Opened 11 years ago
Closed 11 years ago
#12072 closed defect (fixed)
VBoxService.exe slowly eats up RAM => Fixed in SVN
| Reported by: | adam | Owned by: | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Component: | guest additions | Version: | VirtualBox 4.2.6 |
| Keywords: | Cc: | ||
| Guest type: | Windows | Host type: | other |
Description
I have a Windows 2000 virtual machine that I use as a server for a couple things and I find that the executable "VBoxService.exe" slowly rises in RAM usage. As you can see in the attached screenshot, "VBoxService.exe" has been running for nearly 19 days (due to the fact that I had to restart the VM after 25 days for the same issue) and VBoxService is using 386mb! I only have 512mb of RAM allocated to the VM so, as you can imagine, the last time it was up, the server was running quite slowly. My guess is that Shared Folders may be caching to the process and not being released as I use Shared Folders for the FTP on this machine.
A dodgy fix for this problem is to just go to Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Services and right-click "VBoxService.exe" and choose "Restart", but this is an inconvenience.
Attachments (5)
Change History (24)
by , 11 years ago
follow-up: 2 comment:1 by , 11 years ago
Could you check the latest available version please (4.2.16)? Make sure to install the update the Guest Additions as well. Thank you!
comment:2 by , 11 years ago
Replying to frank:
Could you check the latest available version please (4.2.16)? Make sure to install the update the Guest Additions as well. Thank you!
I will install now, you may need to wait a few days for RAM usage to rise tho, will report back then :)
comment:3 by , 11 years ago
Virtualbox, Extension Pack and Guest Additions updated to 4.2.16. VM back up as well. Now we'll just have to wait and see...
comment:4 by , 11 years ago
If you look at the attachment I just posted, it looks like the RAM leak still exists, unless VBoxService is supposed to use 24mb of ram (which in all the years of using VirtualBox, the service usually uses 2-5mb.) Thank You.
I just found out you can embed images:
comment:5 by , 11 years ago
is bumping allowed (Please don't kill me if it isn't)? It's nearing a week since a response :)
follow-up: 7 comment:6 by , 11 years ago
Yes, bumping is allowed and no, we wouldn't kill you :) Had no time to investigate further, you are probably aware of all the other tickets. But your problem wouldn't get lost. The problem is also that reproducing takes a lot of time.
comment:7 by , 11 years ago
Replying to frank:
Yes, bumping is allowed and no, we wouldn't kill you :) Had no time to investigate further, you are probably aware of all the other tickets. But your problem wouldn't get lost. The problem is also that reproducing takes a lot of time.
Thank you! I did find a couple of tickets/forum threads about this issue, but they were using ~VitrualBox 3 and were only having the issue with the headless edition of VirtualBox. My problem seems to be different as i'm using normal VirtualBox and Windows 2000. I do understand that it takes a while to reproduced, tho :).
follow-ups: 9 10 comment:8 by , 11 years ago
ada101, please try the following:
In the W2K guest, open regedit.exe and edit the following key: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VBoxService\ImagePath = "system32\VBoxService.exe --disable-vminfo"
Reboot the guest and check if VBoxService.exe still leaks memory. Thanks.
comment:9 by , 11 years ago
Replying to sunlover:
ada101, please try the following:
In the W2K guest, open regedit.exe and edit the following key: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VBoxService\ImagePath = "system32\VBoxService.exe --disable-vminfo"
Reboot the guest and check if VBoxService.exe still leaks memory. Thanks.
The original was just "system32\VBoxService.exe". I have changed it to your value and rebooted. Will just have to wait and see what happens. VBoxService is at 2.7mb after reboot, by the way :) .
comment:10 by , 11 years ago
Replying to sunlover:
ada101, please try the following:
In the W2K guest, open regedit.exe and edit the following key: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VBoxService\ImagePath = "system32\VBoxService.exe --disable-vminfo"
Reboot the guest and check if VBoxService.exe still leaks memory. Thanks.
This seems to have worked! The RAM usage is staying at 2.7mb! Now we just need to work out why this component is leaking RAM?
comment:12 by , 11 years ago
Replying to frank:
Great finding, thanks for testing! We are analyzing ...
Great to hear! I can always test more out in the VM if you need!
*Unfortunately the server that hosts the VMs will be down for 2 weeks starting next wednesday tho, so I won't be able do 24/7 uptime (very unfortunate).
follow-up: 14 comment:13 by , 11 years ago
Could you please download and install a test build of the 4.2 Guest Additions from here: http://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VBoxGuestAdditions_4.2.19-89250.iso
This should fix the memory leak you reported. Please let me know if this new test build works for you or not. Thanks!
follow-up: 15 comment:14 by , 11 years ago
Replying to pentagonik:
Could you please download and install a test build of the 4.2 Guest Additions from here: http://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VBoxGuestAdditions_4.2.19-89250.iso
This should fix the memory leak you reported. Please let me know if this new test build works for you or not. Thanks!
I am making a clone of the VM and will update the additions on that. Remember that the server is going down tomorrow so I can only do limited testing, but I will try to test from my PC instead :)
comment:15 by , 11 years ago
The VM has been up for 10min now with no issues yet! I'm pretty sure it is fixed, but i'll leave it on for a few more hours for confirmation! Thanks!
comment:17 by , 11 years ago
| Summary: | VBoxService.exe slowly eats up RAM → VBoxService.exe slowly eats up RAM => Fixed in SVN |
|---|
Thank you for your report and for your feedback!
comment:18 by , 11 years ago
I also had a virtual machine running Windows 2000. This machine had 1 GB of RAM allocated to it. About a week ago, I noticed VBoxService was using over 750 MB. It had been running version 4.2.10. The VirtualBox change log showed a fix for a memory leak in VBoxService in 4.2.8, but nothing since. I upgraded to 4.2.18 which was the latest at the time, but VBoxService was still consuming memory at a rate of 22 MB per day, or just under 1 MB per hour. Using the link for the ISO file above, I installed the 4.2.19 guest additions 31 hours ago, and the memory usage has only gone up by 16 KB to 3836 KB.
Thank you for the update.
comment:19 by , 11 years ago
| Resolution: | → fixed |
|---|---|
| Status: | new → closed |
Fixed in VBox 4.3. The next VBox 4.2.x release will contain this fix as well.
A screenshot that shows RAM usage