VM Lock-Up with VB 2.0.2 and Ubuntu Hardy

[Ken Preslan]

I'm having a weird problem with VirtualBox 2. I'm trying to use it to break my one server into two parts (the native server and a virtual machine) and split services across the two. I'm using bridged HIF networking, so the setup should look like two different machines.

The problem I'm seeing is that the virtual machine works fine for a while (2-3 minutes), and then it becomes unresponsive. The VM's CPU usage goes way down and the VM doesn't reliably talk to the network or through VRDP. In the end I have to do a "VBoxManage controlvm testvbox1 poweroff" to get rid of the VM.

The weird thing is the problem only occurs the first time I run the VM after I reboot the physical machine. After I see the problem and stop the VM, I can restart it and it works fine from then on -- until I reboot the host again.

Any suggestions?

My setup:

• VirtualBox 2.0
• A generic Pentium 4 box
• Ubuntu Hardy Server as both the host and guest
• No X servers on either the host or guest
• Bridged HIF networking (both the host and guest are using static IPs)
• I'm launching the virtual machine with "VBoxManage startvm

testvbox1 -type vrdp".

More details:

• I've tried "nohz=off" on both the host and guest and it doesn't help.

• When I see the problem, the CPU usage drops from 0.3% to 2% cpu load

for the idle VM to not showing up in "top" most refreshes. So, the VM is definitely doing less.

• The problem happens whenever I run the VM the first time after boot.

Whether I run it as part of the boot scripts or wait a few minutes and run it by hand makes no difference. The second run always works right.

• The problem happens whether I run the headless frontend or the

standard GUI frontend.

• This is weird: During the 2-3 minutes of "good" time before the VM

goes all wonky, I ssh (with X forwarding) from my laptop into the VM and run a xterm so I can type commands to the VM and see what's going on. When the VM start misbehaving, I can still type commands to the VM, but the output stalls. For example, I type "ps ax" and hit enter it will print a few lines of result and then stop. If I then move the mouse into and out of the xterm, it will print a few more lines. It seems like the focus events that the laptop's X server sends to the VM cause it to wake up and do work. It's like the VM is dropping interrupts or something.

• A VRDP connection works fine for the "good" 2-3 minutes, but completely

locks up when the VM goes wonky.

• Network connections to the host work fine through all of this.

• This happens with VirtualBox 2.0.0 and 2.0.2

• Thanks for reading all this. I'd be grateful for any help you guys

could offer.

Forum Thread: ​http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=9590