Virtualization broke for no apparent reason

Hey,

Well, I'm stumped. I use VirtualBox to virtualize several different OSes for support and development purposes, and for some reason since my last reboot (of the host) they have all stopped working. All the machines now give the following error within seconds of booting:

"An error has occurred during virtual machine execution! The error details are shown below. You may try to correct the error and resume the virtual machine execution.

Unable to allocate and lock memory. The virtual machine will be paused. Please close applications to free up memory or close the VM.

Error ID: HostMemoryLow
Severity: Non-Fatal Error"


The thing is, my memory ISN'T low. I usually have close to 6.75GB of RAM free at any one time. It doesn't seem to matter how low I set the virtual machines' RAM allocation, it always gives the error, with every machine.

Yeah, I could've posted this on the VirtualBox forums, but I'm not registered there, and the people here seem smarter. Sooo... any suggestions?

BTW I am using the absolute latest stable release of VirtualBox.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I'm having basically the same issue with Virtual PC, so it's definitely not a problem with VirtualBox itself.

I just updated to the latest beta of VirtualBox and the problem persists. This is really frustrating because I can't figure what I'm suddenly doing different to cause this. Any ideas? Things I should check?

I'm sorry I have no fix for you. I can not understand why you get that message, with all the RAM you have available.

You could test if you can create a new vm and attach one of your vhd's from your problematic vm's to it, and see if it works. I'll keep searching and testing, I'll be back if I find something.

Kari

Kari said:

I'm sorry I have no fix for you. I can not understand why you get that message, with all the RAM you have available.

You could test if you can create a new vm and attach one of your vhd's from your problematic vm's to it, and see if it works. I'll keep searching and testing, I'll be back if I find something.

Kari

Thanks, your efforts are appreciated! I will try that suggestion ASAP.

I would try 2 things:

1. do a system restore to an earlier point in time - even better pull in an earlier image if you have one
2. delete the 2 vBox files completely from the system and reinstall vBox. Keep nothing of the old vBox installation

It would be also interesting to know which process is issuing the error message. Here is how: Error Message - Where Does it Come From

Kari said:

I'm sorry I have no fix for you. I can not understand why you get that message, with all the RAM you have available.

You could test if you can create a new vm and attach one of your vhd's from your problematic vm's to it, and see if it works. I'll keep searching and testing, I'll be back if I find something.

Kari

Well the new VM I created came up with the same error. Unfortunately.

whs said:

I would try 2 things:

1. do a system restore to an earlier point in time - even better pull in an earlier image if you have one
2. delete the 2 vBox files completely from the system and reinstall vBox. Keep nothing of the old vBox installation

It would be also interesting to know which process is issuing the error message. Here is how: Error Message - Where Does it Come From

I unfortunately cannot perform a system restore because I have other changes I have made on the PC since this error started that need to be preserved.

When you say to delete the current VBox completely, are you referring to the VMs as well? Cause I really need to keep at LEAST the VHDs intact if at all possible.

The error is being issued by VirtualBox.exe, the VirtualBox GUI.

Next thing to try is what Whs suggested, a complete removal and reinstall of VirtualBox. You don't have to delete vhd's, just the VirtualBox program files. I would use Revo Uninstaller.

After reinstalling VirtualBox, you can then create new vm's and attach existing vhd's.

huisinro said:

try rename your .VirtualBox folder under your home dir. Then create a new vm, attaching an existing hard disk.

Not sure if this really fixes it, but worth trying. I sometimes noted weird behavior due to certain config files.

This didn't work, unfortunately cause it's much easier than reinstalling the program! On the bright side, we now know it has nothing to do with the config...

Kari said:

Next thing to try is what Whs suggested, a complete removal and reinstall of VirtualBox. You don't have to delete vhd's, just the VirtualBox program files. I would use Revo Uninstaller.

After reinstalling VirtualBox, you can then create new vm's and attach existing vhd's.

I will be trying this just as soon as I have the time (hopefully later today).

OK, I tried completely uninstalling and reinstalling VirtualBox, making sure to delete EVERYTHING except the VHDs, and it still won't work.

I'd love to hear if anyone has any more suggestions. I badly need this software to work again.