No VM can be started after upgrade from 1.5.6 to 1.6.0 (Windows XP 32bit host)/AMD-V -> fixed in SVN/1.6.2

[Philip]

I was running VirtualBox 1.5.6 on Windows and had three guests: OpenSolaris 2008.05, SXDE 1/08, Ubuntu 7. I could not simply upgrade to 1.6.0 because after running VirtualBox-1.6.0-Win_x86 I received a error message "You have to uninstall VirtualBox 1.5.6 first". I did; then Installed VirtualBox 1.6.0, then run it. It seemed to import all guest VMs, asking what to do with them (Cancel, Save, Backup). I choose Backup and found, that no VM can be started, in spite of all of them seem to be imported correctly.

"Cannot be started" means that after a start a VM does not boot, keeping blank VM window for infinite time. The only way to switch it off - power off the VM. VirtualBox itself looks fine and responds quickly.

[Frank Mehnert]

Very strange. Can you recreate your VMs with a different name but the same .vdi disk images and are you able to start these? Have your VMs snapshots / saved states?

[Jamie Beverly]

I have experienced identical symptoms on a i386-Linux host, with a Windows XP guest. Disabling VT-x/AMD-V allows the guests to boot fine. Creating new machines using the same disk images has no effect. My suspicion is that this is an AMD-V issue; I copied the machines configuration to a GenuinteIntel t2400 @ 1.83Ghz machine and VT-x worked without issue.

Relevant info: processor : 0 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 15 model : 67 model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+ stepping : 2 cpu MHz : 2009.281 cache size : 512 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 0 cpu cores : 2 fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy ts fid vid ttp tm stc bogomips : 4020.98 clflush size : 64

processor : 1 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 15 model : 67 model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+ stepping : 2 cpu MHz : 2009.281 cache size : 512 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 1 cpu cores : 2 fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy ts fid vid ttp tm stc bogomips : 4018.40 clflush size : 64

Linux xx.xx.xx 2.6.24.4-64.fc8 #1 SMP Sat Mar 29 09:54:46 EDT 2008 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux kernel-2.6.24.4-64.fc8 Fedora release 8 (Werewolf)