surprised I can run a macOS guest much easier without doing my old tweaks. Seems VB has added support for the APFS file system.

My laptop however is a different story. It freezes when I run a VM. I've tried all the recommendations here but no luck and the logs don't tell me anything. When the VM freezes, occasionally the CAPS LOCK key on my laptop starts blinking and the whole laptop is frozen - guest and host - and the only way out is a hard reboot.

@wopel linux-5,8,4 hasn't solve the problem for me neither.

santurysim

Member

Registered: 2020-08-28

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

I also confirm the issue with latest versions of linux and virtualbox. Switching to lts fixes that.

I also found out that the freeze is caused by kernel panic. Nothing gets logged either to vbox logs or journald. Crash dump says it is a fatal exception in interrupt.

easilok

Member

Registered: 2011-06-13

Posts: 12

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

Hi guys. Linux 5.8.5 not working for me either.
Uninstalled extension pack, usb to 1.1, ICH9, NAT network, nothing solved. I had virtualbox-host-modules-arch instead of virtualbox-host-dkms and changing them did not work either. Gonna change to linux lts now and see if it works.

herOldMan

Member

Registered: 2013-10-11

Posts: 154

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

I have evidence of a hardware issue as well.

I have 12 systems with an Arch host and a Win10 VBox guest. Two of them have the freeze problem.

I am not able to pull the failing machines from production to experiment with the lts kernel at this time. (They are temporarily duel-booted with Debian.)

Of the two that fail, one is an Intel CPU and the other is an AMD unit. All of the machines have NVidia GPUs and use the Nouveau driver. None are memory limited.

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,650

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

I have evidence of a hardware issue as well.

My suspicion is, and this is purely a wild guess, the problem lies in some module changes in the new kernel specific to certain hardware since others seem to have different fix - changing USB controller, changing the chipset, changing the network controller.
I hope VB can come up with a credible fix soon since there seem to be a lot of people crying out loud yet I don't blame them. There probably were some big changes in the 5.8 kernel to trigger these problems.

EndUserOnly

Member

Registered: 2017-05-31

Posts: 81

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

My laptop however is a different story. It freezes when I run a VM. I've tried all the recommendations here but no luck and the logs don't tell me anything. When the VM freezes, occasionally the CAPS LOCK key on my laptop starts blinking and the whole laptop is frozen - guest and host - and the only way out is a hard reboot.

I should have mentioned..... my laptop does the exact same thing. That is almost refreshing to know it is not my laptop. (Intel)

Last edited by EndUserOnly (2020-08-29 05:33:59)

EndUserOnly

Member

Registered: 2017-05-31

Posts: 81

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

There is something else I should have mentioned, but did not. I had moved away from VB as a cause for my system hanging. I found another constant (twice over) - when searching journalctl, the last thing that happened was a freshclam update through the deamon which was set to startup at boot. I have since then disabled the service.... obviously, might not be related - but twice I have found it was the last thing to complete "successfully" before the freeze.

(update)

stopping the update service was not enough. Still froze - last journal entry to follow:

Aug 29 02:59:10 toshiba clamd[496]: Sat Aug 29 02:59:10 2020 -> SelfCheck: Database status OK.
Aug 29 03:09:10 toshiba clamd[496]: Sat Aug 29 03:09:10 2020 -> SelfCheck: Database status OK.
Aug 29 03:19:10 toshiba clamd[496]: Sat Aug 29 03:19:10 2020 -> SelfCheck: Database status OK.
Aug 29 03:22:35 toshiba kernel: perf: interrupt took too long (3209 > 3142), lowering kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate to 62100
-- Reboot --

VirtualBox was running at the time. However, we might be moving into different territory - Honestly do not have a clue. Uninstalling clamav & clamav-unnofficial-sigs (AUR).

I am assuming that last line before the reboot is the kernel panic mentioned previously. I am acting on the fact that clamv is always close by (but is probably unrelated.)

Last edited by EndUserOnly (2020-08-29 07:47:55)

chatbot

Member

Registered: 2020-08-29

Posts: 1

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

I am having the same problem after upgrade to linux 5.8.5.arch1-1.  When running virtualbox, entire system will lock up after a few minutes, requiring hard reset. Nothing particular in logs as far as I can tell.  However, I can reproduce by switching screens with i3-gaps, taking focus away from the virtualbox window, which will instantly cause the lockup.

I am not having any issues opening images. Perhaps there are two separate issues here.

I have the virtualbox, virtualbox-guest-iso, virtualbox-host-dkms, linux-zen, linux-zen-headers installed, and my system crash happens when i launch the virtualbox machine (kubuntu) and it works fine except i open a program or a dialog or notification appears in my host system (kde plasma). So I can run the virtual machine fine but i must not touch my host system, and i must avoid receiving any notifications at all costs or the system freezes... Weird

maybe AMD related?

I'm on Intel + Nvidia, so it's not AMD related, but this behavior regarding host dialog/notification is exactly what is occurring here.

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,650

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

@EndUserOnly I don't use freshclam and still getting these freezes so I don't think it's related to it.

Maniaxx

Member

Registered: 2014-05-14

Posts: 757

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

I have similar issues with qemu/kvm and Win10 as well. Just out of a sudden the whole drive (/dev/sdb) where the virtual hdd image resides is gone just as if you would have pulled the sata cable. The system is still usable.

When i use Virtualbox the system crashes hard. But in this case i do have the virtual hdd image on the system drive indeed (/dev/sda).
So, theory is that it kicks the physical host hdd where the virtual hdd image is running on. I'm wondering what happens if the image is on tmpfs.

Last edited by Maniaxx (2020-08-29 17:46:55)

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sys2064

csscartel

Member

Registered: 2019-12-09

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

I just installed latest versions. VM is starting and loading up to welcome screen (I run Windows 10 in Virtualbox), then stuck on it without giving me a log in screen. My laptop freezes and not responding. I wasn't able to switch into tty. Finally, I shut down by holding power button. Then laptop won't start at all. Like it starts and then immediately shutting down, I only hear fan sound for 1 second, literally. I have tried holding power button for 15 seconds as per HP recommendations but nothing happened. So then I screw up the laptop and disabled battery. On AC power only the laptop, after a long wait, showed CMOS checksum error. Then after reboot, I was able to run memory test, which took about 20 minutes and passed. After next reboot the linux finally loaded. Now I'm scare to run VM again.

FMB

Member

Registered: 2017-01-01

Posts: 22

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

Now I'm scare to run VM again.

Better switch to linux-lts for the time being then. In my case, I had to install the following packages: linux-lts, nvidia-lts (YMMV), linux-lts-headers (so that Virtualbox modules can be recompiled). I also had to run this command to update Grub: sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

jsivak

Member

Registered: 2011-05-13

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

My current solution (as others have also indicated) is to switch to using linux-lts, linux-headers-lts and allow the virtualbox DKMS modules to be rebuilt against the lts kernel.

Remember to make sure your boot loader (syslinux, grub2, etc) is using the linux-lts kernel after you install it.

I have stable Virtualbox guest performance after switching to linux-lts.

EndUserOnly

Member

Registered: 2017-05-31

Posts: 81

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

I was going to suggest QEMU as an alternative to Virtual Box.... I have used it before, good machine with one drawback; no full screen - never. Anyway I was checking to see if it was available in Arch and noticed the one thing all virtual machines have in common (libvirt) has been flagged on 09/01/20. Last update was 07/20/20. Perhaps someone has located the problem. That being the case, a different machine would not help. Otherwise, I definitely suggest Qemu, more extensive setup - good machine.

easilok

Member

Registered: 2011-06-13

Posts: 12

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualbox (6.1.12-4) when starting VM freezes and locks-up

Actually I tried qemu before VirtualBox and I'm still unable to get a performance on windows 10 like I have on VirtualBox. I use it only for .NET programming for my work with visual studio, and my setup of qemu was significantly slower than the one on virtualbox.