Ubuntu 18.04 lts freezes while in boot, in wndows Virtual box. Solution?

Question

I am Using Ubuntu in Virtual Box.. the Host OS is Windows10 with dedicated intel's Graphics.

I have reinstalled twice, probably this starts due to sudden shutdown or some reason. Dnt know whats the problem.

Saw a old post about this type on Ubuntu 12.04 / 14.04 LTS ... but their problem/ solution was on Nvidia Driver. And following that didnt help me! . Any solution ?

One more thing, i have the 18.04 live server one for a while .... this happens with it too...... but reason dnt know — Battleseeker_Rex, Apr 30 '18 at 16:02
Same here. Virtualbox 5.2. Ubuntu 18.04. Windows 10 Host with Intel graphics. Reinstalled thrice. Fails on bootup. No error, it simply waits with a purple screen and 5 dots. No guest additions, it is a fresh install. Trying to login the first time after reboot. Based on the answers, it seems there is no single reason. — RuntimeException, Jul 13 '18 at 15:26
I gather that currently (windows 10 v 2004 Virtualbox 6.1) VirtualBox doesn't work alongside WSL2 b/c of the bugs in VBox support for Hyper-V. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62184881/virtualbox-and-wsl2 see also https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-faq#will-i-be-able-to-run-wsl-2-and-other-3rd-party-virtualization-tools-such-as-vmware-or-virtualbox — David LeBauer, Aug 04 '20 at 21:51
It is also possible that a windows update changed some settings. Verify hyper-v is disabled and sandbox as well (found in the features part of windows) — FrankIJ, Oct 06 '20 at 13:18
I downloaded the xubuntu torrent and also on same problem. The guest Xubuntu hangs during the boot. Virtualbox 6.1.16 r140961 (Qt5.6.2). — cavila, Jun 28 '21 at 00:45

score 40 · Answer 1 · answered May 22 '18 at 07:45

40

i've had the same issue:

3D acceleration = off
10 GB Ram

My solution was:

1 processor => 4 processors
enable PAE/NX

answered May 22 '18 at 07:45

Willem Bressers

501

11

I also had to increase the number of processors (I set it to 2). Enabling PAE/NX was not necessary for me. – Ignitor Jun 09 '18 at 13:12
Same findings as @Ignitor – John McCann Jun 29 '18 at 14:29
@Ignitor worked for me too.. i.e. 2 seemed to suffice – bph Jul 06 '18 at 08:34
1

Adding +1 CPU worked for me. – Kladskull Jul 06 '18 at 18:06
scratch that - still not working for me, well it seems to not freeze randomly once in a blue moon – bph Jul 09 '18 at 11:29
pae/nx is disabled by default when creating a VM. It is required for 32 bit OS IIRC. Number of CPU should not have any effect. @bph - I find it random as well. – RuntimeException Jul 13 '18 at 15:37
Increasing RAM to 4 GB instead of 1 GB and the number of CPUs did the trick for me. – Aleksandr Hovhannisyan Jul 14 '18 at 13:50
mine is a 64 bit guest (linux) on 64 bit host (win10) and pae/nx is disabled by default for me. I've left it that way. What has fixed my problem (for now) is taking the steps detailed here but also running VB as Admin prior to installing the VM. – bph Jul 16 '18 at 08:20
Same finding as @Ignitor – A.Shoman Jun 28 '20 at 16:19

score 13 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 19 '18 at 05:36

Several of my old VMs seem to hang on bootup. If in Grub I select "recovery mode", the last messages displayed on the screen are:

smp: Bringing up secondary CPUs...
x86: Booting SMP configuration:

Then it hangs.

In my case, I can confirm that for all my VMs experiencing this problem, changing the Virtualbox setting "System -> Acceleration -> Paravirtualization Interface" from "Legacy" to "Default" enabled these old VMs to work again. Switching it back to "Legacy" immediately makes it hang on boot, so I know for certain this is the key to the issue in my case.

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 30 '18 at 20:41

6

In the VirtualBox machine settings, simply turn off the "3D acceleration".

edited Apr 30 '18 at 20:41

fosslinux

3,831

answered Apr 30 '18 at 17:08

Battleseeker_Rex

501

6

I already had 3D acceleration turned off, but I did increase the video memory from 16 to 64 Mb and that got it to work for me. – Chris Chubb May 08 '18 at 13:57
i have kept my Vid memory full -_- @Chris Chubb – Battleseeker_Rex May 09 '18 at 06:10
It was already off for me. Adding a second cpu per bressers answer did the trick. – Dave Jul 05 '18 at 15:03
Worked for me also. – Pratip Ghosh Jun 26 '22 at 05:58
Still works in 2024. – tod Jan 24 '24 at 05:25

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 30 '18 at 20:54

3

Did you allocate enough RAM to the virtual machine? Give it 2GB or more RAM. I discovered when I ran Ubuntu 18.04 live cd on virtual box, it froze at some point, but on allocation of more RAM, I got it working perfectly

answered Apr 30 '18 at 20:54

odifek

56

i gave it 4 GB ram .... and 2 core to process from the start .... Turning off the 3d acceleration ... the problem is not repeating now !!! – Battleseeker_Rex May 01 '18 at 05:49

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 09 '18 at 21:44

I had the same problem. When I experienced the problems my settings were:

RAM 4GB
CPU 3
PAE/NX Enabled
VT-x/AMD-V Enabled
Nested Paging Enabled
3D Acceleration Disabled
2D Video Acceleration Disabled

I changed the following settings:

CPU 1
PAE/NX Disabled

That made it work.

I changed the following setting:

PAE/NX Enabled

It still worked.

Looked like there is 'something' with the number of processors. Based on the other answers, there does not seem to be a 'right' number that works for every system.

I then realized that I also have an Ubuntu 18.04 Server VM on my system. This one still works. I noticed that for this virtual machine the Paravirtualization Interface is set to Default, while for my Desktop VM (the one I was having problems with), it was set to Legacy. I changed it to Default and now it works, with any number of CPU's.

So the solution, for me, was to:
Set Paravirtualization Interface to Default.

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 31 '19 at 19:43

3

For me, I had to disable hyper-v before I could get it to work. Increasing the other options listed in this answer didn't help. This can be done by searching for "Turn windows features on or off" in Windows, then un-checking Hyper-V (you need to restart your computer after).

answered Jan 31 '19 at 19:43

Jon

323

I was installing Ubuntu Server and your answer helped. A detailed ans is here. – VivekDev Apr 01 '20 at 05:10

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 19 '19 at 09:31

2

I had a similar problem and this is what I did to fix it.

Essentially changed the graphics controller from VMSVGA to VBoxSVGA. My 3D acceleration is still on and I have video memory at 128 MB.

See here for the difference between the different graphics controllers.

answered Jun 19 '19 at 09:31

Daniel

3,980
4
29
36

2

Adding video memory and making it 128 MB helped to fix my screen issue – Narendran Solai Sridharan Dec 14 '19 at 01:52

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 07 '18 at 00:26

Was freezing on "Booting smp configuration" after upgrading to 18.04 / Kernel 4.15.0.33 on Virtualbox 5.2.18

Had to go to VM Settings -> System > Acceleration > Paravirtualization Interface -> Default (Was "legacy" before).

3D acceleration is enabled and working (Make sure to install guest additions to make it run smoothly)

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Nov 01 '18 at 14:29

I am using Virtual Box 5.2.20 and Ubuntu 18.04.1. I was trying to install Ubuntu and it was painfully slow to boot and log showed guest would become unresponsive every few seconds. What finally worked for me was to change the paravirtualization to legacy in order to complete the install. Then the guest would hang on start up. I had to change the paravirutalization mode back to default in order to successfully boot.

RuntimeException · Answer 10 · 2018-07-13T16:34:41.243

0

It seems like there is no definite answer to this one.

What worked for me is - Uncheck the box labelled "Solid-state Drive" for the virtual hard disk.

3D acceleration is Enabled. 128 MB Video Memory. 4 GB RAM. 2 CPU. Virtualbox Guest Additions are Not installed. All other system settings are at default.

edited Jul 13 '18 at 16:34

answered Jul 13 '18 at 16:05

RuntimeException

101

Hi Runtime! Can you explain why disabling the Solid-state Drive ? It's common that the 3d-acceleration can cause freezing. – abu_bua Jul 13 '18 at 16:22
Select your VM in manager > Settings > Storage > Select your VDI under SATA > Uncheck the Solid-state Drive box. It is disabled by default. I have an SSD so I had enabled it. Apparently, it is for the guest to see it as an SSD. Seems like there is a bug in Virtualbox 5.2.14 and/or Ubuntu 18.04 where it cannot handle SSD properly. – RuntimeException Jul 13 '18 at 16:37

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Jun 23 '20 at 18:43

0

The only thing that worked for me:

Increase "Video Memory" settings from 16MB to 128MB.

answered Jun 23 '20 at 18:43

pagliuca

244

Ubuntu 18.04 lts freezes while in boot, in wndows Virtual box. Solution?

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