need to reload the virtualbox kernel driver to reboot VM

[Brian J. Murrell]

Here's yet another problem I have with the VM that has been the subject of many of my tickets including the still outstanding ticket #1299. This VM is also the same VM that the ongoing discussion on the ML about VMs consuming vast amount of CPU is about. Maybe this is yet another datapoint for that problem.

I cannot reboot this VM without first doing a:

/etc/init.d/vboxdrv restart

If I don't do the above after shutting down my WinXP instance and before trying to start it again, the WinXP hangs on startup. I will attach the log of virtual box starting to the point of it hanging after not having done the above driver reload.

[Brian J. Murrell]

virtualbox, rebooted until hang

[Frank Mehnert]

Could you explain hang in more detail? Does that mean that the VM window freezes and you cannot pause or terminate the VM and are there no screen updates?

Could you provide a ​core dump of such a hanging VM? If so, please contact me by private E-mail (frank _dot_ mehnert _at_ sun _dot_ com).

[Brian J. Murrell]

Replying to frank:

Could you explain hang in more detail?

Glad to.

Does that mean that the VM window freezes and you cannot pause or terminate the VM and are there no screen updates?

Ahh. No. The guest O/S hangs. The guest O/S is Windows XP. It hangs at the splash screen while the little blue pulsator normally swooshes left and right. The VM is still perfectly functional. I have noticed in the past, that at least sometimes, if I let it sit long enough (usually a few hours at least) the guest will finally make progress and complete booting up.

Could you provide a ​core dump of such a hanging VM?

Sure if that's still useful given the clarification above. Let me know and I will go gather one.

[Frank Mehnert]

No, in that case, a core dump wouldn't help to debug the problem. This might be related to the guest additions.

[Brian J. Murrell]

Replying to frank:

No, in that case, a core dump wouldn't help to debug the problem.

Yeah. I was doubtful myself.

This might be related to the guest additions.

OK. Any thoughts on how I should proceed to get you more info? I am at the ready. :-)

Hrm. I just went to test if this was still a problem now that I have changed my guest to use the non-IO-APIC and now when I try to Restart WinXP, on shutdown I just get a black screen and it makes no progress. I will attach the VB log.

[Brian J. Murrell]

VBox.log from 2009-04-23 14:18:11 comment

[Frank Mehnert]

Please reopen if this issue is still present with VBox 3.1.8