occasional problem starting VM (X server failure) when mismatched VGA

KrisThielemans commented 6 years ago

occasionally I have that the machine start but gets stuck on the console with a log-in prompt where all the text is flashing. That stops after a minute or so. This seems to be because the X server doesn't start (and there are multiple attempts causing the "flashing").

Most likely culprit is mismatched Guess Additions. (I'm using VBox 5.1.30).

I start to think we have 2 options:

highly recommend people to use the same VBox version as what was used at installation time
remove VGA and tell them to install it themselves

paskino commented 6 years ago

Yes, that's exactly the issue I found before updating the VGA.

bathomas commented 6 years ago

I just built the VM from scratch (30 mins on my laptop by the way), then uninstalled VGA. Once removed, I could no longer start gdm. So I re-installed via the command line and everything is now fine. It's not hard to do, but I'm reluctant to remove VGA and tell them to install themselves.

paskino commented 6 years ago

This whole business of VGA is kind of mysterios to me. Could you please tell me how

you would remove and
reinstall via the command line?

bathomas commented 6 years ago

Remove:

sudo mount /dev/sr0 /media/cdrom
cd /media/cdrom
sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run uninstall
reboot

Install:

sudo mount /dev/sr0 /media/cdrom
cd /media/cdrom
sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
reboot

paskino commented 6 years ago

If that's the case, can we not run this at creation time?

bathomas commented 6 years ago

Well the user would have to 'insert' the CD before hand...

paskino commented 6 years ago

When I insert the CD, I see a message in dmesg, but I don't manage to mount anything.

[   11.511549] vboxsf: Successfully loaded version 5.1.18 (interface 0x00010004)
[   12.093361] VBoxService 5.1.18 r114002 (verbosity: 0) linux.amd64 (Mar 15 2017 16:30:21) release log
               00:00:00.000096 main     Log opened 2018-02-21T12:40:34.454222000Z
[   12.093442] 00:00:00.000214 main     OS Product: Linux
[   12.093466] 00:00:00.000244 main     OS Release: 4.4.0-108-generic
[   12.093490] 00:00:00.000268 main     OS Version: #131-Ubuntu SMP Sun Jan 7 14:34:49 UTC 2018
[   12.093522] 00:00:00.000291 main     Executable: /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-5.1.18/sbin/VBoxService
               00:00:00.000292 main     Process ID: 1380
               00:00:00.000292 main     Package type: LINUX_64BITS_GENERIC
[   12.094347] 00:00:00.001106 main     5.1.18 r114002 started. Verbose level = 0

paskino commented 6 years ago

KrisThielemans commented 6 years ago

Uninstall procedure shouldn't need the VGA CD

sudo /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-*/uninstall.sh

I've just done that, but still have the "flashing" problem, which is maybe what Ben was referring to when saying the gdm doesn't work.

By the way, shouldn't the mount statement be added to update_VGA.sh (checking first if it is mounted or not), see #59

sudo mount /dev/sr0 /media/cdrom

KrisThielemans commented 6 years ago

by the way, your version 5.1.18 is really quite old by now. If we do ship with VGA installed, I would use a recent VBox for the creation. I'd even try with 5.2.6.

KrisThielemans commented 6 years ago

Looks like the remove actually doesn't remove everything so a reinstall can fail (and is presumably why gdm still fails). Typical!

I'm relatively sure this kind if thing would have been fixed in more recent VBox though. As opposed to fighting this, I suggest we go for the following:

you install VBOX 5.2.6 and create the VM with that
we recommend in the README and Download page to use the same version,
we say that if they don't, updating the VGA (as per our instructions) might solve any problems.

paskino commented 6 years ago

OK, I've updated my VirtualBox to 5.2.6. Created the new VM and installed the VGA. Uploaded to the website and added info in the CCPPETMR_VM Readme.

paskino commented 6 years ago

I guess we could close this, now.

KrisThielemans commented 6 years ago

thanks. downloading now.

Nobody will see the 5.2.6 in the README though. The wiki refers to the INSTALL.md. I'd put the info on the main download page http://www.ccppetmr.ac.uk/node/120. There it's kind of obvious. It also means that we don't need to update markdown files if you switch VB version.

After that, give this a label wontfix for now and remove from milestone. we can then come back to it when/if we're a bit smarter...

KrisThielemans commented 6 years ago

I downloaded then ew VM and tested it in my VB 5.1.30. I had no problems starting it (somewhat surprisingly). I couldn't simply insert the VGA CD, but had to first force "Remove the disk from the virtual drive" (in the Devices->Optical Drives menu). I wonder if this is because you exported the VM with the CD attached. not sure. Anyone?

reinstalling the VGA (effectively downgrading it) seems to have just worked. that's good!

ccp-petmr-codebot commented 6 years ago

I installed the new VM from the web site and it opens in my 5.2.6 VB on a Mac.

After pressing the ‘Insert Guest Additions CD Image ‘ option on the Devices menu, in the file browser on the VM, there is listed VBox_GAs_5.2.6. However, pressing this leads to the following error message: Error mounting /dev/sr0 at /media/sirfuser/VBox_GAs_5.2.6: Command-line `mount -t "iso9660" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1001,gid=1002,iocharset=utf8,mode=0400,dmode=0500" "/dev/sr0" "/media/sirfuser/VBox_GAs_5.2.6"' exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount: /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read-only mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sr0, missing codepage or helper program, or other error

   In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
   dmesg | tail or so.

-- David Atkinson D.Atkinson@ucl.ac.ukmailto:D.Atkinson@ucl.ac.uk | David.Atkinson3@nhs.netmailto:David.Atkinson3@nhs.net New Address: Centre for Medical Imaging, Room 2.02, Charles Bell House, 43 – 45 Foley Street, London, W1W 7TS.

From: ccp-petmr-codebot@googlegroups.com on behalf of Kris Thielemans notifications@github.com Reply-To: CCPPETMR/CCPPETMR_VM reply@reply.github.com Date: Thursday, 22 February 2018 at 00:58 To: CCPPETMR/CCPPETMR_VM CCPPETMR_VM@noreply.github.com Cc: Subscribed subscribed@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [CCPPETMR/CCPPETMR_VM] occasional problem starting VM (X server failure) when mismatched VGA (#60)

I downloaded then ew VM and tested it in my VB 5.1.30. I had no problems starting it (somewhat surprisingly). I couldn't simply insert the VGA CD, but had to first force "Remove the disk from the virtual drive" (in the Devices->Optical Drives menu). I wonder if this is because you exported the VM with the CD attached. not sure. Anyone?

reinstalling the VGA (effectively downgrading it) seems to have just worked. that's good!

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ccp-petmr-codebot commented 6 years ago

Actually, I’m confused now that I look again at our instructions: “You should update the Guest Additions by downloading the appropriate filehttp://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/ matching your VirtualBox version from Oracle.” I hadn’t done this. I sort of assumed that it must have come with the VB.

Overall, I think a few words in the text explaining what is going on might help users in case their situation deviates from the exact steps outlined.

-- David Atkinson D.Atkinson@ucl.ac.ukmailto:D.Atkinson@ucl.ac.uk | David.Atkinson3@nhs.netmailto:David.Atkinson3@nhs.net New Address: Centre for Medical Imaging, Room 2.02, Charles Bell House, 43 – 45 Foley Street, London, W1W 7TS.

From: ccp-petmr-codebot@googlegroups.com on behalf of CCP-PETMR-CODEBOT notifications@github.com Reply-To: CCPPETMR/CCPPETMR_VM reply@reply.github.com Date: Thursday, 22 February 2018 at 09:00 To: CCPPETMR/CCPPETMR_VM CCPPETMR_VM@noreply.github.com Cc: CCP-PETMR-CODEBOT ccp.petmr.devel@gmail.com, Your activity your_activity@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [CCPPETMR/CCPPETMR_VM] occasional problem starting VM (X server failure) when mismatched VGA (#60)

I installed the new VM from the web site and it opens in my 5.2.6 VB on a Mac.

After pressing the ‘Insert Guest Additions CD Image ‘ option on the Devices menu, in the file browser on the VM, there is listed VBox_GAs_5.2.6. However, pressing this leads to the following error message: Error mounting /dev/sr0 at /media/sirfuser/VBox_GAs_5.2.6: Command-line `mount -t "iso9660" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1001,gid=1002,iocharset=utf8,mode=0400,dmode=0500" "/dev/sr0" "/media/sirfuser/VBox_GAs_5.2.6"' exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount: /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read-only mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sr0, missing codepage or helper program, or other error

In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so.

-- David Atkinson D.Atkinson@ucl.ac.ukmailto:D.Atkinson@ucl.ac.uk | David.Atkinson3@nhs.netmailto:David.Atkinson3@nhs.net New Address: Centre for Medical Imaging, Room 2.02, Charles Bell House, 43 – 45 Foley Street, London, W1W 7TS.

From: ccp-petmr-codebot@googlegroups.com on behalf of Kris Thielemans notifications@github.com Reply-To: CCPPETMR/CCPPETMR_VM reply@reply.github.com Date: Thursday, 22 February 2018 at 00:58 To: CCPPETMR/CCPPETMR_VM CCPPETMR_VM@noreply.github.com Cc: Subscribed subscribed@noreply.github.com Subject: Re: [CCPPETMR/CCPPETMR_VM] occasional problem starting VM (X server failure) when mismatched VGA (#60)

I downloaded then ew VM and tested it in my VB 5.1.30. I had no problems starting it (somewhat surprisingly). I couldn't simply insert the VGA CD, but had to first force "Remove the disk from the virtual drive" (in the Devices->Optical Drives menu). I wonder if this is because you exported the VM with the CD attached. not sure. Anyone?

reinstalling the VGA (effectively downgrading it) seems to have just worked. that's good!

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/CCPPETMR/CCPPETMR_VM/issues/60#issuecomment-367531243, or mute the threadhttps://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AbMEZWCOQmRKsmetBIve_rY0wmHSeaK4ks5tXLu6gaJpZM4SJoIw.

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KrisThielemans commented 6 years ago

aargh. no idea about that error. anyone?

Related is #59 of course. @bathomas will add something to update_VGA.sh to try and cover one more option but it wouldn't fix this. Can you try the update_VGA.sh line from our installation instructions?

The line you quote from instructions is indeed incorrect. I have just rephrased it. Please check (@paskino, note that I refer to the Download page for the VBox version now).

paskino commented 6 years ago

Why do you think that sentence is wrong? The VM comes with VGA for VB 5.2.6. If the user has a different version of VB (s)he has to download the proper file matching the version of his VB and install it.

KrisThielemans commented 6 years ago

you don't need to download the VGA separately. it comes with your VB. if you insert the CD, it actually provides an iso with the VGA for that VB.

paskino commented 6 years ago

Possible duplicate of #77? Shall we close this as well?

SyneRBI / SyneRBI_VM

occasional problem starting VM (X server failure) when mismatched VGA #60