Low Host memory all the sudden

[JDCarroll]

All of the sudden I am getting "Low Host Memory" errors. The affected machines worked on Friday and had been working fine in some cases for months and months. Effects all guests (Win2k3 and RHEL). Can start machines if RAM lowered to 1024 or less. A SAVED machine that I have with 3G RAM starts/resumes fine. Nothing new or installed in meantime.

Attached log include: SAVED machine restoring STARTING_FAILING machine that worked before and now fails with 3G RAM STARTING_SUCCESS machine that worked before and starts with 1021 RAM NOT_STARTED machined that was shut down last awhile ago and I haven't had the guts to try yet

[JDCarroll]

From the forum: by bobalot » 7. Feb 2012, 13:02

Was having the same problem and Windows Virtual PC was giving a similar error message. Fixed it by killing 'GoogleCrashHandler64.exe' in task manager (might need to show process from all users). Got this info from ​here.

[Lou Emar]

Replying to JDCarroll:

From the forum: by bobalot » 7. Feb 2012, 13:02

Was having the same problem and Windows Virtual PC was giving a similar error message. Fixed it by killing 'GoogleCrashHandler64.exe' in task manager (might need to show process from all users). Got this info from ​here.

Fantastic!!!

Killing GoogleCrashHandler64 fixes the problem.

Booh to Google, of course (also because this is based to a change that wasn't explicit notified).

On the other hand I wonder why VMware could still work. Maybe there is a lesson here for the friends of Virtualbox?

Please note that I much prefer Virtualbox to VMware for workstation type of applications.

Lou

[Zólyomi István]

Coming from ticket #9412:

I had exactly the same problem. I experimented a lot with killing processes before reporting the bug, with no success.

However, I didn't try the "show processes from all users" button. Thanks for the tip! I didn't have such a google crash handler process, but after killing the Toshiba Config Free Service (which usually crashes anyway while connecting with a 3G modem), it suddenly works. Awesome!

Thanks a lot, I've been annoyed by this issue since at least Virtualbox 4.0, since almost 2 years ago. I guess I start uninstalling some more Toshiba utilities from my notebook...

[Spetum]

afetr killing 'GoogleCrashHandler64.exe' I accomplished to install Debian 6.0.4 on windows 64 host.

Thanks

[wacher]

I don't use Chrome (or GoogleCrashHandler64) I can't kill or close it.

[Rui Torres]

Hello,

I am also experiencing some problems with memory. I added a post on the forum and a site moderator has suggested me to report this problem on this ticket.

To sum up, my VM works fine if I setup it with 3GB of memory. However, if I setup the VM with 4GB, the VM crashes with a critical error (it shows me a window with a generic error, where the window name is “Guru Meditation”).

This VM holds an Oracle database 11g release 2 and an Oracle Weblogic. The database starts during the OS startup and the Weblogic is launched by me. The VM crashes during the weblogic startup.

Find attached my log files.

Below, you can find what I have reported in the forum

==================================================================

(​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=48364)

Hi all,

I am trying to run a VirtualBox VM with a guest OS that has 4GB of RAM, but the virtual machine crashes.

At the beginning, I suspected that the crash used to occur due to a lack of memory on the Host OS, due to the fact that the Host OS usually assigns large amounts of memory as “Standby” memory, being the amount of “Free” memory very low.

I have also noticed that sometimes the Host OS has no free memory, but this only happens during a short period of time, while the Host OS unlocks a small piece of the “Standby” memory, being that piece of memory assigned to the “Free” memory.(this process of unlocking “Standby” memory is executed continuously while there is no free memory and while there are applications requesting for more memory).

Considering the memory management process described above, I suspected that the crash used to occur right in the moment when the Host OS has no “Free” memory and while the Host OS is unlocking a piece of memory that is classified as “Standby” memory.

Having all the aspects above in mind, I thought that one way to overcome this issue is to find a mechanism to decrease the amount of memory that the Host OS uses as “Standby” memory. After some research on the internet, I found a Microsoft tool (RAMMAp) that enables you to empty the “StandBy” memory.

With that tool, I have erased all the “Standby” memory and launched the VM. However the VM still crashes and when it happens the Host OS has more than 1GB of free memory.

Looking at all these aspects, it seems to me that this problem is not related with the memory management process of the Host OS.

So, the question that I have is, does VirtualBox support VMs with 4GB of RAM?

The specifications of my host and guest OS are:

Host OS =========================== Windows 7 (64 bits) 8GB of RAM

Guest OS ============================ Oracle Enterprise Linux (64 bits) 4 GB of RAM

Regards,

Rui Torres

[Bikky]

Having much the same issue.

Host machine

Win7 Pro X64 6GB RAM 3.5GB - 4GB free at any one time (when no VM running) Dual Monitor (if that makes any difference) Core2 Quad Q9550 CPU

Guests

Used to be 1 x win7 x86 and 1 x win xp x86 until I removed the xp thinking the error was with that as it was always loaded 2nd.

2 x Win7 Pro x86 1GB RAM 2CPU

1 x Damn Small Linux 256MB RAM 1CPU

Worked fine one Wednesday or Thursday, was able to load two windows VM's even when I was loading 2 with 1024 RAM each. then come the following Monday, the XP machine had an error. I assumed it'd died, so tried re-installing win7 for guest 2 and still have the error. Max memory I can use for any combination of 1 or more VM's is 1310MB RAM. There has been no additional sofware installed, other than AV/Firewall updates, controlled by our McAfee EPO server.

Note however my laptop has the same software installation and applications that my desktop has, and this will run the two above VM's on 1024MB RAM simultaneously. The Error originally occurred on VBox 4.1.8 (or maybe 4.1.12). Have upgraded to 4.1.14 on both Desktop and Laptop and still have the error on the Desktop only.

Attached Files(if I can upload them) are in the name format of

<test number><OS> <guest no><OS Bits> <RAM> <PASS/FAIL>,

the first file being my main guest with its usual settings. the Utilisation image file is typical of the resources my Desktop is using.

It's a Pain having to shut down one guest to start another for a task then swap back any help is much appreciated. Thanks Spencer.

[Bikky]

Usual guest setup

[Jim Avera]

This is an old ticket, but I regularly get these kind of VERR_NO_MEMORY crashes when running two VMs concurrently on the same host. There "should" be enough memory: The host has 6BG physical ram and each VM has 2GB or less (so even when fully allocated, there should be 2GB available for other host operations). Maybe there is some kind of fragmentation losses?

When it happens, the host completely locks up for a couple of minutes (can't even switch to a VT console). Then, eventually, a VM aborts and the host becomes usable again.

Today I was running Win7 32-bit in one VM and Ubuntu 64-bit in the other; the Ubuntu VM was the one which crashed; it's vbox.log (which I'll attach) shows

AssertLogRel /home/vbox/vbox-4.3.18/src/VBox/VMM/VMMR3/PGMPhys.cpp(4470) int PGMR3PhysAllocateHandyPages(PVM): RT_SUCCESS(rc)
00:05:46.057298 68/128: idPage=0xb1c00 HCPhysGCPhys=0000000031852000 rc=VERR_NO_MEMORY

QUESTION: Is there some way to "pre-allocate" ram (i.e. prevent lazy allocation) to VMs, so that they are guaranteed to not crash due to memory allocation once successfully started?

[Jim Avera]

VBox.log for comment#8

[Jim Avera]

Forgot to mention: Running Virtualbox 4.3.18 on Ubuntu 13.10 64-bit host

[wacher]

"Is there some way to "pre-allocate" ram (i.e. prevent lazy allocation) to VMs"

goggle: virtualbox pre allocate memory

vboxmanage setextradata "Name of your VM" VBoxInternal/RamPreAlloc 1

Seems to be working. I dare now start more than one VM at same time :)

[Frank Mehnert]

The bug that a Guru Meditation was raised in case of the low memory condition was fixed in VBox 5.0.12.