MacOSX host, trying to run 2 Windows Guest / MacOSX crashes

[Flo]

Hello,

I am trying to run 2 Windows guests on a MacOSX host. Whatever guest OS (Win7 or Win10) I try to run, as soon as I start the second VM the whole system freezes. Is it not possible to run 2 Windows guests in parallel ? I tried it with cloned VM´s as well with one fresh installed VM and then starting an other VM (same Win7) - which was running standalone without problems. Once the second VM is being started, the whole system freezes.

Can you have a look at the MacOSX crash logs and advice ?

[Flo]

Crash trying to run 2 Win10

[Flo]

Crash Trying to run 2 Win7

[Socratis]

It's usually better and faster, if issues get first addressed in the ​VirtualBox forums, a lot more eyes there. More than 95% of the issues are resolved in the forums, which keeps the developers focusing on the bug fixes and enhancements, and there is no need for another ticket to keep track of.

Plus a discussion and analysis on the bug tracker is going to help me, you, and potentially a future drive-by user or two. Not so in the forums, many more tend to benefit...

Please, open a new thread in the ​VirtualBox on Mac OS X Hosts section of the forums. Please be sure to mention that you came from the bug tracker and include the ticket number.

[VMTom]

OS-X_crash-info-01.txt

[VMTom]

OS-X_crash-info-02.txt

[VMTom]

I have to report this as well.

VBox totally crashes my mac os x (forcing unexpected sudden reboot) when starting two or more VMs nearly parallel or shortly after another.

Those VMs and my VBox 6.0.8 were NOT altered after 6.0.8 install and worked FINE (as VBox worked fine for me on MAC OS X for YEARS now - without ever having crashed my OS X).

The crashes don't occur, if I start the VMs as single VMs and/or less often, if I start them with lot of time in between.

The VMs are win2016 and/or Win10 and can't have introduced this instability, as the are started from Snapshots, which were not altered after the instability suddenly occured. The only difference that I am aware of (as for now) is the update to OS X 10.14.5..

[VMTom]

VirtualBoxVM_2019-06-21-112304_WSM004-2.crash

[VMTom]

for me there seemed to be something in common with all that reporting people having VBox crashing their OS X. (solved now by help of socratis - so read on....).

I tried a lot of (user doable) things to tackle it down, but to no avail. Still got occasional reboots of OS X when starting several VMs or -sometimes - just one VM. (less often after having applied the below listed config changes, but still occuring)

In most cases - on reboot - MAC OS X is not giving dialog to send in a crash report after restart. Only about any 4th sudden reboot I get one (so OS X doesn't seem to see some of those sudden reboots as a panic/crash rather than a 'normal' boot ??!!).

I attached available crash reports to this bug (may help others).

Situation and what I did so far:

• had new macbook pro with OS version below 10.14.5
• installed (upgraded from earlier version) VBox 6.0.8 when it became available
• updated to 10.14.5
• Problems started and getting worse over time

then discovered the numerous threads in VB community about OS X crashes with 6.0.8/10.14.5

• Applied the kex cmd in recovery mode
• removed VM config option of 'capping CPUs' (as this was reported as 'invalid setting') - now any VM just has 2VCPUs configured
• took care, that any combination of started VMs in sum don't get more than half of physical Memory of host
• configured all VMs to use VboxVGA (not VboxSVga), gave 128MB on Video Ram, enabled 2D acceleration, disabled 3D acceleration.
• configured all VMs to use SATA/AHCI with host I/O Cache usage, and drives to be presented as SSD to the guest OS

All this seemed to solve the problem, as for some time I could now start/stop/work with several VMs in parallel. But it's not completely gone. Got reboots again every now and then with no clear pattern :-((

Solution for my problem (by guidance of socratis - THANK YOU):

• looked at the loaded extensions with: kextstat | grep -v com.apple

built a list of 3rd-Party extensions which may interfere with VBox network, sound,..

In my list there were some candidates. Started with deinstalling/removing an old 'soundflower' extension (com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower).

Rebooted and VOILA!! Everything to stable/normal for now! -> Hurray! And MANY thanks to socratis.

[VMTom]

MAC-diagnostics-report-after-VBoxCrash.txt.zip

[VMTom]

MAC-diagnostics-report-after-VBoxCrash-20190623-02.txt.zip

[Socratis]

Thank you @VMTom for the update. Soundflower is abandonware and has been shown to interfere heavily, mainly because the last kext that they released was for 10.10/10.11...

Mind you that Soundflower shows nowhere in the logs, it's a ... silent killer! :)

@Flo Can you also post the output of:

kextstat | grep -v com.apple

to see what's loaded on your setup as well?

[aeichner]

No follow up from the original reporter and the issue was solved for the other user, closing.