Long guest shut down times when serial port enabled.

[_Bernd]

I upgraded VirtualBox and the guest additions from version 1.5.2 to 1.5.4. My host is Linux Ubuntu 7.10, AMD64.

Shutting down a guest (it does not matter, if Linux or Windows guest) takes over 60 seconds now, if a guest serial port is enabled. This did not take so long with VirtualBox 1.5.2. Disabling the serial port results in normal shut down times (less than 10 seconds).

Attached are the log files.

[Frank Mehnert]

Could you retry with 1.5.6?

[Álvaro J. Iradier]

VBOx log with serial port enabled

[Álvaro J. Iradier]

VBOx log with serial port disabled

[Álvaro J. Iradier]

Same happens for me since 1.5.4, in Ubuntu Gutsy 32bits.

In addition, sometimes after shutting down the machine and waiting this long time (about 1 minute), when I start Virtual Box again, the machine status is shown as "Aborted" instead of "Powered Off". In 1.5.6 I get this error on shutdown:

Ioctl failed for serial host device '/dev/ttyS0' (VERR_INVALID_POINTER). The device will not work properly.

Error ID: DrvHostSerialFail Severity: Warning

I'm attaching the with and without serial port connected logs: Vbox.log.serial and Vbox.log.noserial

[Alexander]

Hello.

Have the same problem (mentioned by airadier) in Mandriva 2008.0, VirtualBox 1.5.6_OSE, guest windows xp.

The ports themselves work properly but after turning off the guest VB tells "Ioctl failed ..." and the guest shutdown lasts for a minute or two. After that the machine status becomes "aborted" instead of "powered off".

[Frank Mehnert]

Please check if this still applies to version 1.6.2.

[gg]

vbox log

[gg]

It does. Ubuntu 8.04 (hardy) host, Win2KP guest.

[gg]

Here's something rather interesting. I completely uninstalled the 1.6.2 Vbox Guest Addition & rebooted the VM. When Win2KP came up I received the "Ioctl failed for serial host device '/dev/ttyS0' (VERR_INVALID_POINTER). The device will not work properly" - the msg that you normally get at shut down. Checked the Harware Device Manager & the COM port is still showing just fine. But looking a little further I find under 'System Devices' that 'VirtualBox Device' has the yellow warning and click on it shows a msg "Your registry might be corrupted (Code 19). Reinstall the VB Guest Additions and let the VM reboot - no "Ioctl failed" msg on the reboot or when the machine booted back up.

I go back & look at the Device Manager again and the 'VirtualBox Device' is now OK (Com1 is also). So I do another reboot; no "Ioctl failed" msg. So this time I shut down the machine; no "Ioctl failed" msg! I then looked at the vbox.log and find no "Ioctl failed" msg their either. So maybe the trick is that you have to reinstall the VB Guest Addition after you've added the Com port.

[gg]

I should add that there are two other related bug reports:

​http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/1317 and ​http://www.virtualbox.de/ticket/1281

Perhaps these can be consolidated?

[gg]

I spoke too soon. It's back...

Ioctl failed for serial host device '/dev/ttyS0' (VERR_INVALID_POINTER). The device will not work properly.

Error ID: DrvHostSerialFail? Severity: Warning

[heinzE]

I have the same with virtualbox-ose 1.6.2-2.8 (x86_64) with OpenSuse11. The message comes up when I want to close the machine (saving the current state). After the message it takes a while and the machine goes to broken state. If I restart the machine, a full boot happens. I also get the message when I shutdown Windows XP in the VM (with acpi or normal shutdown).

I activated the serial port after the first installation of xp. I used the trick to reinstall the Guest Additions after that but the problem still happens. To see the serial port in XP I had to do a hardware search.

During normal operation, it is possible to use the device (smartcard reader) at COM1 in a normal way.

[Frank Mehnert]

There was a fix in 1.6.4 fixing the long VM shutdown time if the serial port is enabled. Did it fix your problem as well?

[Mauro]

Hello. I have the same problem mentioned by airadier on a Debian Etch kernel 2.6.18-6-686, Virtualbox 2.0.2, guest WinXP service pack 2.

After shutting down the machine, when I start Virtual Box again, the machine status is shown as "Aborted" instead of "Powered Off". Sometimes status hangs to "closing", that needs a host system restart, or an explicit kill to "VBoxXPCOMIPCD" and "VBoxSVC" processes, after that, when I start Virtual Box again, status results "aborted". I don't view anything strange into logfile (no Ioctl errors), and I haven't long shutdown times except when status hangs to "closing".

[Frank Mehnert]

Please reopen if this problem persists with the latest release 2.2.0.