VirtualBox aborts after changing the video driver

[James Moe]

opensuse v11.2 linux 2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop x86_64
windows XP sp3 w/1GB RAM allocated
amd AM2 5200 (dual core)
ati radeon hd3200

The host was running the open source radeon video driver; it was mostly good. I then got a program in Windows that is quite graphics heavy, and complained about the GPU acceleration being unavailable.

It suggested in discussion ​http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=30960&sid=5a0b8ff99d9a254929447057a748a1b7 that the ATI flgrx video driver was required for Direct3D support in a Windows VM. I downloaded the latest version and installed it per the installation notes.

Since there was no observable difference in the Windows VM performance, I reverted to the original video driver. All VMs abort at startup now with the original radeon video driver. I MUST now use the flgrx driver even though I do not like it (it has a few annoying features that cannot be modified).

[James Moe]

VBox log of an aborted session. All VMs produce this log.

[James Moe]

VBox log of a typical successful startup.

[Frank Mehnert]

I assume this crash vanishes if you disable both 2D and 3D support for your guest?

[James Moe]

Yes. The crash does not happen when the acceleration is disabled.

However, having the 3D acceleration disabled is hardly optimal, especially for a Windows VM. And it was enabled and functioning before I went through the fglrx exercise.

[James Moe]

This defect persists in VirtualBox-3.2-3.2.0_61806_openSUSE111-1.x86_64.

[Frank Mehnert]

It would help if you could provide a ​core dump. If you can provide one please contact me via private E-mail at frank _dot_ mehnert _at_ sun _dot com.

[James Moe]

It persists in v3.2.4_62467_openSUSE111-1.x86_64.

[Frank Mehnert]

And still no core dump.

[James Moe]

I'm confused. I sent you the core dump two weeks ago to the email address given in comment 4. You said it was not much use.

[Frank Mehnert]

Oh, James, then I have to apologize! Right, I found the related E-mails. Actually I would like to try it again if you could provide another core dump. Could you generate another one with VBox 3.2.4 and send it to me?

In your last mail you wrote that it originally worked with the open source Radeon driver, then you switched to the fglrx driver and then you reverted to the open source driver but now you still get these crashes. To me this looks like there are some leftovers of the fglrx driver.

Anyway, could you make sure that your openSUSE 11.2 system is up to date and provide me a core dump again? And the output of rpm -qa could be interesting as well. Thank you!

[James Moe]

Yes, I suspect also that the fglrx driver installation damaged something. I have no idea how to fix it.

openSuse 11.2 is up-to-date.

core dump to follow.

[James Moe]

Oh! This is with VBox 3.2.4.

[Frank Mehnert]

Thanks for the core dump. Still no news. Apparently the crash happens in some non-VirtualBox library. Please could you attach the compressed output of

rpm -qa

as I requested? Oh, and please could you attach the output of

ldd /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox.so

as well?

[James Moe]

The rpm and ldd requested.

[James Moe]

I have fixed my system. I am not sure which of two things I did that made a difference, likely the first.

The first was to uninstall the fglrx driver. The site-specific build created an rpm that did the final build and installation of the driver. I reversed that process ("rpm -e ...").

The second was to use

Xorg -configure

to configure the video instead of

sax2 -r -m 0=radeon

The result is that 3D acceleration is now allowed (but not 2D acceleration :-( ), and the VMs start with 3D enabled.

[James Moe]

VirtualBox-3.2-3.2.8_64453_openSUSE111-1.x86_64.

I had the opposite happen on another system. The radeon driver caused VBox to abort at startup while the fglrx driver allows normal operation.

[Frank Mehnert]

Please reopen if still relevant with VBox 4.1.22.