Win10: VBoxSVC hangs when thunderbolt-to-USB is disconnected (PC undocked)

[vscheng]

USB ports on the HP ZBook Dock with Thunderbolt 3 is unresponsive after undocking/docking when VirtualBox is running.

Hardware: HP ZBook Studio G3 with HP ZBook Dock with Thunderbolt 3

To reproduce :

1. Start the Oracle VM VirtualBox.
2. Start the Ubuntu VM .
3. Undock - Unplug the Thunderbolt cable. (ie. disconnect laptop from dock ...)
4. Re-dock - Plug the Thunderbolt cable.
5. The Thunderbolt dock USB ports are non-responsive.

Observations: Something in VirtualBox seems to "block the system from clearing the instance of the USB root hub driver from memory on the Thunderbolt disconnect".

After the problem has occurred (ie. USB ports on dock is unresponsive), closing all programs, attempting to reboot Windows, the following Window message appears:

"VirtualBox Interface Has active connections."

Aborting the Windows reboot and checking "Task Manager" shows that the VBoxSVC.exe process is still active.

Manually killing the VBoxSVC.exe process seems to restore the Thunderbolt dock's USB ports.

This may be related to: Ticket #16338 USB Root Hub Shows Yellow Exclamation Mark in Device Manager

Forum thread: ​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=81228&hilit=Thunderbolt&sid=af360a89332f31d27ba3fc2bf64e502e&start=15

[vscheng]

Attach a (full) log file ("Machine" menu/"Show Log" in the main VirtualBox Manager window)

[J.R.]

I have had similar experiences with the "SMedia USB Root Hub" of the Elite Thunderbolt 3 Dock and a "HP zBook 15 G3" without VirtualBox running at all.

I suggest updating the drivers and dock firmware as follows. So far this has helped me.

ZBook and Thunderbolt Dock Recommendations

1. Update BIOS to 1.16 for Windows 10 and Windows 7 BIOS version 1.16 (sp80852) is applicable to both the ZBook 15 & ZBook 17, W7 & W10

2. Run current/latest version of HP Thunderbolt 3 Dock Firmware sp79769 (this is firmware for the dock - NOT the laptops - dock must be connected to update) HP Thunderbolt 3 Dock Firmware version 1.12 (sp79769) is applicable to both the ZBook 15 & ZBook 17, W7 & W10

3. Run latest version of Intel Thunderbolt 3 Firmware Update for ZBook xx

G3 - this is the firmware for the laptops
currently version 18.0.3.0.1 (sp77201) - applicable to the ZBook 15 G3 ONLY, W7 & W10
currently version 18.0.3.0.1 (sp77213) - applicable to the ZBook 17 G3 ONLY, W7 & W10

See if that improves the USB behavior.

[keoni]

I'm having what appears to be the same issue.

Dell Precision 5530 laptop with Dell TB16 Thunderbolt dock, Win 10 and VirtualBox 5.2.22.

I've updated all drivers as well as laptop BIOS (currently 1.6.0 as of the time of this post) and Thunderbolt Dock Firmware (NVM Firmware Version 33.00 at time of this post).

Reproduction steps are the same as in the original ticket post. Observations are pretty much the same, except I did not go as far as killing VBoxSVC.exe.

What I am experiencing is this:

If I put my VM in save state or shut it down, AND exit VirtualBox Manager, the dock's wired NIC and USB peripherals come back online after a slight delay (presumably as the system starts discovering the peripherals).

Looking at Process Explorer (I can't open task manager because of some IT policy that requires admin rights... ) I can see that my VM and VirtualBox processes are all children of VBoxSVC. I presume what's happening is VBoxSVC disappears once all the VirtualBox.exe processes have exited.

The machine seems to have returned back to normal once this happens and I can restart VirtualBox and my VM as usual. Everything is fine until I undock and need to redock again.

Hope this info is helpful for anyone else who may be experiencing this.

[DWFM]

I'm having the same issues like keoni.

Using a Dell Latitude 5780 on the same Dell TB16 Thunderbolt dock. Latest BIOS and Thunderbolt dock Firmware is installed.

OS: Windows 10 Enterprise 64Bit Build 1803 Virtual Box: 6.0.4

At the moment is only one workaround to close any VirtualBox process and reconnect the Thunderbolt dock. This is not happen when VirtualBox is started first before the Thunderbolt dock is connected.

I think there is a problem with releasing the hardware resources when Thunderbolt is disconnecting see the following warning message from the Windows Device Manager for the USB resource.

Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still in memory. (Code 38)

The driver could not be loaded because a previous version of the driver is still in memory.

[t$]

Same problem still exists with VirtualBox 6.1.2.