[vbox-dev] useful debug for OS X deadlock panics?

[Bayard Bell]

I've had ongoing problems with hangs and then watchdog panics in xnu  
deadlocks with VBox 3.1.4 and 3.1.6 (trac ticket 5783). The debug data  
I've been able to gather doesn't appear to be of much use (other than  
having the OS X panic reporter claim that it's VirtualBoxVM processes  
triggering the kernel deadlock), as the stack trace doesn't contain  
any symbolic information. I'm trying to my machine moved from OS X to  
OpenSolaris to resolve other issues (including some difficult to debug  
packet loss on traffic between the host and guests) and am hoping this  
will be resolved in the process, but this depends on more mature OS X  
guest support, where there's not much clarity on when that will be  
delivered.

In the interim, are there any suggestions on how to get more useful  
debug data? Unfortunately OS X doesn't support local kernel core  
dumps, but I'm happy to follow any suggestion the developers may  
provide for improving debug data quality. Please let me know if I've  
neglected anything already documented for the community or if this is  
an area in which I need to do independent research for lack of  
established or well-understood procedures.

Cheers,
Bayard