Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of jxbma
jxbmaFlag for United States of America

asked on

Why is my VirtualBox Linux Mint 16 VM hanging on startup?

Hi:

I've got Oracle VirtualBox 4.3.6 installed on my Windows 7 64bit machine.
I've created a VM for Limux Mint 16 and run into problem(s).
The VM seems to work for a while and then I get into a "state."

It seems every once in a while, an instance I created just seems to hang at startup.
I get to the Linux Mint 16 Petra logo/screen. I see my username listed on the screen.
But, the Linux logon dialog never comes up. When this occurs, it's almost as if that VM has become corrupted or something like that (??)

I don't see any obvious errors. I've checked the logs and likewise there.
This has happened 3 or 4 times over the past several weeks. I'm forced to create an instance from a previous snapshot, and it appears to work fine.

At this point I've been taking frequent Snapshots so I don't have to redo much. But, creating new instances from snapshots is time consuming.

1) How can I tell what exactly is going on here?

2) What can I do to fix this issue on an existing VM instance?

3) What can I do to avoid this issue in the future?

I'm relatively new to the environment and am having difficulty finding appropriate answers to this (I've been googling....)


Thanks,
JohnB
Avatar of Vijay Pratap Singh
Vijay Pratap Singh
Flag of India image

Its can be solved Please enable PAE/NX in settings/system/processor and there is a bug in Virtual box 4.3 try to use 4.2 also while creating VM select Ubuntu x64 as host.
Avatar of jxbma

ASKER

Hi:

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.
I have enabled PAE/NX on the VM (what does that do?)
I am using Ubuntu x64 as the host.

Using PAE/NX seems to have no effect.

I'm concerned about going back to version 4.2.
I want to make sure that my existings VMs/snapshots don't get wiped out.
Is there anything that I need to be aware of when going back to 4.2?
Do I do an uninstall of 4.3 first?

Thanks,
JohnB
Yes take the latest snapshot and keep them seperately after that uninstall 4.3 and install fresh copy of 4.2 and mke new vm and check the issue if work fine restore from snapshot.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of gheist
gheist
Flag of Belgium image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of jxbma

ASKER

I'm going with 4.2 to start.
Do I have to install additions there as well?

Thanks,
JohnB
not required in either case but 3d rendering like transparent menu is do.e on virtual cpu
Either way linux mint comes without virtualbox graphics driver, and you need vm additions. e,g they let mouse slide over windows of guest and not lock in there...
Avatar of jxbma

ASKER

This is was definitely the way to go.
But in the interest of saving time and limiting frustration,
I purchased another machine. I'm planning on setting it up as dual boot Windows/Linux machine.

I was planning on going with Linux Mint 16. Is that the right direction, or should I consider going with Ubuntu instead?

Thanks,
JohnB
Dual boot is waste of time
Install vmware hypervisor (the free one) and have your 10 test machines 24x7
Avatar of jxbma

ASKER

Not to be naïve, but can you elaborate on why dual boot would be a waste of time?
I will certainly look into hypervisor.

My time has been limited on this project, so I'm trying to avoid spending a lot of time dealing with machine configuration/set up issues.  I would rather spend the time on actual development.

Ultimately, the Spring based web app will be hosted on AWS. But I'm trying to create a self contained local dev environment complete with IDE based debugging. I'm from an extensive windows background and am relatively new to the world of Linux.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
JohnB
Because you wait for reboot, when you can have two half-size systems running at full speed...