Created attachment 178236 [details] VBoxSVC.log.1 With a clean ~/.virtualbox, I installed Debian Jessie Linux (8) on virtualbox-ose version 5.1.6 r110634. Either during the install of Debian or afterward the virtualbox guest partially freezes. If running a desktop environment in the Debian guest, the clock applet in the panel still keeps proper time, but little else seems to respond. The following comes up in the guest's log: 00:25:36.638384 AioMgr0-N: Request 0x000008261b36c0 failed with rc=VERR_TRY_AGAIN, migrating endpoint /home/will/VirtualBox VMs/Debian Testing/Debian Testing.vdi to failsafe manager. 00:25:36.900555 AIOMgr: I/O manager 0x0000082d5933a0 encountered a critical error (rc=VERR_FILE_AIO_NO_REQUEST) during operation. Falling back to failsafe mode. Expect reduced performance 00:25:36.913330 AIOMgr: Error happened in /wrkdirs/usr/ports/emulators/virtualbox-ose/work/VirtualBox-5.1.6/src/VBox/VMM/VMMR3/PDMAsyncCompletionFileNormal.cpp:(1669){int pdmacFileAioMgrNormal(RTTHREAD, void *)} 00:25:36.913333 AIOMgr: Please contact the product vendor When I try to close the guest with 'Power off machine' (either by closing the guest's window or by closing in the vbox manager), a small dialog comes up estimating the time it will take to close the machine. The machine never closes and the estimated time in the small dialog grows to hours. I must issue a 'killall -SIGKILL VirtualBox' in order to successfully close the guest. No special options are being used for the installation and use of the Debian guest machine. I will attach the config file, along with any relevant logs.
Created attachment 178237 [details] Guest machine log
Created attachment 178238 [details] Relevant dmesg excerpt
Created attachment 178239 [details] Guest machine vbox config
It appears on some of these freezes that the guest OS is still somewhat responsive, but there is a problem reading the disk. Almost all commands that I enter into the guest's terminal return with "Input / Output error". dmesg also returns the same error from the guest.
Tests with Slackware 14.2 amd64 also yield the same issue. So far, Windows XP guests don't have this issue.
This seems like AIO issue, these adjustments might help: bug #168298, comment #3
(In reply to Dmitri Goutnik from comment #6) Thanks for the information Dmitri. I have found that SATA virtual controllers need to have 'Use Host I/O Cache' enabled, then the freezes (mostly) go away. Virtual IDE controllers don't seem to need 'Use Host I/O Cache' enabled, however.
Is this still an issue? With e.g. 5.2.32_1
(In reply to Graham Perrin from comment #8) Unfortunately I'm unable to run FreeBSD on my current hardware to check right now. Last recent experience didn't seem to have issues with this as I already knew to set the virtual controller to 'Use host cache'. Hopefully one day FreeBSD will support my hardware and I can use it again. :-)
(In reply to Graham Perrin from comment #8) I can confirm that this is still an issue as of 2020-02-13. hashbrown/home/jason-124957: uname -a FreeBSD hashbrown 12.1-STABLE FreeBSD 12.1-STABLE r357056 JKERN12 amd64 hashbrown/home/jason-124958: pkg info virtualbox\* virtualbox-ose-5.2.34 virtualbox-ose-additions-5.2.34_1 virtualbox-ose-kmod-5.2.34 I'm using a Fedora-31 guest, but saw identical symptoms to OP. Enabling "Use Host I/O Cache" on the virtual SATA controller fixed it for me. Let me know of any other info I can provide or testing I can do. Thanks.
With 5.x it was necessary to disable I/O APIC for Linux guests. With 6.x it is necessary to enable it. I see these same symptoms if I fail to do so. This PR is quite old and refers to an obsolete vbox version. Can it be closed?
(In reply to Jason W. Bacon from comment #11) I meant Host I/O cache, not I/O APIC...
(In reply to Jason W. Bacon from comment #12) Thanks for clarifying that. I'll close this now since it's so old and I cannot check on bare metal.