guestcontrol exec with --wait-stderr or --wait-stdout hangs the VBoxManage process and prevents further execs

[Igor Minar]

I just upgraded from 4.0.x to 4.1.6 and noticed that my scripts that start internet explorer in the windows VM started hanging (don't if executed from terminal even ctrl-c has no effect, only kill -9 helps). What's even worse is that no new commands can be executed in the vm until the process originally started in the vm dies.

Upon a closer look, I realized that it was --wait-stderr and --wait-stdout flags that caused this issue after removing them the process doesn't hang any more. My original command:

{{

VBoxManage guestcontrol "MYVM" execute --image "cmd.exe" --username MYUSERNAME --password "" --wait-exit --wait-stdout --wait-stderr -- "/c" "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" "​http://somehost/somepath"

}}

after removing the two flags, the process doesn't hang any more and everything works just like in 4.0.x

[SamuraiJack]

Also see: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9650

[SamuraiJack]

and https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/10616

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.