Connection lost in guest when restart failed due to lack of memory

[JerNob]

Sometimes, at startup, VirtulBox complains about the lack of memory (I didn't write down the exact message) and I have to close the VM and launch it again. Then it works. I don't mean restarting the guest. Just record the state of the machine, close the application and run it again.

This is not a big deal and I assume it is due to a lack of RAM on the host, so nothing VirtualBox can do much about.

The issue is that when I do that, sometimes (maybe each time, I'm not 100% sure this is systematic), I lose the connection.

Rather than restarting the guest, this can be solved by restarting network-manager service:

systemctl restart network-manager

Not sure what the root-cause is and if VirtualBox is to blame. At least if someone encounters the same issue, a workaround is documented here.

Host: Windows 7 Guest: Linux Debian Jessie

There's nothing specifically related in the VM log.

[Frank Mehnert]

Please attach the VBox.log file of such a VM session when you started the VM again after it failed before.

[A_User_Called_M]

I think I encounter a very similar issue. A freebsd guest offering shared folders (samba). A vista host accessing them (via win explorer). Also permanent ssh sessions from host to guest. After a few (2 to 4) weeks (host and guest are powered on 24/7), the guest looses network. (and iirc I saw memory related entries in the log)

Shutting down the guest, stopping the VM, and starting it again, and it works.