1

VirtualBox (VirtualBox-6.1.x86_64) has for sometime been useless on my workstation (Linux FC35,kernel is 5.16.12-200.fc35.x86_64+debug: but the issue existed previously on FC33). The GUI starts, but attempting to activate any VM results in a hang window ("Starting VM...." and "Starting VM.../2"). dmesg complains about a null pointer:

[Mon Mar  7 15:38:56 2022] SUPR0GipMap: fGetGipCpu=0xb
[Mon Mar  7 15:38:59 2022] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000018
[Mon Mar  7 15:38:59 2022] #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode
[Mon Mar  7 15:38:59 2022] #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page
[Mon Mar  7 15:38:59 2022] PGD 3c993067 P4D 3c993067 PUD 3ca29067 PMD 0 
[Mon Mar  7 15:38:59 2022] Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI
[Mon Mar  7 15:38:59 2022] CPU: 1 PID: 12343 Comm: EMT-0 Tainted: G           OE     5.16.12-200.fc35.x86_64+debug #1
[Mon Mar  7 15:38:59 2022] Hardware name: Dell Inc. Studio XPS 7100/0FF3FN, BIOS A02 05/05/2010
[Mon Mar  7 15:38:59 2022] RIP: 0010:__lock_acquire+0x5df/0x1de0

After killing the windows and associated processes leaves the vbox kernel modules in an unresponsive state (they cannot be unloaded), and at least two stray userspace processes, VBoxXPCOMIPCD and VBoxSvc (the first can be disposed of via kill, the second becomes a zombie after kill). At that point vboxmanage is also hosed. straceing shows it hangs on a futex:

futex(0xacb320, FUTEX_WAIT_BITSET_PRIVATE|FUTEX_CLOCK_REALTIME, 0, {tv_sec=1649267441, tv_nsec=663216000}, FUTEX_BITSET_MATCH_ANY

I scoured the net, not finding much (in fact, exceedingly littel) Any ideas/experiences?

Alien Life Form
  • 2,309
  • 2
  • 21
  • 32
  • Sorry, I don't have any real solution for you, but I'm wondering if you can create a working *new* VM from the GUI. – rickhg12hs Mar 08 '22 at 15:27
  • @rickhg12hs I did clone one with apparent success, but then could not start it. If I tried to install one from scratch, my guess is that I'd run in the same brick wall (given I cannot start anything so also the install procedure) – Alien Life Form Mar 08 '22 at 15:40
  • Have you tried installing VirtualBox from their [Fedora repo](https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads#RPM-basedLinuxdistributions)? I've been using the VirtualBox repo for years and have had very few problems. – rickhg12hs Mar 08 '22 at 16:39
  • 1
    @rickhg12hs That is the one I am using. – Alien Life Form Mar 09 '22 at 10:02

1 Answers1

1

OK, so the problem was using the debug kernel (which I believe had been selected ages ago as a VirtualBox requirement to begin with). Switching to the regular kernel made the problem disappear.

Alien Life Form
  • 2,309
  • 2
  • 21
  • 32