The 5 Minute Freeze - Any solution?

[jsa]

Workstation 5.5.3 build-34685,

Suse 10.2 x86-64 Host,

Vista guest,

Dell 9400 laptop Core 2 Duo 2gig ram.

Very often (so often as to be virtually unusable) VMware will

cause my entire X server to freeze such that the Keyboard and Mouse

are totally unusable.

The guest machine is totally unresponsive and no activity

is shown

The HOST is still running, clock in task bar updating but it

will not respond to the mouse or keyboard.

GKrellm shows processor utilization dropping to near zero,

and bursts of intense disk activity lasting close to 30 seconds

followed by a lull, then more intense disk activity.

Reading other threads, I have my VM locked to a single cpu

(because if allowed to migrate as it wishes processor utilization

jumps to 100% on both cpu). My cpu is locked on high performance

so they will not be throttling up and down.

If I do nothing in the guest, it does not lock up the machine.

But any activity in the guest will lock the Xserver solid (or

prevent any input - gkrellm still shows changing activity so

obviously video output still works.

SSH into the laptop from another machine still works.

After 5 minutes the lock will clear and I can continue

working in the vm for another 2 to 6 minutes.

What is this problem, and when will it be fixed. I see other

references going back almost 6 months on 5 minute freezes.

[el1971]

How much RAM is assigned to your Host OS and how much to your guest OS? Does this problem also happen on a Windows XP guest?

\-- Edi

[jsa]

I set up the vista guest with slightly more than the recommended ram, 776 out of the two gig available.

I have not seen this behavior in XP, 2k, or 98. I'm generally running only one vm when working on vista, but frequently run two when running xp/2k.

The vista guest doesn't write to the screen at all, clock does not change, nothing.

I suspect it has locked up, and failed to release kbd and mouse, and therefore nothing else can get focus. (The mouse pointer will move out side of the VM, onto the desktop, but I can not activate any other Linux window, widget, or program.

[telfred]

Have you tried the VM Workstation 6.0 beta ? I think that Vista guests are better supported in that version of VM Workstation than the one you are currently using !

[jsa]

Not yet, I'm kinda hoping to not induce that much disruption on the platform

as my principal focus is using vmware for testing software changes, rather

than testing vmware.

I suppose that's the next step, especially since nothing in the forums threads suggests anyone has a definitive fix.

Past reports of the 5 minute lockup in the forums did not all involve vista.

Is Vmware Player less susceptible?

[telfred]

As I understand it, you are not finding the lockup problems with OSes apart from Vista.

The basic problem with Vista is that Vista has incomplete support in versions of VM Workstation before version 6. VM Player is unlikely to be any better than VM Workstation.

[el1971]

I wouldn't use VMware Workstation 6 beta for production use. You'll note that it's extremely slow especially for the reason that debugging information is turned on and cannot be turned off.

You can test[/b] Vmware Workstation 6 beta to see if it resolves the problem and try the official release when it comes out.

\-- Edi

[jsa]

Well the odd part of this lockup is that it always clears, unlocks and resumes processing after almost precisely 5 minutes.

What process, in windows or Linux cycles on a 5 minute basis?

I have never seen any other program in Linux be able to "own" the x server (xorg 7.2) in such a way. The x server is not dead, its updating the clock and gkrellm is running even the mouse pointer is working, but no keyboard or mouse events get passed to any other apps.

[jsa]

I take it back, I just had a 5minute lockup in Windows 2000 guest, while the rest of the linux host continued to operate fine, other than that the Xserver was not responsive to keyboard or mouse input. I was able to ssh into the machine and could not find any task using any significant resources. (0.95 load).

So its not limited to vista, but might it be limited to Dual processors?

[ArtCube]

Has anyone else noticed that Vista defaults to indexing the vmware files?

[sshapiro63]

I had random freezes when running a Xandros guest on an XP host. It was caused by Beagle. I stopped that service and have not had any delays since.

[jahn]

Hi jsa

i have the same notebook like you with the same X-Server freeze problem

since i have upgraded my SuSE 10.1 to SuSE 10.2 my Windows XP freeze always in VMWARE 5.5.3

i have used this Virtual Host a long time on SuSE 10.1 without problem so it must be a problem with vmware on Suse10.2 with a Dell Inspiron9400

Dell Insprion 9400 (1,5GB RAM)

[AVonGauss]

Nah, it happens on my Kubuntu 6.10 installation as well with a Windows XP guest. In my case, I never saw the issue until I started using a new Dell Core 2 Duo Notebook for the host.

Any update on this issue? It occurs with the 5.5.3 release and the latest beta 6 release.

[jsa]

Do you suppose after the let the IPO there will be enough money to buy the

developers a Core 2 Duo machine so they can get around to fixing this problem?

If its still in version 6 I would call it a show stopper, when the most popular CPU on the market causes their flagship product to lock up.

[RDPetruska]

Have both of you disabled the CPU frequency adjusting in the BIOS (SpeedStep, etc.)?

[Rayj00]

I am seeing something similar on my Dell Inspiron Duo.

I have Ubuntu 6.10 as host with VMware guest as Windows XP, SP2....

For instance, sometimes when I am browsing the internet using IE from the guest, and I am at a website that has drop down menus (Yahoo Finance

is usually the one that does it for me) the entire box freezes. Can't do anything.

After a few minutes (I didn't time it), everything comes back and all is ok???

Weird.....

[KYordy]

I agree with RPetruska. I have seen this occur on PCs with frequency adjust(Speedstep, etc.) Once the speed adjust was disabled the problem went away. As for Dual Core PCs, nearly every problem I have come across was remedied by going to the manufacturer's website and/or Micro$oft for updates. Lots of issues!!!!

Good Luck!

[AVonGauss]

I can't remember at this point if I tried temporarily disabling the SpeedStep option when originally going through the issue back in November of 2006. My understanding from following the forum posts is that disabling the SpeedStep option in the BIOS or using the noacpi option on the kernel avoids the problem, but neither option is really a viable option or workaround for me.

[Rayj00]

So, what updates in particular would I be looking at for

the Dell Inspiron 9400 Duo?

[jsa]

Disabling acpi is NOT an option for any modern acpi based machine. These machines depend on this to keep all the periphereals working.

Disabling acpi seems to the the modern linux equivelent of waving a chicken over ones head to scare off evil spirits.

Disabling speedstep locks your machine to the lowest speed, not the highest.

Using the tools of your distro, like kpowersave or some such you will find it

more stable if you set your powermanagement to the highest processor speed.

Also it seems to help by setting the virtual machine to use only a specific single processor as mentioned in this KB article:

http://kb.vmware.com/KanisaPlatform/Publishing/316/2039_f.SAL_Public.html