OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Applications => Topic started by: Pete on March 22, 2018, 05:29:44 pm

Title: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Pete on March 22, 2018, 05:29:44 pm
Hi All

After a long time of not using vbox I decided to "hookup" the already installed package to ArcaOS. This simply involved creating a Desktop object to start vbox with, adding vboxdrv.sys and rebooting.

During reboot - several attempts - boot stops with ifx checking and cleaning ini files.

I REM'd the ifx line as I do not hink that is the problem and rebooted. Boot now stops displaying pmshell.exe as the last line on screen.

It seems something in ArcaOS does not like vboxdrv.sys...

I tried updating acpi to 3.23.07 with no change, boot stops as before.


I have not really used either of my eCS installations since installing ArcaOS but decided to try booting eCS2.1 with various ArcaOS Driver Pack updates. Boot stops with a SYS1201: vboxdrv.sys not installed.

The same problem with eCS2.2b2 - which surprised me as ecS2.2b2 is the system that was in use when I first installed and used VirtualBox successfully.

Both eCS installations are using acpi 3.23.05 and os2krnl 14_106 SMP

Checking my backups I see that when I first installed and used VirtualBox in eCS2.2b2 I was using acpi 3.23.03. I had updated acpi to 3.23.05 in my eCS2.2b2 installation shortly before installing and concentrating on ArcaOS and suspect that I never tried running VirtualBox after the acpi update.

Here I must admit to being a little "naughty" and installing the 14_201 SMP kernel and acpi 3.23.06 in eCS2.2b2 to test whether that would make a difference ; Would eCS2.2b2 boot past the ifx/pmshell boot stop that ArcaOS has?

The answer is that eCS2.2b2 boots to a working Desktop without problems with those files installed. It cannot run VirtualBox though and delivers this error message

   Failed to create the VirtualBoxClient COM object.
 
   The application will now terminate.


   Callee RC: NS_ERROR_ABORT (0x80004004)


This error happens with the vboxdrv.sys supplied in r141 and the later version from ftp://osfree.org/upload/vbox/vboxdrv.zip

Interesting that eCS2.2b2 can boot to a working Desktop using those "naughty" updates though where ArcaOS cannot.


Does anyone have VirtualBox running OK with ArcaOS?

Any thoughts on the above problems, anyone?


Regards

Pete




Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Pete on March 22, 2018, 07:03:16 pm
Hi All

There is an even later vboxdrv.sys just uploaded ftp://osfree.org/upload/vbox/vboxdrv.zip so I thought I would give it a try.

No change, ArcaOS stops at the IFX ini  check.

I rebooted and tried using Shift just as IFX was about to run. That brought up the IFX options. As there would not be any point in selecting any of the ini backups I selected 0, no changes to ini files .

Boot continued and ArcaOS got to a working Desktop. Does this suggest some sort of timing error?


Sadly virtualbox still does not run displaying this error

    Failed to create the VirtualBoxClient COM object.
 
   The application will now terminate.


   Callee RC: NS_ERROR_ABORT (0x80004004)


Any thoughts?


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 22, 2018, 07:48:08 pm
Quote
Any thoughts on the above problems, anyone?

I run the old VBox 1.6.1, and the beta 5.0.6, under ArcaOS. No unexpected problems. The won't run OS/2, because you need VT-x/AMD-V enabled, and the OS/2 versions of VBox can't do that (be sure that the option is turned off). You can run a 64 bit OS, as a guest, but it will be dead slow, so don't bother even trying (like 12 hours to boot win 7 64 bit).

Quote
There is an even later vboxdrv.sys just uploaded ftp://osfree.org/upload/vbox/vboxdrv.zip so I thought I would give it a try

The driver should match the version that you are running.

Two other suggestions:

1) Be sure that VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT is set high enough, so you don't run out of virtual address space. I use 2560. 2048 doesn't seem to do the job, and some systems won't work with 3072. This setting has nothing, at all, to do with physical memory.

2) Sort your CONFIG.SYS properly. I use my Logical Config.Sys Sort program (LCSS), which is at HOBBES.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 22, 2018, 08:18:05 pm
I'm using the original driver dated 11/10/16, same as the most of the files, no problem booting but attempting to run virtualbox.exe gives the same error as you get in nspr.
Looking at ANPM, seems nspr-legacy was updated at the same time as nspr and attempting to down level results in an error about nspr needing down leveled as well. Need the latest nspr for Mozilla.
I've updated the driver and will test booting with it and also test downgrading both nspr and nspr-legacy after rebooting.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 22, 2018, 09:01:54 pm
Updating the driver still allows booting. Running virtualbox.exe still results in the same error. Reviewing the readme, it looks like I was wrong about nspr-legacy being a dependency, I guess it is actually a xpcom error and virtualbox includes its own build of xpcom, VBoxXCOM.dll. So no idea what, if any, upgrade broke virtualbox.

BTW, about your ifx error. I saw dmt (the eCS version of ifx) hangs in the past with eCS but none with ArcaOS. Doug might have a point in the ordering in config.sys.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: David McKenna on March 22, 2018, 09:25:30 pm
 Take a look at : http://trac.netlabs.org/vbox/ticket/73

  The issue is the latest libcx 0.6.1. VirtualBox will work with version 0.6.0, but needs a switch to work with 0.6.1. You can also put version 0.6.0 in the VirtualBox directory, and use Run! to start it LIBPATHSTRICT.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Pete on March 22, 2018, 10:31:43 pm
Hi All

Problems resolved - well, VirtualBox now starts, I have not yet tried starting an existing guest or installing a new one. I may well install the latest vbox before attempting either as it seems to have just appeared here ftp://osfree.org/upload/vbox/vbox-os2-i386-v5.0.51.zip

The resolution to the "timing problem" with the vboxdrv.sys was to move the line higher up the config.sys file - no problem booting now, no need to use Shift as IFX is starting.

Thanks to David McKenna for his input re: libcx as adding SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 to config.sys allows VirtualBox to start.

@Doug
I have not used your config.sys sorter on my ArcaOS system. I wish I had thought about it when I decided that the ArcaOS config.sys was a pain and needing sorting out. I re-arranged the config.sys to more or less match my ecS2.2b2 config.sys layout. Did eCS use LCSS?


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 23, 2018, 05:17:50 am
Quote
Did eCS use LCSS?

LCSS should work with any version of OS/2, but it has only been tested with eCS, and ArcaOS. Testing on eCS will cease (I don't use it any more), but it should continue to work. Please, READ the instructions, if you use it. You may wish to tweak your CONFIG.SYS to retain comments.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on March 23, 2018, 08:54:21 am
2Pete:

Quote
I have not really used either of my eCS installations since installing ArcaOS but decided to try booting eCS2.1 with various ArcaOS Driver Pack updates. Boot stops with a SYS1201: vboxdrv.sys not installed.

The same problem with eCS2.2b2 - which surprised me as ecS2.2b2 is the system that was in use when I first installed and used VirtualBox successfully.

Both eCS installations are using acpi 3.23.05 and os2krnl 14_106 SMP

Hm, VBoxDrv.sys doesn't install? I can't imagine why this can happen. Tried many kernels and PSD drivers -- never seen this. Could
you try to help me to track why this happen? So, this happens with 14.106_SMP and ACPI.PSD 3.23.05? I tested this combination, and everything booted well. I tested it in MCP2 and eCS 2.2 beta II, on a single-core Athlon 64 machine and two Core2Duo machines -- all worked well. Can you give me more details? Did you installed any other updates except the kernel and ACPI.PSD? Are you sure it was ACPI 3.23.05? Maybe, it was some other version? (also, it's possible that AN has different builds having the same version number, which behave differently. We can exchange more bldlevel details. For example, the copy of ACPI.PSD 3.23.05 I have is built 1 Feb 2017 12:52:11. Does your copy differ?)

Quote
Failed to create the VirtualBoxClient COM object.
 
   The application will now terminate.


   Callee RC: NS_ERROR_ABORT (0x80004004)

This happens when VBox cannot load VBoxRT.dll or some other DLL. This is usually because some dependent DLL's installed via rpm packages are missing, or are different version. You could try to update, or better, remove the DLL's listed here: http://trac.netlabs.org/vbox/ and install them over. This is basically the same problem as with newer versions of Mozilla, when some DLL's XUL.DLL depends on, are missing or incorrect version.

2Doug Bissett:

Quote
I run the old VBox 1.6.1, and the beta 5.0.6, under ArcaOS. No unexpected problems. The won't run OS/2, because you need VT-x/AMD-V enabled, and the OS/2 versions of VBox can't do that (be sure that the option is turned off). You can run a 64 bit OS, as a guest, but it will be dead slow, so don't bother even trying (like 12 hours to boot win 7 64 bit).

OS/2 versions of VBox since about r147 support hardware assisted virtualization. I was able to run OS/2 guest on OS/2 host successfully. 64-bit OS'es currently don't run ok. Most probably, you will get a hang. But it is still being worked on. Though, because of limitations of IBM kernels, this is currently supported on OS/4 kernels, only. They have some required mechanisms like API's for running some code on all CPU's in parallel, getting the current CPU number etc.

How did you managed to run a 64-bit OS? On which VBox version? I was unable to run a 64 bit OS neither in RAW mode, nor with HW virtualization.

2Dave Yeo: This error does nothing with NSPR. It is just a failed COM object initialization because it cannot load a DLL. NS_ERROR_ABORT seems to be an XPCOM error, not NSPR. Also, VBox doesn't use NSPR from yum repo. It carries its own version of NSPR based on VBox Runtime (IPRT, Innotek Portable RunTime) with itself.

Quote
BTW, about your ifx error. I saw dmt (the eCS version of ifx) hangs in the past with eCS but none with ArcaOS. Doug might have a point in the ordering in config.sys.

I never seen this in my eCS with DMT. Also, I have no idea how IFX/DMT can hang, or not, depending on VBoxDrv position in config.sys. I suspect this is some SMP-related problem, though.

2Pete*2:

Quote
The resolution to the "timing problem" with the vboxdrv.sys was to move the line higher up the config.sys file - no problem booting now, no need to use Shift as IFX is starting.

Probably, this is indeed some timing problem, so before VBoxDrv "settles a bit", i.e., finishes some activity, and activity done by IFX, should pass some time. An idea may be that VBoxDrv and IFX do something at the same time, but on different CPU's. This somehow leads to a hang. Currently SMP support in VBoxDrv is limited on IBM kernels. IBM kernels have no API returning the current CPU number. So, this is currently emulated with finding the current local APIC number. But LAPIC numbers are not guaraneteed to be consecutive. The may be "holes" between valid LAPIC numbers. So, if an attempt to use an invalid CPU number from the hole in the range 0..MaxCPUNumber is made, an unexpected result can happen, e. g., a hang. So, this currently works reliably only on OS/4 kernels, where an API exist returning a correct CPU number from a contiguous range. VBox assumes that the range 0..MaxCPUNumber should be contiguous.

PS: I never sort CONFIG.SYS automatically, because I prefer to edit it manually. So, I have it being sorted out logically, grouping related statements together. This is easier to support, with a little performance impact. I always placed the VBoxDrv.sys loading string at the end of CONFIG.SYS.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Pete on March 24, 2018, 03:32:29 am
Hi Valery

I am not at all concerned that about the vboxdrv.sys "not installed" when booting eCS2.1 as I rarely boot that installation these days. it is possible that the problem is, yet again, the position in the config.sys file; I will have a rummage sometime over the weekend and try to establish what the problem is.

As regards acpi bldlevel: It was 3.23.05 which I have just updated to 3.23.07 to see if that will make a difference. The acpi.psd from 3.23.05 is:-
Vendor:          Arca Noae LLC
Revision:        3.23.05
Date/Time:       1 Feb 2017 12:52:37

Hardware is centered around an AMD FX-4300 4core CPU.

I have not yet had time to test but suspect that the using the SET LIBCX in the eCS2.2b2 config.sys file may well resolve the problem - eCS2.1, eCS2.2b2 and ArcaOS share the "*nixy libs" and that setting resolved the same problem in ArcaOS with starting VirtualBox.exe


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Pete on March 24, 2018, 05:48:51 am
Hi All

Seems the problem with eCS2.1 not being able to load vboxdrv.sys was the position of the DEVICE line in the config.sys file as moving it nearer the top of the file has solved the problem.

I am very pleased to report that virtualbox now runs from all 3 installations: eCS2.1, eCS2.2b2 and ArcaOS

All 3 installations need the SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 setting in the config.sys file otherwise virtualbox.exe cannot start and displays the " Failed to create the VirtualBoxClient COM object." error.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on March 24, 2018, 06:58:08 am
OK. LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 is not needed for VirtualBox.exe. VirtualBox.exe should run fine without that. It only required for VBoxSDL, as there is some high memory-related problem with SDL.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dave Yeo on March 24, 2018, 07:17:49 am
I see the same issue with vbox, including v5.0.51 that I downloaded tonight. Previous testing showed LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 as a fix, haven't tried with that setting yet with the most recent. VboxSDL crashes in libc
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Pete on March 24, 2018, 03:31:51 pm
Hi Valery

Sorry to correct you but re-testing without the LIBCX setting results in virtualbox.exe being unable to start with " Failed to create the VirtualBoxClient COM object."

This applies to both v5.06 and 5.0.51 releases.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on March 29, 2018, 04:23:28 am
Heh all!

I have used the OS/2 based Virtual PC, latest version (v5.1?) for years, and had decided to try VirtualBox 5.0.6 when it originally came out, but got sidetracked. Seeing the release of v5.0.51 at the beginning of the week, and having some time to try it, I downloaded that version and installed it using the instructions supplied with the v5.0.6 version (couldn't find a Read_Me in the new version). The machine I am using is a 3.0 GHz 4 core AMD with ArcaOS v5.0.1 installed

I'm not sure if it was good luck or good management, based on the comments here, but VBox came up immediately, after install and a eboot. I created both a Windows 7 VM (which I have not installed to yet), and a Windows XP VBox VM, using a virtual disk (VDI) I had created for Windows version VirtualBox 5.0.22, on a Windows 7 based portable.

Both VM's are recognized by VirtualBox, but when I attempt to boot them, more times than not I get a message "Unknown error 1018 - during initialization of the runtime" (JPG attached). The detail screen comes up with a message that "The Virtual Machine WindowsXP has terminated unexpectedly during start-up with an exit code 1 (0x1) in Component "MachineWrap" (JPG attached).

This does not occur ever time, as I can boot the WindowsXP VM, especially if I use "Machine - Start -  Normal Start" from the Menu Bar, but, after multiple boots of both VM's in VirtualBox, the results vary.

I was wondering the following:

1) Has anyone encountered that problem starting up a VBOX VM session? (It seems to occur with both the Window XP VDI and the Windows 7 VM that I have not installed yet,)

Is there a workaround?

Following the thread, I tried Doug Bisset's suggestion of increasing VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT in Config.Sys to 2560, which was intended to start VBOX but saw no difference.

2) Would the installation of Virtual Box additions speed up the VM? I do have an ISO that I downloaded many months ago entitled "VBoxGuestAdditionsGuestAdditions_5.0.6.iso, which is obviously for the previous release for a OS/2 host, but I'm unaware of anything later, at the moment. Would that increase speed on the installed VM, as, currently, the Windows XP VM I am testing renders the Windows desktop extremely slowly.

As this is just me testing the new release, I would be interested in any comments anyone may have and Best!

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on March 29, 2018, 05:27:42 am
Hi Mark,

...Both VM's are recognized by VirtualBox, but when I attempt to boot them, more times than not I get a message "Unknown error 1018 - during initialization of the runtime" (JPG attached). The detail screen comes up with a message that "The Virtual Machine WindowsXP has terminated unexpectedly during start-up with an exit code 1 (0x1) in Component "MachineWrap" (JPG attached)...

Similar situation here, in fact, the very same error.

So far I have tried to play around with various VM settings, such as the I/O Apic, AMD-V and so forth. So far, no luck. I am still erroring out...will try a build of a brand new VM next.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 29, 2018, 06:31:37 am
Just a WAG, but do you have enough real memory free, to be able to load the whole VBox machine, without getting into a paging scenario?
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on March 29, 2018, 03:43:53 pm
Good Morning All!

Just a WAG, but do you have enough real memory free, to be able to load the whole VBox machine, without getting into a paging scenario?

Hi Doug!

Reading on of the VirtualBox forums, it indicated 512 Mb minimum physical memory required, with 1 Gb recommended. As there was no ReadMe with memory requirements in either the 5.0.6 or 5.0.51 packages, I don't know if that is sufficient  for getting the OS2 derived versions running. I have over 2.5 Gb in this machine and without running anything else in the background and it seems to be using about 600 Mb when the Windows XP VM is booting successfully.

It's also been sufficient to run Virtual PC in the past, but I assume that VirtualBox has advanced significantly past VPC and that it may require additional memory with the added features involved.

Are you testing the 5.0.51 package? My second question was related to whether I should install the 5.0.6 additions with 5.0.51 or whether there is a package available that is specific for the current OS2 version?

Hi Mark,

...Both VM's are recognized by VirtualBox, but when I attempt to boot them, more times than not I get a message "Unknown error 1018 - during initialization of the runtime" (JPG attached). The detail screen comes up with a message that "The Virtual Machine WindowsXP has terminated unexpectedly during start-up with an exit code 1 (0x1) in Component "MachineWrap" (JPG attached)...

Similar situation here, in fact, the very same error.

So far I have tried to play around with various VM settings, such as the I/O Apic, AMD-V and so forth. So far, no luck. I am still erroring out...will try a build of a brand new VM next.

Hi Dariusz!

Attempting to run the new Windows 7 VM I created, with no OS installed as of yet, was exhibiting the same problem opening, with the same error messages. I haven't looked at the logs created, as of yet, in the LOGS folder to see if it gives any clue.

Mark





Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on March 29, 2018, 11:20:25 pm
Well, my issue turned out to be somewhat trivial actually.

I have four versions of VBox installed:

1) Paul's release from 2008
2) 2008 release from dmik (1.5.51_OSE_27858)
3) 2016 release (5.0.6_OSE r140)
3) 2018 release from osfree.org

I had updated my CONFIG.SYS to clean-up the use and re-configure from using Paul's version to 2016 release, but inadvertently left my CONFIG.SYS driver pointing to the newer 2018 release.

Once this was corrected I was now able to start my VM using the 2016 release of the software. I have not tried the 2018 release yet. Oh, another thing worth noting: I was using the older 0.6.0 of libcx but just the other day I moved up to the experimental version which is 0.6.1-2.oc00 (because I want to look at some Firefox issues).
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 30, 2018, 03:44:27 am
Quote
Reading on of the VirtualBox forums, it indicated 512 Mb minimum physical memory required, with 1 Gb recommended. As there was no ReadMe with memory requirements in either the 5.0.6 or 5.0.51 packages, I don't know if that is sufficient  for getting the OS2 derived versions running. I have over 2.5 Gb in this machine and without running anything else in the background and it seems to be using about 600 Mb when the Windows XP VM is booting successfully.

What I am getting at, is that you should try to keep the guest memory small enough that it doesn't overflow the host real memory, when you start the guest. Of course, it does need to be big enough for the guest to run efficiently. Win XP needs about 500 MB to run efficiently, so you need to have about 600 MB of free memory, after starting VBox, and before opening the win XP guest. That should be no problem with 2.5 GB of memory, unless you have it filled up with other things.

Quote
It's also been sufficient to run Virtual PC in the past, but I assume that VirtualBox has advanced significantly past VPC and that it may require additional memory with the added features involved.

Virtual PC is a completely different program.

Quote
Are you testing the 5.0.51 package? My second question was related to whether I should install the 5.0.6 additions with 5.0.51 or whether there is a package available that is specific for the current OS2 version?

I am using the 5.0.6 version, with the 5.0.6 additions. The additions should be within a few versions of the program, or they may not work. I don't know anything about 5.0.51, so I can't answer that question, other than to point out that an additions package should be available for the 5.0.51 version, from the same place where you got 5.0.51 (at least there should be a pointer to where to find it, or which version to use).
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on March 30, 2018, 03:48:36 am
Well, my issue turned out to be somewhat trivial actually.

I have four versions of VBox installed:

1) Paul's release from 2008
2) 2008 release from dmik (1.5.51_OSE_27858)
3) 2016 release (5.0.6_OSE r140)
3) 2018 release from osfree.org

I had updated my CONFIG.SYS to clean-up the use and re-configure from using Paul's version to 2016 release, but inadvertently left my CONFIG.SYS driver pointing to the newer 2018 release.

Once this was corrected I was now able to start my VM using the 2016 release of the software. I have not tried the 2018 release yet. Oh, another thing worth noting: I was using the older 0.6.0 of libcx but just the other day I moved up to the experimental version which is 0.6.1-2.oc00 (because I want to look at some Firefox issues).

Hi Dariusz!

Interesting.

What was "the use" refered to that you found in CONFIG.SYS, related to the other versions you had installed, out of curiosity?

I am using the standard Arca Noae package manager RPM versions, currently installed for 5.0.1 (libcx 0.6.0-1). Where did you get the libcx 0.6.1-2.oc00 version?

If I have a link, I will download and see if it solves the problem here for the 2018, v5.0.51 of VirtualBox as well, as the previous posts on this thread also seem to relate to LIBCX in some way, shape or form.

Best!

Mark

Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Pete on March 30, 2018, 04:36:49 am
Hi Mark

Run ANPM and install netlabs-exp to get the option of installing experimental updates.

You may need the SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 setting in the config.sys file; VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072 seems to work best here.

I have seen the "Unknown error - 1018..." message a couple of times with both 5.0.6 and 5.0.51 when trying to start vms created with VBox and known to work. Clicking "abort", counting to 5 then retrying has worked - so far.

There does not seem to be an Additions 5.0.51; 5.0.6 seems to work OK in 5.0.51 in very limited testing here.


Regards

Pete


Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on March 30, 2018, 06:29:48 am
Hi Mark

Run ANPM and install netlabs-exp to get the option of installing experimental updates.

You may need the SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 setting in the config.sys file; VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072 seems to work best here.

I have seen the "Unknown error - 1018..." message a couple of times with both 5.0.6 and 5.0.51 when trying to start vms created with VBox and known to work. Clicking "abort", counting to 5 then retrying has worked - so far.

There does not seem to be an Additions 5.0.51; 5.0.6 seems to work OK in 5.0.51 in very limited testing here.


Regards

Pete




Hi Pete!

Interesting, yet again.

I did add netlabs-exp to ANPM and then installed libcx 0.6.1-2.oc00. Thanks!

Rebooting, as per instruction, without adding the SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 I can confirm that I got the "Failed to create the VirtualBoxClient COM Object" message. (attached). Adding the SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 and rebooting again, I was able to open VirtualBox 5.0.51, as per previous, when I had Libcx 0.6.0-1 installed.

So, empirically, I suspect the problem you were reporting at the beginning of the thread seems to be related specifically to the experiential build of libcx (0.6.1-2).

I did try your suggested solution related to opening a VM session, but still got the 1018 error - its late here and thought I would try it peripherally, but will fiddle around with it tomorrow, for a bit, when I get up.

If Dariusz is hanging about (or you, Pete, or anyone else for that matter) can give me some idea as to where the VirtualBox lines are located in your CONFIG.SYS, I can try moving them about to test and see if the position of the lines make any difference, in opening the VM's. I suspect not, but we're making some progress in at least defining whats happening here, which may be able to help the developers.

A fine rest of the evening to all and Best!

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on March 30, 2018, 07:49:37 am
2Mark Szkolnicki:

> Both VM's are recognized by VirtualBox, but when I attempt to boot them, more times than not I get a message "Unknown error 1018 - during initialization of the runtime" (JPG attached). The detail screen comes up with a message that "The Virtual Machine WindowsXP has terminated unexpectedly during start-up with an exit code 1 (0x1) in Component "MachineWrap" (JPG attached).

Do you have AMD-V/VT-x enabled? What kernel are you using? IBM's or OS/4? Which PSD? (acpi.psd/os2apic.psd/os4apic.psd)? Did you saw a "Guru Meditation" screen? Can you show me VM log and the VM config?

PS: No special additions version is required for 5.0.51. 5.0.51 is just a bit newer version from 5.0.6 -- no big difference, so the same 5.0.x additions should work well. Additions don't enhance performance significantly. They are for user experience with the VM to be more comfortable, e.g., shared folders, clipboard sharing, mouse pointer integration etc.

PPS: 5.0.51 is a development version, not a release. That's because it did not have special additions version. Also, I did not "released" it officially. The link just "leaked" from the bug tracker when I gave it to Pete for testing.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Pete on March 30, 2018, 06:16:37 pm
Hi Valery

... The link just "leaked" from the bug tracker when I gave it to Pete for testing.

Guilty as charged, my Apologies.

However, the "up" side is that you are getting 5.0.51 tested by more people.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Pete on March 30, 2018, 06:22:55 pm
Hi Mark

If you have the vboxdrv.sys line in the wrong place you may experience trouble booting.

I do not have an ArcaOS version of a config.sys file having "sort of" sorted my config.sys into sections. The SET LIBCX setting I simply added to the end of my REM [ Environment Variables ] section where all my "Set" lines live.

Have you tried VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072? - not sure if it will make any difference...


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on March 30, 2018, 07:27:57 pm
2Valery

A Good Friday to you!

2Mark Szkolnicki:

> Both VM's are recognized by VirtualBox, but when I attempt to boot them, more times than not I get a message "Unknown error 1018 - during initialization of the runtime" (JPG attached). The detail screen comes up with a message that "The Virtual Machine WindowsXP has terminated unexpectedly during start-up with an exit code 1 (0x1) in Component "MachineWrap" (JPG attached).

Do you have AMD-V/VT-x enabled? What kernel are you using? IBM's or OS/4? Which PSD? (acpi.psd/os2apic.psd/os4apic.psd)? Did you saw a "Guru Meditation" screen? Can you show me VM log and the VM config?

PS: No special additions version is required for 5.0.51. 5.0.51 is just a bit newer version from 5.0.6 -- no big difference, so the same 5.0.x additions should work well. Additions don't enhance performance significantly. They are for user experience with the VM to be more comfortable, e.g., shared folders, clipboard sharing, mouse pointer integration etc.

PPS: 5.0.51 is a development version, not a release. That's because it did not have special additions version. Also, I did not "released" it officially. The link just "leaked" from the bug tracker when I gave it to Pete for testing.

Understood that 5.0.51 is a developmental release Valery.

Having been in the OS2 community for decades, its very rare to find anything BUT on-going developmental releases, especially for big projects like this and browsers like Seamonkey, so we are all very experienced in jury rigging and testing. And like everything else in this crazy internet world, nothing is secret or "not released" for long ...........

I actually saw the notice about v5.0.51 that Martin posted here. (He should be a reporter, as he has a nose for news <smile>)

In answer to the hardware / software questions you were asking .............

I'm testing on a 3.0 GHz AMD quad core with 3.0 Gb of physical memory.

I am testing with ArcaOS v5.0.1 installed on this machine, with the kernel updated to 14.201_SMP. eCS v2.2 is also installed on this machine on a separate partition, but has not been used for the testing, as of yet. ACPI is at the latest released level (3.23.08) on both partitions.

In regards to "Guru Mediation" screen, I have no idea as to what you are referring to. I have included the screen that comes up with the Windows XP information presented. If I have some idea as to what your referring to, and how to get it, I will include that as well.

There are a number of VM logs in the BIN directory from I assume various unsuccessful start-up attempts, but as they all say the same thing I have included one example - I don't know if these are generated only if the VM does not run with the 1018 error. If you can indicate where the VM Config file(s) are, I will send one.

BTW AMD-V/VT-X is indicated as "enabled" by default (see attached). However, the "invalid setting detected" message at the bottom when moused over, indicates that the current kernel doesn't allow enablement of hardware virtualization.

Have to run at the moment Valery, but if you have any other questions let me know and Best!

Mark


Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on March 30, 2018, 08:36:31 pm
Good Friday to you, Pete!

Hi Mark

If you have the vboxdrv.sys line in the wrong place you may experience trouble booting.

I do not have an ArcaOS version of a config.sys file having "sort of" sorted my config.sys into sections. The SET LIBCX setting I simply added to the end of my REM [ Environment Variables ] section where all my "Set" lines live.

Have you tried VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072? - not sure if it will make any difference...


Regards

Pete


I've not had a problem booting as of yet - I have vboxdrv.sys towards the end of my config.sys file. Currently I just added the SET LIBCX line after the line for vboxdrv.sys. As itt was 10:00 PM when I did it, and had had a long day, I left the rest for today.

And yes I did up VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT to 3072. No change as of yesterday - will see today.

Thats why I was curious as to what Dariusz did to his CONFIG.SYS, as he implied that the problem with the 1018 error was now solved. I'd like to see of I can reproduce what he did here and see if it solves the problem.

BTW, considering all the experimentation that goes on here, I'm curious as to what people are using the LIBCX 0.6.2-1 for, as it seems a number of people have it installed. Was it attempting to address an issue in Seamonkey, 2.42 or one of the other regularly used programs?
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Pete on March 30, 2018, 11:15:31 pm
Hi mark

I think the libcx 0.6.2-1 update was related to latest Seamonkey/Firefox releases.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on March 30, 2018, 11:40:29 pm
Hi mark

I think the libcx 0.6.2-1 update was related to latest Seamonkey/Firefox releases.


Regards

Pete


Thanks, Pete

I wasn't having any luck getting VBox to start a VM with 0.6.2-1, including changing around the location of SET LIBCX and upping the memory, so I backleveled for the moment.

Still was getting sporadic VM start-ups, but was able to get the Windows XP VM up and then, just as an experiment, I also started the Windows 7 VM, and it also could be started at the same time, without getting the error message. Shutdpwn and restart gave the error message yet again, for both VM's

I'll level back up to the experimental LIBCX and play around a little more later.

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: roberto on March 31, 2018, 01:12:45 am


Both VM's are recognized by VirtualBox, but when I attempt to boot them, more times than not I get a message "Unknown error 1018 - during initialization of the runtime" (JPG attached). The detail screen comes up with a message that "The Virtual Machine WindowsXP has terminated unexpectedly during start-up with an exit code 1 (0x1) in Component "MachineWrap" (JPG attached).

This does not occur ever time, as I can boot the WindowsXP VM, especially if I use "Machine - Start -  Normal Start" from the Menu Bar, but, after multiple boots of both VM's in VirtualBox, the results vary.

I was wondering the following:

1) Has anyone encountered that problem starting up a VBOX VM session? (It seems to occur with both the Window XP VDI and the Windows 7 VM that I have not installed yet,)

Is there a workaround?

I just saw the mistake you're making.
But I only get the first time I run the virtual machine xp. If I execute it a second time, I do not get any error.
I'm not using highmem.
And virtualaddress = 2840
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on March 31, 2018, 04:51:10 am
Hey Mark,

...What was "the use" refered to that you found in CONFIG.SYS, related to the other versions you had installed, out of curiosity?

I am using the standard Arca Noae package manager RPM versions, currently installed for 5.0.1 (libcx 0.6.0-1). Where did you get the libcx 0.6.1-2.oc00 version?

If I have a link, I will download and see if it solves the problem here for the 2018, v5.0.51 of VirtualBox as well, as the previous posts on this thread also seem to relate to LIBCX in some way, shape or form.

Ahh..."the use" was simply reflecting the fact that I am using the 'VBOX_USER_HOME' variable to point to the VBox home, and previously with different versions I had them based in the program directory instead of the system 'HOME' location. Sorry, I think that caused some confusion...I've attached my CONFIG.SYS so you can take a look at it. Hopefully it'll help you out answering the question regarding the location of the driver as well.

The key to making my install work was to point to the corrent driver...I was not using the matching release and that was enough here to cause exactly the same problem you are seeing.

Regarding libcx...I did move to the test release, you can get it from the netlabs-exp repo, again, take a look at the attached file, needs to go into \etc\yum\repos.d directory, but read-up on it since I'm not sure how much you know about the YUM/RPM setups. The general concensus is that it is NOT advisable to install the stuff from non-release repos, so YMMV!

EDIT
====
libcx specifics...OK, so if you pick the latest netlabs-exp version you will need to run vBox with the 'SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2' in either your CONFIG.SYS or if you put it in something like vbox.cmd (see attached) file it will only affect vbox app instead of everything on your system that uses libcx. Here is a link (https://github.com/bitwiseworks/libcx (https://github.com/bitwiseworks/libcx)) to the github for libcx that explains this well (look towards the bottom of the page => https://github.com/bitwiseworks/libcx#notes-on-c-heap-displacement (https://github.com/bitwiseworks/libcx#notes-on-c-heap-displacement))

I am curious if vBox could be re-build to make use of the modified version of libcx to avoid having to do this...far too complex for me to understand though...LOL
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on March 31, 2018, 01:37:06 pm
2Mark Szkolnicki:

> Understood that 5.0.51 is a developmental release Valery.

Yes, it's a development version, but not less stable than 5.0.6. I planned to update the OS/2 VBox port to a newer version. 5.0.51 is not a final one, but some intermediate version. I'll probably try to update it to more newer version.

> I actually saw the notice about v5.0.51 that Martin posted here. (He should be a reporter, as he has a nose for news <smile>)

Yes, it's possibly, Martin is guilty for a leakage ;) But anyway it's good as it could gain more attention to the project, so it is ok.

> I am testing with ArcaOS v5.0.1 installed on this machine, with the kernel updated to 14.201_SMP. eCS v2.2 is also installed on this machine on a separate partition, but has not been used for the testing, as of yet. ACPI is at the latest released level (3.23.08) on both partitions.

AMD-V/VT-x is not supported on IBM kernels so far. You need an OS/4 kernel to use HW virtualization in VBox. PSD can be any, but note that newer ACPI.PSD are incompatible with OS/4 kernels (AN just disables all CPU cores. Any hacking with it won't help, so OS/4 devs gave up on patching ACPI.PSD for working on OS/4 kernel). So, you'll need os2apic.psd or os4apic.psd, or earlier versions of ACPI.PSD for use with OS/4 kernel.

Also, as you have "brand new" 3.23.08 ACPI.PSD, could you please run this test: http://gus.biysk.ru/os4/test/timerTest.html (Please, redirect the output to file, we need about 200 iterations of this test. This is a high resolution timer test. It is interesting to know if they fixed a hi-res timer bug in 3.23.08. It is still present in 3.23.07.)

> In regards to "Guru Mediation" screen, I have no idea as to what you are referring to. I have included the screen that comes up with the Windows XP information presented. If I have some idea as to what your referring to, and how to get it, I will include that as well.

"Guru meditation" is a VBox panic error. It should write it to the console (if you start VBox from OS/2 window), and in VBox VM log. VBox stores the VM log in Logs\VBox.log in each VM subdirectory. Yes, as far as I can see, you have AMD-V/VT-x enabled in your VM. Why did you so? It is disabled by default, and displays a warning in case you enabled it and your system lacks required API's and features. So, disable it, and it should work.

> BTW AMD-V/VT-X is indicated as "enabled" by default (see attached). However, the "invalid setting detected" message at the bottom when moused over, indicates that the current kernel doesn't allow enablement of hardware virtualization.

Yes, that's what I meant above. VBox warns you that your configuration is incorrect. So, disable AMD-V/VT-x checkbox and it should work.

2Pete:

>>... The link just "leaked" from the bug tracker when I gave it to Pete for testing.

> Guilty as charged, my Apologies.

Yes, I did not planned to distribute this version, but no problem ;)
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 02, 2018, 03:43:05 pm
Good Morning Roberto!



Both VM's are recognized by VirtualBox, but when I attempt to boot them, more times than not I get a message "Unknown error 1018 - during initialization of the runtime" (JPG attached). The detail screen comes up with a message that "The Virtual Machine WindowsXP has terminated unexpectedly during start-up with an exit code 1 (0x1) in Component "MachineWrap" (JPG attached).

This does not occur ever time, as I can boot the WindowsXP VM, especially if I use "Machine - Start -  Normal Start" from the Menu Bar, but, after multiple boots of both VM's in VirtualBox, the results vary.

I was wondering the following:

1) Has anyone encountered that problem starting up a VBOX VM session? (It seems to occur with both the Window XP VDI and the Windows 7 VM that I have not installed yet,)

Is there a workaround?

I just saw the mistake you're making.
But I only get the first time I run the virtual machine xp. If I execute it a second time, I do not get any error.
I'm not using highmem.
And virtualaddress = 2840


In my case the results are sporadic.

The VM may not start up when I try it 5-6 times, and then the next time it will boot. After shutting down, and attempting to restart the VM again, the 1019 error may occur again. So YMMV.

O was curious about three things, Roberto:

1) Is the Windows XP VM your using one that you  created under the OS/2 version (5.0.6 or 5.0.51?) or did you use a VDI that was created under another version of VirtualBox (eg. under Windows?). In my case it was created on a Windows machine using VBox 5.0.22.

I don't thing that is the problem, as the Windows 7 VM I created exhibits the same start-up problem, but lets be through.

2) What version of Libcx are you using? I know there are earlier versions than 0.6.0. Was it installed through YUM/RPM or through ANPM? Perhaps that is the difference?

3) Are you having success with starting the VM under v5.0.6 or 5.0.51. I have never used 5.0.6, so I'm just trying to establish the same conditions you have which I might try on one of my test machines to see if I can reproduce the environment your using.

I tried the Virtualaddresslimit you suggested - no difference.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 02, 2018, 04:07:00 pm
Good Morning Dariusz!

Hey Mark,

Ahh..."the use" was simply reflecting the fact that I am using the 'VBOX_USER_HOME' variable to point to the VBox home, and previously with different versions I had them based in the program directory instead of the system 'HOME' location. Sorry, I think that caused some confusion...I've attached my CONFIG.SYS so you can take a look at it. Hopefully it'll help you out answering the question regarding the location of the driver as well.

The key to making my install work was to point to the corrent driver...I was not using the matching release and that was enough here to cause exactly the same problem you are seeing.

Regarding libcx...I did move to the test release, you can get it from the netlabs-exp repo, again, take a look at the attached file, needs to go into \etc\yum\repos.d directory, but read-up on it since I'm not sure how much you know about the YUM/RPM setups. The general concensus is that it is NOT advisable to install the stuff from non-release repos, so YMMV!


I can't say I',m an expert at YUM/RPM, but after just a few decades of working with OS/2, eCS,  ArcaOS I learn quickly ............

I will try what you suggested above. After migrating to libcx 0.6.2-1 I have not had a successful start of either VM, but that may be because of the current configuration.

I was curious about one other thing.

Is VirtualBox and your VM's installed on the same partition?

I ask because I usually install my apps on a different partition that the OS one, and in this case I have my virtual disks on yet another partition.

I did this originally when I started running Virtual PC way back when, when space was a lot less cavernous, and I didn't want to flip around physical hard drives and reinstall. VPC is on my System Partition (Drive E:), ArcaOS is on Drive F:, and the Virtual Disks are on Drive O:. This setup has worked perfectly for that, and I mirrored the set-up, when installing VirtualBox, but I'm wondering if, being a developmental release, that set-up is the problem.

I'll try your suggestions first, and then maybe place everything together, especially if I plan to test over the long haul.

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 02, 2018, 04:35:46 pm
Good Morning Valery!

2Mark Szkolnicki:

> I am testing with ArcaOS v5.0.1 installed on this machine, with the kernel updated to 14.201_SMP. eCS v2.2 is also installed on this machine on a separate partition, but has not been used for the testing, as of yet. ACPI is at the latest released level (3.23.08) on both partitions.

AMD-V/VT-x is not supported on IBM kernels so far. You need an OS/4 kernel to use HW virtualization in VBox. PSD can be any, but note that newer ACPI.PSD are incompatible with OS/4 kernels (AN just disables all CPU cores. Any hacking with it won't help, so OS/4 devs gave up on patching ACPI.PSD for working on OS/4 kernel). So, you'll need os2apic.psd or os4apic.psd, or earlier versions of ACPI.PSD for use with OS/4 kernel.

Also, as you have "brand new" 3.23.08 ACPI.PSD, could you please run this test: http://gus.biysk.ru/os4/test/timerTest.html (Please, redirect the output to file, we need about 200 iterations of this test. This is a high resolution timer test. It is interesting to know if they fixed a hi-res timer bug in 3.23.08. It is still present in 3.23.07.)

> In regards to "Guru Mediation" screen, I have no idea as to what you are referring to. I have included the screen that comes up with the Windows XP information presented. If I have some idea as to what your referring to, and how to get it, I will include that as well.

"Guru meditation" is a VBox panic error. It should write it to the console (if you start VBox from OS/2 window), and in VBox VM log. VBox stores the VM log in Logs\VBox.log in each VM subdirectory. Yes, as far as I can see, you have AMD-V/VT-x enabled in your VM. Why did you so? It is disabled by default, and displays a warning in case you enabled it and your system lacks required API's and features. So, disable it, and it should work.

> BTW AMD-V/VT-X is indicated as "enabled" by default (see attached). However, the "invalid setting detected" message at the bottom when moused over, indicates that the current kernel doesn't allow enablement of hardware virtualization.

Yes, that's what I meant above. VBox warns you that your configuration is incorrect. So, disable AMD-V/VT-x checkbox and it should work.


I'll try to get you the information related to ACPI.PSD later today.

In regard to "Guru Meditation" - from your description I assume that it would be seen if you attempt to start VirtualBox.exe from an OS/2 window, and the program will not start at all. As that has not been the problem I have been experiencing, I'm not sure if running that test would give you any added information, but could try it if you wish.

There are 4 VBox.log files in the Windows XP \LOG subdirectory which have been generated and which I've attached below.

I've had some very useful feedback from all, at the moment, which could help out in my current testing. Will let you know when I have some results and Best!

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 02, 2018, 05:03:12 pm
Good Morning again Valery!


Also, as you have "brand new" 3.23.08 ACPI.PSD, could you please run this test: http://gus.biysk.ru/os4/test/timerTest.html (Please, redirect the output to file, we need about 200 iterations of this test. This is a high resolution timer test. It is interesting to know if they fixed a hi-res timer bug in 3.23.08. It is still present in 3.23.07.)


I ran the timer test which generated a long list of numbers, coloured black and red - I let it run up to "204" in the background while I was doing other things. The page is attached below as an HTML.

Let me know if that was what you wanted, and if it gave you the information you needed.

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: roberto on April 02, 2018, 08:03:00 pm
In my case the results are sporadic.

The VM may not start up when I try it 5-6 times, and then the next time it will boot.
Yes, is sporadic, 2 times 5 times. I guess that's why he asks for the timertest.

 
Quote
1) Is the Windows XP VM your using one that you  created under the OS/2 version (5.0.6 or 5.0.51?) or did you use a VDI that was created under another version of VirtualBox (eg. under Windows?). In my case it was created on a Windows machine using VBox 5.0.22.
Create in 506 with os2 , and I return to 506.
Libcx 060
Quote
I tried the Virtualaddresslimit you suggested - no difference.
I am testing this value of virtualaddresslimit,  I'm looking for more system stability, and for now what I think works best is to disable the sounds of the system. But this has to be checked every bit, because in start-ups it is activated on its own.
Saludos
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on April 02, 2018, 11:44:30 pm
2Mark Szkolnicki:

Did you switched AMD-V/VT-x off? According to your log, it is enabled and it failed to initialize. (I see no Guru meditation, though, so this is not that case). That is what I suggested you above: switch off AMD-V/VT-x. Why did you enabled it? It was never supported by OS/2 port of VBox. Only last builds contain some support for that, and only on OS/4 kernels!

> In regard to "Guru Meditation" - from your description I assume that it would be seen if you attempt to start VirtualBox.exe from an OS/2 window, and the program will not start at all. As that has not been the problem I have been experiencing, I'm not sure if running that test would give you any added information, but could try it if you wish.

The program will wtart, but itt will show a panic screen. The test has no relation with "Guru meditation" error, I only need to know if they fixed a hi-res timer error in your version of ACPI.PSD. As you're the first user I know having this version.

> There are 4 VBox.log files in the Windows XP \LOG subdirectory which have been generated and which I've attached below.

Thanks, but I only need the last one.

> * timerTest.html (6.44 kB - downloaded 6 times.)

This is some trash with javascript code (look into the file you attached). Please attach the text file with the test output
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 03, 2018, 12:47:26 am
Here's a longer timer test output with ACPI 3.23.08.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 03, 2018, 01:21:08 am
Good Afternoon Valery!

2Mark Szkolnicki:

Did you switched AMD-V/VT-x off? According to your log, it is enabled and it failed to initialize. (I see no Guru meditation, though, so this is not that case). That is what I suggested you above: switch off AMD-V/VT-x. Why did you enabled it? It was never supported by OS/2 port of VBox. Only last builds contain some support for that, and only on OS/4 kernels!

> In regard to "Guru Meditation" - from your description I assume that it would be seen if you attempt to start VirtualBox.exe from an OS/2 window, and the program will not start at all. As that has not been the problem I have been experiencing, I'm not sure if running that test would give you any added information, but could try it if you wish.

The program will wtart, but itt will show a panic screen. The test has no relation with "Guru meditation" error, I only need to know if they fixed a hi-res timer error in your version of ACPI.PSD. As you're the first user I know having this version.

> There are 4 VBox.log files in the Windows XP \LOG subdirectory which have been generated and which I've attached below.

Thanks, but I only need the last one.

> * timerTest.html (6.44 kB - downloaded 6 times.)

This is some trash with javascript code (look into the file you attached). Please attach the text file with the test output


The Logs sent were before I switched off the AMD-VT. Now done. I did not see another log generated in the \LOG subdirectory but have seen a marked improvement in speed when I can get the WindowsXP VM to start.

So far, the start-up is still sporadic, but I have a couple of items I am looking into.

In regards to the timerTest file, I have attached a text version, below after running the test again, this time about 212 times.

Running a test start from an ArcaOS window session the VBOX window came up, but I noted no panic screen. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what was being requested Valery if you could provide an example of what a panic screen should look like i will see if one comes up

Best!

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 03, 2018, 01:48:18 am
2Valery:

The screen shot is attached of what came up when I ran virtualbox.exe from an ArcaOS windowed session

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on April 03, 2018, 02:05:15 am
2Dave Yeo: Thanks!

2Mark Szkolnicki:

> The Logs sent were before I switched off the AMD-VT. Now done. I did not see another log generated in the \LOG subdirectory but have seen a marked improvement in speed when I can get the WindowsXP VM to start.

Improvement in speed? Compared to what? AMD-V is disabled, so what improvement can be?

> So far, the start-up is still sporadic, but I have a couple of items I am looking into.

Sporadic? What do you mean? It starts only sometimes? What error? Any logs?

> Running a test start from an ArcaOS window session the VBOX window came up, but I noted no panic screen. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what was being requested Valery if you could provide an example of what a panic screen should look like i will see if one comes up

I don't expect any panic screen. No panic screen, according to your log.

So, what do you mean by "sporadic" startup?
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 03, 2018, 02:46:59 am
What I get on the first try is
Quote
Failed to open a session for the virtual machine mint.

The virtual machine 'mint' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1).

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: MachineWrap
Interface: IMachine {f30138d4-e5ea-4b3a-8858-a059de4c93fd}


Waiting a bit after this allows the virtual machine to start.
The log seems to use a different charset,
Quote
Log created: 2018-04-03T00:38:20.588000000Z
Executable: K:\VPC\VIRTUALBOX.EXE
K:\VPC\VirtualBox.exe kLIBC á--comment ámint á--startvm á43cabf9e-2003-43ea-a9e0-db4fa1156a6c á--no-startvm-errormsgbox
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 03, 2018, 03:59:24 am
2Valery:


So, what do you mean by "sporadic" startup?


Actually when I refer to "sporadic" its exactly as Dave Yeo described, as per my, and other posts from both Dariusz and Roberto previously:

1) Start VirtualBox.exe
2) VirtualBox window comes up
3) Click on one of the VM's that have been created.
4) If no start-up of the VM occurs a window appears almost immediately with:

]Unknown error - 1018 during initialization of the runtime.

5) Clicking the "Abort"  button on the window above opens a second window, which says

Failed to open a session for the Virtual Machine "X" (where "X" is the name of the VM that was attempting to start)

Clicking the green arrow beside Details gives:

The virtual machine 'X' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1).

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: MachineWrap
Interface: IMachine {f30138d4-e5ea-4b3a-8858-a059de4c93fd}

The log generated at the time in the VirtualBox \BIN directory is as Dave also describes (mine was slightly different, as sent to you previously):

Log created: 2018-04-03T00:38:20.588000000Z
Executable: K:\VPC\VIRTUALBOX.EXE
K:\VPC\VirtualBox.exe kLIBC á--comment ámint á--startvm á43cabf9e-2003-43ea-a9e0-db4fa1156a6c á--no-startvm-errormsgbox

Having done testing a number of times this afternoon I agree with Dave that "waiting a bit" after the error message sometimes produces a start of the VM, but many times it does not. In fact, there is no consistency to what I've observed, as to when a VM will start up or not.

At least for me, I can get the VM's to start up more consistently with LIBCX 0.6.0 installed than under the experimental LIBCX 0.6.2, but that may just be my experience, not others.


> The Logs sent were before I switched off the AMD-VT. Now done. I did not see another log generated in the \LOG subdirectory but have seen a marked improvement in speed when I can get the WindowsXP VM to start.

Improvement in speed? Compared to what? AMD-V is disabled, so what improvement can be?


In regards to your other question, when the Windows XP VM has opened, when the AMD-V was enabled, rendering of the desktop was exceptionally slow (sometimes minutes for the desktop icons to appear) and clicking on folders to open also took sometimes minutes. After disabling that feature, the desktop seemed to open normally, and opening folders or other icons seemed to be a lot faster (seconds not minutes).

Just an observation and first impression, Sir. If we can get some way to consistently start VM sessions, I will try boots with the setting enabled and then disabled, to see if what I am observing is correct or not.

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on April 03, 2018, 04:46:34 am
Hi Mark!

...I will try what you suggested above. After migrating to libcx 0.6.2-1 I have not had a successful start of either VM, but that may be because of the current configuration...

The key here is to include the 'SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2' in either your CONFIG.SYS or in the vbox.cmd file (like the one I attached to my previous post) which you use to start virtualbox with. That will allow you to run vbox with the new experimental libcx. If you do not have the variable set it is a known fact that virtualbox will not run, at least that's with the standard OS2 or AOS kernels, the result may be different with OS4 kernels.

...I was curious about one other thing.

Is VirtualBox and your VM's installed on the same partition?...

Here is the configuration I have:

1) 'G:\' is my boot drive
2) VBox is installed on G:\
3) virtual machine definitions are stored on G:\, but in a different directly as defined by 'SET VBOX_USER_HOME=G:\HOME\VirtualBox'
4) the VM disk images are stored on another HD (and another parittion), idea there being to avoid disk contention if the main boot drive is being accessed by the program while at the same time the vm is trying to access it's virtual disk (basically a poor man's HD load-balancing if you will, same idea as yours)

I will give the version Valery is talking about a try next as that appears to be a slightly upgraded (newer) version, so if I'm going to experiment why not work with the one that is being actively worked on?
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: David Graser on April 03, 2018, 06:14:16 am
What file system do you use on the other hard drive for the disk images?
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 03, 2018, 06:49:13 am
Hi All!

After spending a couple of hours this afternoon, and an hour before turning in, I think I've found a consistent way to start the VM's without the 1018 error, under VirtualBox v5.0.51 (at least with LIBCX 0.6.0-1 installed),

1) Start VirtualBox
2) When the Virtualbox window comes up, wait 15 seconds, then start a VM. The VM should start normally.
3) If you get the 1018 error, click ABORT on the "unknown error window", then OKAY on the "Failed to open a session window", wait 15 seconds then start a VM session again. It should open normally.

I was able to open the VM that way 15 times in a row with success, including after closing VirtualBox completely, and starting the whole program again a few times. Waiting 10 seconds didn't do it, at least here, but everything worked at 15 seconds delay.

I back leveled from the experimental LIBCX 0.6.2-1 earlier in the evening, and as its late, so no testing there, I'm not planning to try it tonight but maybe tomorrow.

If anyone else cares to try and report back, with either version of LIBCX installed, feel free. Maybe we have a workaround, if it can be reproduced, Guys!

Best of the evening to you (from here at least).

Mark



Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on April 03, 2018, 09:52:32 am
What I get on the first try is
Quote
Failed to open a session for the virtual machine mint.

The virtual machine 'mint' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1).

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: MachineWrap
Interface: IMachine {f30138d4-e5ea-4b3a-8858-a059de4c93fd}


This means that either you have some required DLL's missing, or incorrect version, or having high memory problems. This is not a problem with VirtusalBox itself. Did you tried LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 before starting VBox? I don't need this on my machine, I only need this to start VBoxSDL successfully, otherwise SDL crashes. Yes, some high memory related problems, not VBox-related.

Waiting a bit after this allows the virtual machine to start.
The log seems to use a different charset,

Quote
Log created: 2018-04-03T00:38:20.588000000Z
Executable: K:\VPC\VIRTUALBOX.EXE
K:\VPC\VirtualBox.exe kLIBC á--comment ámint á--startvm á43cabf9e-2003-43ea-a9e0-db4fa1156a6c á--no-startvm-errormsgbox

Yes, there are some signs (probably, quotes, probably, in unicode) in command lines which VBox uses to start its processes. That's the way it works.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on April 03, 2018, 10:09:02 am
2Mark Szkolnicki:

> Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
> Component: MachineWrap
> Interface: IMachine {f30138d4-e5ea-4b3a-8858-a059de4c93fd}

As I said above to Dave, you either have shared memory problems, or have some required DLL's missing. As you said that you sometimes started the VM sucvcessfully, I suspect that you have (shared) memory errors.

Quote
The log generated at the time in the VirtualBox \BIN directory is as Dave also describes (mine was slightly different, as sent to you previously):

Log created: 2018-04-03T00:38:20.588000000Z
Executable: K:\VPC\VIRTUALBOX.EXE
K:\VPC\VirtualBox.exe kLIBC á--comment ámint á--startvm á43cabf9e-2003-43ea-a9e0-db4fa1156a6c á--no-startvm-errormsgbox

This log is not relevant. I asked about the VM log.

> At least for me, I can get the VM's to start up more consistently with LIBCX 0.6.0 installed than under the experimental LIBCX 0.6.2, but that may just be my experience, not others.

Yes, so use libcx 0.6.0, or, better, add LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 to your environment, if you use libcx 0.6.2

> In regards to your other question, when the Windows XP VM has opened, when the AMD-V was enabled, rendering of the desktop was exceptionally slow (sometimes minutes for the desktop icons to appear) and clicking on folders to open also took sometimes minutes. After disabling that feature, the desktop seemed to open normally, and opening folders or other icons seemed to be a lot faster (seconds not minutes).

This has nothing to do with performance. You should just disable AMD-V/VT-x on your machine.

> Just an observation and first impression, Sir. If we can get some way to consistently start VM sessions, I will try boots with the setting enabled and then disabled, to see if what I am observing is correct or not.

As I said above, fix the (shared) memory problems on your machine. Boot with which setting disabled/enabled? Did I asked you to disable/enable any options?
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on April 03, 2018, 10:20:59 am
@Mark Szkolnicki:

> error 1018

%define VERR_INVALID_CPU_ID    (-1018)

Are you sure it is 1018, not -1018?

This means that current CPU ID is invalid. Unfortunately, there is no reliable way to determine the current CPU ID for ring0 on IBM's kernels. Currently, LAPIC ID's are used to emulate getting the CPU ID, but they are not guaranteed to be consecutive, which is assumed. If your current CPU number gets into the "hole" between valid CPU numbers, this happens. So, you're unlucky. The only way to avoid this error is currently to use OS/4 kernel. Unlike IBM kernels, it has a consistent way of getting CPU ID's which are guaranteed to be consecutive (which is assumed in VBox). So, you can try using the OS/4 kernel (if you're experienced enough)

2Dave Yeo: Do you have SET NSPR_OS2_NO_HIRES_TIMER=1 in your config.sys? If so, could you repeat the test with it disabled (just set it to an empty line in OS/2 window before running the test)?
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 03, 2018, 04:39:44 pm
@Valery, considering the virtual machine will usually start up on the second or third try, I doubt it is a missing DLL, though it could be a too new DLL. Same with shared memory, as even on a newly booted system it works the same.
I do have to have LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 in my environment to get it working.
I did forget to unset SET NSPR_OS2_NO_HIRES_TIMER, here's the log, it's still broken.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Silvan Scherrer on April 03, 2018, 05:03:20 pm
@Valery, considering the virtual machine will usually start up on the second or third try, I doubt it is a missing DLL, though it could be a too new DLL. Same with shared memory, as even on a newly booted system it works the same.
I do have to have LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 in my environment to get it working.
I did forget to unset SET NSPR_OS2_NO_HIRES_TIMER, here's the log, it's still broken.
Unfortunately we know it's broken, but ArcaNoae says all is ok. We can't do more beside adding a ticket at there mantis, which we did long ago.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on April 03, 2018, 07:26:30 pm
2Dave Yeo:

Thanks for the log! So, it works with SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 for you? That's what I talked about. Leave it permanently in your config.sys then (or only in VBox environment). Unfortunately, it works fine on my machine, so I don't experience this, so I cannot play with it and see potential workarounds. VirtualBox.exe starts fine on my machine without SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=1. Only VBoxSDL.exe crashes without it. So, I'd recommend for now to leave SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 in CONFIG.SYS permanently.

Also, there can be problems with insufficient address space on your machine. How large is VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT on your machine? Did you tried to load VBox DLL's high? There is highmem.cmd for that purpose (you need to have highmem.exe on PATH).

PS Unfortunantely, these problems are likely to happen on each memory-hungry program like VBox, Mozilla, Qt or OpenOffice. OS/2 is a 32-bit OS. Additionally, it has special address space layout with Private/Shared/High Private/High Shared arenas, limiting each other. So, you can easily run out of address space, so no wonder.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 03, 2018, 07:59:41 pm
Good Morning Valery!


PS Unfortunantely, these problems are likely to happen on each memory-hungry program like VBox, Mozilla, Qt or OpenOffice. OS/2 is a 32-bit OS. Additionally, it has special address space layout with Private/Shared/High Private/High Shared arenas, limiting each other. So, you can easily run out of address space, so no wonder.


I would agree the problems opening seem to be related to shared or conflicting memory use.

As mentioned last night, I was able to get a VBOX VM to open consistently after a 15 second delay after the program initially opens, or after closing the 1018 error windows. However, trying it this morning, I was having the same difficulties, even after a 15 second delay, until I realized I had Seamonkey already open in the background (Seamonkey 2.35).

After closing it, I was able to start a VM, and, keeping VBOX running, to download some Windows XP update files, and then reopen and use Seamonkey normally.

However, closing Seamonkey and restarting a second time with VBOX running and reopen Seamonkey it (Seamonkey) would not open until i shut down VBOX

Its a work day so I cannot do a lot of testing but just empirical limited observation to add to the data being gathered

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on April 03, 2018, 08:17:34 pm
2 Mark Szkolnicki:

Quote
As mentioned last night, I was able to get a VBOX VM to open consistently after a 15 second delay after the program initially opens, or after closing the 1018 error windows. However, trying it this morning, I was having the same difficulties, even after a 15 second delay, until I realized I had Seamonkey already open in the background (Seamonkey 2.35).

After closing it, I was able to start a VM, and, keeping VBOX running, to download some Windows XP update files, and then reopen and use Seamonkey normally.

However, closing Seamonkey and restarting a second time with VBOX running and reopen Seamonkey it (Seamonkey) would not open until i shut down VBOX

So yes, these are some memory-related problems. Could you, please, show me your config.sys? Also, how many physical RAM is available to OS/2 on your machine? What does XCenter "sentinel memory monitor" show?
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 04, 2018, 03:47:54 am
2Dariusz

Good Evening, Sir!

Hi Mark!

...I will try what you suggested above. After migrating to libcx 0.6.2-1 I have not had a successful start of either VM, but that may be because of the current configuration...

The key here is to include the 'SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2' in either your CONFIG.SYS or in the vbox.cmd file (like the one I attached to my previous post) which you use to start virtualbox with. That will allow you to run vbox with the new experimental libcx. If you do not have the variable set it is a known fact that virtualbox will not run, at least that's with the standard OS2 or AOS kernels, the result may be different with OS4 kernels.

...I was curious about one other thing.

Is VirtualBox and your VM's installed on the same partition?...

Here is the configuration I have:

1) 'G:\' is my boot drive
2) VBox is installed on G:\
3) virtual machine definitions are stored on G:\, but in a different directly as defined by 'SET VBOX_USER_HOME=G:\HOME\VirtualBox'
4) the VM disk images are stored on another HD (and another parittion), idea there being to avoid disk contention if the main boot drive is being accessed by the program while at the same time the vm is trying to access it's virtual disk (basically a poor man's HD load-balancing if you will, same idea as yours)

I will give the version Valery is talking about a try next as that appears to be a slightly upgraded (newer) version, so if I'm going to experiment why not work with the one that is being actively worked on?

Thanks for all the information - looking at your CONFIG.SYS it was very well organized, annotated and easy to follow. I assume you do a lot of changes regularly, probably for development and testing.

I was interested in seeing most specifically if all your files (VBOX, VM's, etc.) were all on the same partition, or scattered across partitions like mine, as I thought that might be part of the problem, getting the VM's to start.

But I think I found a workaround last night, using VBOX 5.0.51 that allows for consistent start-up of the VM's, which I have used successfully multiple times today. It has also been tested with both LIBCX 0.6.0-1 and LIBCX 0.6.2-1 (with SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 set in config.sys).

1) Startup the VirtualBox window.
2) Wait 15 seconds, then click on the VM you want to open or press the start button. The VM you requested should start up normally.
3) If you get the 1018 error box, press the "Abort" button, then when the second window appears, the "Okay" button. Wait 15 seconds, then again start the VM, and it should start up normally
4) If neither works, and you have a program open that takes up a lot of memory (in my case Seamonkey 2.35), shut that down first, then attempt 1) to 3) above. You should get a normal VM start.

I tried the above waiting 10 seconds, which did not work for me, but waiting 15 seconds seemed to do it.

With limited testing I believe, as Valery has mentioned, that the problem is related to a shared memory or memory conflict problem. Once the Windows XP VM I've been using for test purposes started I was able to then start Seamonkey 2.35 again and use both successfully at the same time. However, at one point I had to shutdown Seamonkey, while I was still running VBOX, and attempting to restart SeaMonkey, it would not start a second time, with VBOX open

That did not occur again but i suspect YMMV based on how much memory was being used at any specific time

Anyway now at least here I plan to focus on the testing mostly on the VBOX program as opposed to getting the VM to start

You might want to try the above Dariusz or others and see if the same workaround works for you and Best

Mark

Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 04, 2018, 09:52:32 pm
2Valery

Good Afternoon Valery!

2 Mark Szkolnicki:

Quote
As mentioned last night, I was able to get a VBOX VM to open consistently after a 15 second delay after the program initially opens, or after closing the 1018 error windows. However, trying it this morning, I was having the same difficulties, even after a 15 second delay, until I realized I had Seamonkey already open in the background (Seamonkey 2.35).

After closing it, I was able to start a VM, and, keeping VBOX running, to download some Windows XP update files, and then reopen and use Seamonkey normally.

However, closing Seamonkey and restarting a second time with VBOX running and reopen Seamonkey it (Seamonkey) would not open until i shut down VBOX

So yes, these are some memory-related problems. Could you, please, show me your config.sys? Also, how many physical RAM is available to OS/2 on your machine? What does XCenter "sentinel memory monitor" show?

First in regard to one of your previous questions the 1018 error could be "-1018" (See attached JPG). When I saw a "dash" after "Unknown error", I normally assume in english it was a pause between two phrases, not a "minus" mark.

I have attached my ArcaOS 5.0.1 CONFIG.SYS below. The following statements are in it that we have discussed previously:

VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=2560
SET LIBCX_HIGHMEM=2 (I currently have LIBCX 0.6.2-1 installed)

I have also set VBOX USER HOME as follows:

SET VBOX_USER_HOME=O:\VBOX\VMs

If you require an explanation of any of the other statements let me know.

I could not find a "sentinel memory monitor" as I don't use XCenter, but I have the utilities "System Load" and "SysInfo v0.9.0" installed on the system. I don't know how accurate their memory display features are, from a programmer or developer standpoint, but they show 3062 Mb of installed memory.

I don't know if this will be of any use to you but I did some memory tests using both utilities when there was:

1) No Load (neither Seamonkey nor VirtualBox with a VM was running)
2) When only SeaMonkey 2.35 was running
3) When only a VirtualBox v5.0.51 VM was running
4) When both programs were running

To get a VirtualBox VM started I again had to shutdown Seamonkey first, but once the VM was running, I was able to start Seamonkey, and run both programs at the same time.

I have attached JPGs of the screenshots of what System Load and SysInfo were both showing related to memory for situations 1) to 4) above  - don't know if its of any value to you, or others Valery, but, as a tester, I like to be thorough.

BTW, I also noted a number of files in the VBOX USER HOME subdirectory as follows

selectorwindow.log
VBoxSVC,log
VirtualBox.xml
VirtualBox.xml-prev

The logs were from yesterday (April 3). Would they be of any use to you?

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on April 04, 2018, 10:22:40 pm
Mark,

I use a handly little utility called 'shmemmon' to show me the size of available shared memory. I took a quick look on Hobbes for this, but did not find it. I've attached to the post for your use, or if you reluctant to run this search for the shmemmon.zip out there.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on April 04, 2018, 10:23:22 pm
Dave,
What file system do you use on the other hard drive for the disk images?

...HPFS386...
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on April 04, 2018, 10:27:27 pm
Mark,

...You might want to try the above Dariusz or others and see if the same workaround works for you...

Actually, my configuration is working fine once I realized I was running the wrong version of VBox for the driver I was loading in CONFIG.SYS.

Your challenge looks like lack of shared memory. Run that shmemmon utility and watch it to see what's available, I'm guessing you will be able to co-related your ability to successfully run VBox with the times your system is showing sufficient shared memory available.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 04, 2018, 10:49:52 pm
Good Afternoon Dariusz!

Mark,

I use a handly little utility called 'shmemmon' to show me the size of available shared memory. I took a quick look on Hobbes for this, but did not find it. I've attached to the post for your use, or if you reluctant to run this search for the shmemmon.zip out there.

Downloaded and Thanks! When I have a bit of time I'll try it.

I assume it just runs in the background until terminated?

Dave,
What file system do you use on the other hard drive for the disk images?

...HPFS386...

Further to Davids question, I noted in your CONFIG.SYS that support for JFS seemed to be disabled - I assume your using HPFS386 on all your partitions?

Mark,

...You might want to try the above Dariusz or others and see if the same workaround works for you...

Actually, my configuration is working fine once I realized I was running the wrong version of VBox for the driver I was loading in CONFIG.SYS.

Your challenge looks like lack of shared memory. Run that shmemmon utility and watch it to see what's available, I'm guessing you will be able to co-related your ability to successfully run VBox with the times your system is showing sufficient shared memory available.

I will try it Dariusz and I suspect your right. Out of curiosity how much physical memory do you have installed, and how much shared memory do you have available, as per shmemmon.

That will give me some basis for comparison, based on us both getting the same error originally, but your ability to successfully start up a VM with the configuration switch.

M
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 04, 2018, 11:09:17 pm
Mark,

I use a handly little utility called 'shmemmon' to show me the size of available shared memory. I took a quick look on Hobbes for this, but did not find it. I've attached to the post for your use, or if you reluctant to run this search for the shmemmon.zip out there.

These tools can be misleading as the memory can get fragmented. For example, program needs 100 MBs of shared memory, meanwhile other programs have allocated 75 MBs a few times and released every other 75 MB chunk. Utility says 150 MBs free but because it is actually two 75 MB chunks, allocating 100 MBs fails.
Theseus is one of the few utilities that can actually show how big of chunks are free but unluckily it is hard to use.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 05, 2018, 03:11:47 am
Mark,

I use a handly little utility called 'shmemmon' to show me the size of available shared memory. I took a quick look on Hobbes for this, but did not find it. I've attached to the post for your use, or if you reluctant to run this search for the shmemmon.zip out there.

It actually seems to be a little utility which Jan van Wijk (of DFSee) created in 2002, hence the reason it was not posted to Hobbes, I suspect.

I created a program object and used SHMEMMON this evening to test shared memory both available and used. For the test I only used Seamonkey and VirtualBox, although a number of system related programs were also running in the background.

The numbers below are the available shared memory reported by SHMEMMON, after various actions were undertaken:

Opening VirtualBox first (without starting Seamonkey):

Initial original shared memory report - no additional load - 253.5 Mb
Virtualbox Program started -  231,2 Mb
Windows XP VM start  175.3 Mb
Seamonkey Program started with VirtualBox and VM start-up  85.5 Mb
Windows XP VM open and active (Seamonkey running) 74.3 Mb
VirtualBox VM shutdown (Seamonkey running)  129.8 Mb
VirtualBox Program Shutdown (Seamonkey running) 150.3 Mb
Start VirtualBox Program again (Seamonkey running) 129.5 Mb
Windows XP VM start (Seamonkey running) 85.5 Mb
Windows XP VM open and active (Seamonkey running) 74.3 Mb
Windows XP VM closed (Seamonkey Active) 129.5 MB
VM start 84.3 Mb
VM open 74.3 Mb
VM closed 130.0 Mb
VirtualBox Shutdown 143.3 Mb
Seamonkey closed 243.2 Mb

I rebooted and also undertook the rest starting Seamonkey first, then VirtualBox:

Initial shared memory report - no additional load  252.5 Mb
No startup of either program, but reported a minute later by SHMEMMON  244.0 Mb (background start-up of something in ArcaOS?)
Seamonkey started  152.8 Mb
VirtualBox started  122.5 Mb
Windows XP VM started and active (Seamonkey running) 69.5 Mb
Windows XP VM stopped 122.5 Mb
VirtualBox Program stopped 152.5 Mb
Seamonkey Program stopped 243.5 Mb

As Dave Yeo has said, the program results may be misleading but it shows what seemed to be happening with shared memory at least for this test, using only two programs. Not being a developer, and having no basis of comparison, I don't know if the shared memory initially reported is low, high, or about normal based on the physical memory installed, other parameters set, or the various apps loaded by the ArcaOS system in the background. I also don't know if anyone has used Theseus or some other program to measure how much shared memory either program requires to initialize.

I still found during the test, though, that I needed the 15 second delay prior to starting a VM in VirtualBox to get it to consistently open normally (the reason I tested the VM opening and closing three times in the first test). I have no idea why that works, but it  seems to be consistent for me, although for others your YMMV it seems.

Thought you all might be interested and Best of the evening!

Mark

Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 05, 2018, 04:11:15 am
Your initial shared memory is slightly low compared to here with ArcaOS but reasonable.
This is actually low shared memory. OS/2 (ver 2+) was originally designed to only make 512 MBs of memory available to a process and the kernel and system DLLs get a good chunk of that, which gives you your initial 250 MB or so of free memory. Doesn't matter how much ram you have installed as the swap file can take up any slack.
Starting with Warp Server and including Warp 4.5 (Warp 4+fp13) and newer, there is also upper shared memory, up to 2GB or so depending on the virtualaddress setting. The problem with this memory is it is only usable by pure 32 code.
You can use http://www.gus.biysk.ru/os4/tools/highmem.exe (http://www.gus.biysk.ru/os4/tools/highmem.exe) to set (some) DLLs to load high and save on low memory. Works mostly well with the newest kernel included with ArcaOS. With SeaMonkey closed, try running himem -b *dll in the SM program directory and retest your shared memory use. Sometimes, especially with older kernels, your better to use himem -c to only load the code high. Run himem -? to see all options including how to unmark. Experiment, don't load system DLLs high and if things start crashing, unmark.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 05, 2018, 07:54:28 pm
Good Morning Dave!

Your initial shared memory is slightly low compared to here with ArcaOS but reasonable.
This is actually low shared memory. OS/2 (ver 2+) was originally designed to only make 512 MBs of memory available to a process and the kernel and system DLLs get a good chunk of that, which gives you your initial 250 MB or so of free memory. Doesn't matter how much ram you have installed as the swap file can take up any slack.
Starting with Warp Server and including Warp 4.5 (Warp 4+fp13) and newer, there is also upper shared memory, up to 2GB or so depending on the virtualaddress setting. The problem with this memory is it is only usable by pure 32 code.
You can use http://www.gus.biysk.ru/os4/tools/highmem.exe (http://www.gus.biysk.ru/os4/tools/highmem.exe) to set (some) DLLs to load high and save on low memory. Works mostly well with the newest kernel included with ArcaOS. With SeaMonkey closed, try running himem -b *dll in the SM program directory and retest your shared memory use. Sometimes, especially with older kernels, your better to use himem -c to only load the code high. Run himem -? to see all options including how to unmark. Experiment, don't load system DLLs high and if things start crashing, unmark.

Interesting.

Thanks for the detailed technical reply, Dave.

I would try what you suggest from a testing standpoint. However, as this is a working machine at the moment, I may try what you suggest on one of my experimental machines to see if I note any differences related to shared memory, with the various incarnations of eCS / ArcaOS I use. For the moment, this shared memory configuration works for all my needs, but your suggestions may be of interest, from a testing standpoint, for others.

Also, having found a solution for the VM minus 1018 start-up issue that works for me, it really is not a concern, unless I run into other problems where shared memory may be an issue.

Best as always Sir!

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 05, 2018, 08:50:38 pm
Good Afternoon, Valery!


PS: No special additions version is required for 5.0.51. 5.0.51 is just a bit newer version from 5.0.6 -- no big difference, so the same 5.0.x additions should work well. Additions don't enhance performance significantly. They are for user experience with the VM to be more comfortable, e.g., shared folders, clipboard sharing, mouse pointer integration etc.


I ran into another potential issue which may be of interest, during testing.

Having found a way to consistently start a VM, I decided to try to use the VirtualBox Additions ISO to add VBOX additions to the VM, as you had indicated that the same 5.0.x additions should work well.

Reading the ReadMe that came with v5.0.6 it indicated:

Guest Additions for supported guest OSes (Windows,
Linux, OS/2) is named

     VBoxGuestAdditions_5.0.6.iso

   where 5.0.6 is the version number (it's best if it matches the version
   number of this VirtualBox package).

   Download this ZIP from the same location you took this archive from
   and unpack the contents to the directory containing VirtualBox.exe.
   After that, you can mount the Additions ISO in the Qt GUI by selecting
   Devices -> Install Guest Additions... from the menu.

I added the ISO to the \BIN directory, where VirtualBox.exe is located.  I then chose Devices | Insert Guest Additions CD Image and got:

"Could not find the Virtual Box Guest Additions disk image file"

"Do you wish to download this disk image file from the Internet"

I know it is a developmental release, but I was wondering whether anyone, using v5.0.6 had installed the Guest additions successfully and where they place the ISO file to do that?

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 05, 2018, 09:00:57 pm


I added the ISO to the \BIN directory, where VirtualBox.exe is located.  I then chose Devices | Insert Guest Additions CD Image and got:

"Could not find the Virtual Box Guest Additions disk image file"

"Do you wish to download this disk image file from the Internet"


Scratch That.

Devices | Optical Drives | Choose Disk Image  got me to the \BIN directory where I was able to mount the disk image and run it.

Mark
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Doug Bissett on April 06, 2018, 09:32:12 pm
VBoxGuestAdditions_5.0.6.iso must be renamed to VBoxGuestAdditions.iso, when it is placed in the BIN directory, to be recognized as the default additions ISO. You can open VBoxGuestAdditions_5.0.6.iso in the usual way though.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on April 07, 2018, 05:46:43 am
VBoxGuestAdditions_5.0.6.iso must be renamed to VBoxGuestAdditions.iso, when it is placed in the BIN directory, to be recognized as the default additions ISO. You can open VBoxGuestAdditions_5.0.6.iso in the usual way though.

Hmm...so here is a weird one...I have the ISO in the directory where the EXEs are (using the 5.0.6_OSE_r143 release). Attempting to mount the ISO through Mark's method fails, as does 'Devices=>Insert Guest Additions CD Image', that produces the following error:

=== START ===
Failed to open the disk image file G:\APPS\GENERAL\VBOX/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso.

Could not get the storage format of the medium 'G:\APPS\GENERAL\VBOX/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso' (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

Result Code: VBOX_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80BB0005)
Component: MediumWrap
Interface: IMedium {4afe423b-43e0-e9d0-82e8-ceb307940dda}
Callee: IVirtualBox {0169423f-46b4-cde9-91af-1e9d5b6cd945}
Callee RC: VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80BB0001)
=== END ===

Any ideas?
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Doug Bissett on April 07, 2018, 08:02:26 am
Quote
I have the ISO in the directory where the EXEs are (using the 5.0.6_OSE_r143 release). Attempting to mount the ISO through Mark's method fails, as does 'Devices=>Insert Guest Additions CD Image', that produces the following error:

That sounds like you have a bad copy. Can you mount the ISO in ISOFS?

I would suspect that you may have downloaded it in text mode, rather than in binary mode.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on April 07, 2018, 03:55:53 pm
Hey Doug,

...That sounds like you have a bad copy. Can you mount the ISO in ISOFS?...

Yup..you were right...thank you for pointing out the sometimes obvious culprit...I previously d/l'ed from Oracle VBox site, but as it turned out it was only a partial d/l...a new pull got me a working package.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Mark Szkolnicki on April 08, 2018, 03:02:34 am
VBoxGuestAdditions_5.0.6.iso must be renamed to VBoxGuestAdditions.iso, when it is placed in the BIN directory, to be recognized as the default additions ISO. You can open VBoxGuestAdditions_5.0.6.iso in the usual way though.

Heh Doug!

It installed correctly without renaming the ISO. When mounted, and, with the additions installed the VM actually is operating about as fast as the Host (ArcaOS) which is interesting, as I have used VirtualPC for years, and it was certainly operated a lot slower. However, that is the vanilla VM - i haven't installed or ran any apps yet - that is always the torture test.

M

Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on April 09, 2018, 09:33:27 pm
2Mark Szkolnicki:

> First in regard to one of your previous questions the 1018 error could be "-1018" (See attached JPG). When I saw a "dash" after "Unknown error", I normally assume in english it was a pause between two phrases, not a "minus" mark.

So yes, it is -1018, which means VERR_INVALID_CPU_ID, that is what I suggested. Probably, it will be some workaround for that in the future, but now only this way, until your LAPIC ID's are consecutive.

> VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=2560

It's too little! I have VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072 on all my three machines, and everything is working. Please try to change VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT to 3072, and THREADS to 511, PROCESSES to 128 explicitly. Also, it is desirable to change JFS cache to some lesser explicit value, like:

VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072
THREADS=511
PROCESSES=156
ifs=d:\os2\jfs.ifs /autocheck:* /cache:128000 /lazy:8,60,5 /p1

-- Here, JFS cache is limited to 128 MB, threads is limited to 511 threads in the system, PROCESSES are limited to 156 processes max. THREADS and PROCESSES eat up some structures per each thread/process, and they consume some hundreds of MB in the system arena, which could be too much. JFS cache is limited to 20% of available RAM, which could be too much too.  (20% from 3 GB is 614 MB, which is a large % from 1 GB of kernel memory, if VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072, so JFS cache should be decreased to say, 128 MB. The exact number should be determined in Theseus). THREADS/PROCESSES/JFS cache consume memory above VIRTUALADDRESS limit (kernel memory), while VBox consumes memory below it. So, if you have too little VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT, it can be not sufficient for VBOX. If you have VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT near to 3072, then only 1024 MB above it is available for kernel and drivers. So, if THREADS/PROCESSES/JFS cache are not limited explicitly, you can easily run out of kernel memory.

PS: How much memory you assigned to your VM? 330 MB?
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on April 09, 2018, 09:54:17 pm
2Dave Yeo:

> You can use http://www.gus.biysk.ru/os4/tools/highmem.exe to set (some) DLLs to load high and save on low memory. Works mostly well with the newest kernel included with ArcaOS. With SeaMonkey closed, try running himem -b *dll in the SM program directory and retest your shared memory use. Sometimes, especially with older kernels, your better to use himem -c to only load the code high. Run himem -? to see all options including how to unmark. Experiment, don't load system DLLs high and if things start crashing, unmark.

Yes, and I have a highmem.cmd script included in the VBox distribution, which starts highmem.exe whith required parameters, to load some segments into high memory. You can easily cause your system to hang, or some API's to fail if you try to load some DLL's both code and data segments to high memory, so, different DLL require different highmem.exe options.

For FireFox/Seamonkey it is sufficient to load only code segments of XUL.DLL high. No other DLL's are required to mark for SM/FF to be working ok.

Also, there is extpack.cmd which is useful to run if you need the VNC extpack to be working. OS/2 uses 8.3 DLL names, so, some DLL names should be shortened, that is what extpack.cmd is doing with VNC extpack DLL, and one more extpack, called DTrace.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Dave Yeo on April 11, 2018, 06:53:31 am
It's too little! I have VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072 on all my three machines, and everything is working. Please try to change VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT to 3072, and THREADS to 511, PROCESSES to 128 explicitly. Also, it is desirable to change JFS cache to some lesser explicit value, like:

VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072
THREADS=511
PROCESSES=156
ifs=d:\os2\jfs.ifs /autocheck:* /cache:128000 /lazy:8,60,5 /p1

-- Here, JFS cache is limited to 128 MB, threads is limited to 511 threads in the system, PROCESSES are limited to 156 processes max. THREADS and PROCESSES eat up some structures per each thread/process, and they consume some hundreds of MB in the system arena, which could be too much. JFS cache is limited to 20% of available RAM, which could be too much too.  (20% from 3 GB is 614 MB, which is a large % from 1 GB of kernel memory, if VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072, so JFS cache should be decreased to say, 128 MB. The exact number should be determined in Theseus). THREADS/PROCESSES/JFS cache consume memory above VIRTUALADDRESS limit (kernel memory), while VBox consumes memory below it. So, if you have too little VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT, it can be not sufficient for VBOX. If you have VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT near to 3072, then only 1024 MB above it is available for kernel and drivers. So, if THREADS/PROCESSES/JFS cache are not limited explicitly, you can easily run out of kernel memory.

My JFS is set to its default as installed by ArcaOS
Code: [Select]
IFS=D:\OS2\JFS.IFS /LW:5,20,4 /AUTOCHECK:*and it seems to only use 64MBs with 4 GB of ram installed,
Quote
D:\OS2>CACHEJFS.EXE

          SyncTime:       5 seconds
            MaxAge:      20 seconds
        BufferIdle:       4 seconds
        Cache Size:   65536 kbytes
        Min Free buffers:     327 (    1308 K)
        Max Free buffers:     655 (    2620 K)
Lazy Write is enabled

At that I remember trying to increase the cache size to 128 MBs and the system becoming very unstable.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on April 12, 2018, 12:28:59 am
Maybe, it depends on the JFS version, I'm not sure, but my version had too big cache by default. (I have no Arcaos, eCS 2.2 only, but I needed to set explicit JFS cache to have my system stable) After setting an explicit value, it become ok.

> At that I remember trying to increase the cache size to 128 MBs and the system becoming very unstable.

Are you sure you did all at the same time: Set explicit JFS cache, Set VAL and THREADS/PROCESSES as I said? Also, you should look into Theseus, to be sure: System->Kernel Information->Kernel Memory Usage. I have VAL=3072, so it should be 1 GB of kernel memory. In the above report I see Allocated: 872 MB, Committed: 295 MB ("Totals" at the bottom). So, 128 MB must be free. You can check it yourself -- some space should be free.

I have 3500 MB of physical memory available to OS/2 on this system. Some systems have less than 3072 physical memory available to OS/2. If so, then it maybe less kernel memory available. So, you'll need to tailor it to your system further.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: roberto on April 12, 2018, 09:02:39 pm
Hello Valery
About your coment this in ecs2.2:
VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=3072
THREADS=511
PROCESSES=156
ifs=d:\os2\jfs.ifs /autocheck:* /cache:128000 /lazy:8,60,5 /p1
I modified in arca502, the config.sys following your suggestion this line
IFS=C:\OS2\JFS.IFS /LW:5,20,4 /AUTOCHECK:*
for this
IFS=C:\OS2\JFS.IFS /cache:128000 /LW:5,20,4 /AUTOCHECK:*
And now I start the two versions of the virtual box well.
VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT=2880
The error he gave me was -1018, and it started sporadically. Now is ok.
Saludos
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: roberto on April 12, 2018, 11:19:32 pm
I have the host with arca502, and using guest xp created with the previous version works fine for me. VTx is selected. Although he tells me that this error is working well. But if I try to install ubuntu as guest or arcaos it gives me the error -1018 ... and when it starts it gives me an error in the installation.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Valery Sedletski on April 15, 2018, 03:03:35 am
2roberto: So, With VAL=2880 VBox starts ok, but you got error -1018? Unfortunately, no fix for this error, so far. On IBM kernels, CPU ID is got as Local APIC ID, which is not guaranteed to be in a contiguous range. So, when you got into the "hole", you got this error. The only means to get rid of this error is currently, install an OS/4 kernel. It can get CPU ID's reliably. (In the future, maybe, some workaround for IBM kernels is possible, but for now, use OS/4 kernel). Also note that if you'll get this error or not, depends on LAPIC ID's in your system. If they are contiguous, all is ok (like on all three of my machines). If not, you can get this error.

VT-x should be disabled in VBox settings, if you have IBM kernel!
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: xynixme on April 30, 2018, 10:06:34 am
Quote
LCSS should work with any version of OS/2, but it has only been tested with eCS, and ArcaOS. Testing on eCS will cease (I don't use it any more), but it should continue to work. Please, READ the instructions, if you use it. You may wish to tweak your CONFIG.SYS to retain comments.
FWIW, LCSS and its install script aren't aware of long file names, unlike all environments. E.g. dropped files or correctly typed CLI file names called:

C:\CONFIG.SYS tests\TWEAKED.SYS
I:\Test LCSS\My tweaked CONFIG.SYS

   Parameter: "%*" /SC

   Code: IF Left(INPUT_FILE,1)='"' THEN ...
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Doug Bissett on April 30, 2018, 07:45:30 pm
Quote
FWIW, LCSS and its install script aren't aware of long file names, unlike all environments. E.g. dropped files or correctly typed CLI file names called:

Well, thanks for letting me know (an e-mail isn't that difficult, you know, the instructions are in the README).

Quote
C:\CONFIG.SYS tests\TWEAKED.SYS
I:\Test LCSS\My tweaked CONFIG.SYS

   Parameter: "%*" /SC

   Code: IF Left(INPUT_FILE,1)='"' THEN ...

Sorry, but I don't understand what you are trying to say here. I use dropped file names a lot, many are in subdirectories. It always works. Please give me a specific example of what fails.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Doug Bissett on April 30, 2018, 08:19:42 pm
Quote
Sorry, but I don't understand what you are trying to say here. I use dropped file names a lot, many are in subdirectories. It always works. Please give me a specific example of what fails.

Never mind. I see the problem. An update will be posted to HOBBES, shortly.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: xynixme on May 01, 2018, 03:47:39 pm
Quote
Never mind. I see the problem. An update will be posted to HOBBES, shortly.

Thank you. There's one left. Not specific to 0.6.1, but to all REXX apps processing OS/2 file name arguments.

With a CLI the file specification "CONFIG.SYS" is valid, including the quotes. Or, at least, the first quote.

MD TEST
CD TEST
COPY C:\CONFIG.SYS .
LCSS.CMD "CONFIG.SYS
COPY C:\CONFIG.SYS .
LCSS.CMD "CONFIG.SYS"
COPY C:\CONFIG.SYS "CONFIG.SYS test"
LCSS.CMD "CONFIG.SYS test"
COPY C:\CONFIG.SYS "CONFIG.SYS test
LCSS.CMD "CONFIG.SYS test"

Unlike C, REXX requires you to get rid of the quote(s).

Hence "%*" /SC in PARAMETERS too, including the quotes. LCSS does save back-up copies, excellent, but with "CONFIG.SYS" (including the quotes) the output file CONFIG.SYS is broken.
Title: Re: VirtualBox problems
Post by: Doug Bissett on May 01, 2018, 07:56:43 pm
Quote
With a CLI the file specification "CONFIG.SYS" is valid, including the quotes. Or, at least, the first quote.

Hopefully fixed, without breaking something else.  0.6.2 at HOBBES.