Linux guest on Windows 10 host keeps freezing

[ancow]

I have a current Debian testing VM running on a current Windows 10 host. It started to freeze very frequently with 5.0.22. 5.0.23 r108298 (and subsequently 5.0.24) reduced the frequency of the freezes, but did not quite eliminate them.

I experienced this freeze while running Knoppix 7.6.1 on 5.0.23 r108298 as well.

The kernel started out as a 4.5 version and was upgraded to 4.6 recently (shortly before VBox 5.0.24 was released but after my switch to 5.0.23 r108298).

It seems likely that this ticket is related to #15529, as the freezes started happening with the same release and the ACPI code change revert seems to have helped (reducing the frequency of the freeze from one every couple of minutes to once or twice a day).

The symptoms for the 5.0.24 freeze were:

• While actively working with the VM, it suddenly stopped responding.
• Most of the video was frozen, with the notable exception of an open but not focused tab in Chromium - the "page is loading" animation remained functional.
• The VM stopped responding to SSH login attempts.
• The VM stayed this way for about 15 mins, until I forcibly turned it off.
• I tried to see whether exiting fullscreen mode would make a difference - it did not.
• After the freeze, the VM displayed no apparent disk or CPU activity.

Unfortunately, neither my notebook not my keyboard have status indicator leds, so I cannot tell whether a kernel panic occurred.

[Frank Mehnert]

The log file shows that the guest became unresponsive at 06:50:06. I wonder if the guest kernel just crashed.

[ancow]

The freeze happened again, this time at home (= totally different notebook which VBox, Win10 and the VM are running on). I would venture a guess that it doesn't have anything to do with the underlying hardware.

This freeze happened a lot earlier and while I wasn't using the VM (it was minimised as I was playing a game).

None of my keyboard's status indicator leds flash when I focus on the VM, and that happened the last time a kernel panic occurred, so I'm thinking that Debian is freezing "properly", not panicking.

[alexts]

Same issue here. Windows 10 host. Virtualbox 5.0.24 and Ubuntu 16.04 guest running kernel 4.4.0-28-generic

Problem started about a week ago. I have installed latest Virtualbox version and latest kernel. Maybe this caused the issues. In the past freeze could occur only if host went on standby. Now happens randomly in guest while host is running normally.

I will try to downgrade kernel in Ubuntu and test.

Logs are attached.

[alexts]

Switched to kernel 4.4.0-21-generic Now no issues are seen, VM running for hours. Before VM crashed after 30 minutes top

Not sure if it is kernel issue or my config :)

[Daryl]

I'm seeing same thing. Windows 10 64-bit host with Virtualbox 5.0.24. Have both Ubuntu 16.04 guest (4.4.0-28 kernel) and Ubuntu 14.04 guest (4.2.0-41 kernel).

Both become unresponsive after a few hours. I've seen it when running a multi-hour build. I've tried keeping the guest up and active (no screen lock), but it eventually freezes up.

Don't have the logs anymore, but last line was something about being unresponsive, no response to heartbeat within 4 seconds. Something like that.

[ancow]

Since I cannot easily revert to an earlier kernel 4.x, I reverted VirtualBox to 5.0.18 instead. I did not experience any freezes during the past 3 days.

I will now try 5.1.0 to see if that makes any difference.

[ancow]

Same freeze with 5.1

[ancow]

Just got back from my (short) weekend and found the 5.1.0 VM I'd left running for over 47 hours frozen. There was zero user input over the last 24+ hours.

The session started out as 5.0.24 and I installed 5.1 after the first 14.5 hours up. I also installed the 5.1 guest additions.

I did not check the VM's CPU usage, but the fan was running pretty loud, so I'm guessing it was high.

[alexts]

Updated to Virtualbox 5.1 today Updated also the Linux (Ubuntu 16.04) kernel to Linux alex-VirtualBox 4.4.0-31-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 13 00:07:12 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

VM is running 5 hours without freeze. Strange...

[ancow]

Update:

I haven't experienced this freeze in a while on my home computer but still get it a couple of times per week at work.

Back when they still occurred I noticed on my home computer that when I booted my Linux natively, I would still get random freezes. However, after rmmod'ing the vbox kernel modules, the freezes ceased.

On my work VM the freezes tend to happen when there is a lot of disk activity.