Oracle VM VirtualBox 4 error: Host memory low
Dude!Jun 25 2011 — edited Jun 27 2011Hello,
Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0.8
Hardware: Mac Pro Early 2009, 8-core (16) Xeon Nehalem, 24 GB RAM, 8 TB storage.
Host System: MacOSX Client 10.6.7
Guest Systems: Oracle Linux 64-bit Versions 5.6 and 6.0
When I set the the memory of the VM guest OS to the maximum possible 3584 MB I receive "Host memory low" errors with status "non-fatal" that requires to reset the VM guest OS. The error can be reproduced when using "test media - it hangs at 78 %" from the OS installation DVD (iso image), as well as during the package installation and normal use.
Since the problem happens with version 5.6, 6.0 and 6.1 I wonder if this is a VirtualBox bug. The problem occurs less likely when setting the Virtual Machine to use less memory, i.e. 3096 MB, but still happens.
Is this problem known? What is a safe setting of max. RAM for the virtual machines?
When the error dialog occurs the dialog box also locks up when clicking to show details. It is necessary to reset the VM from the VirtualBox menu. Closing the VM window locks the mouse. The VBox error log shows:
PGM: Failed to procure handy pages; rc=VERR_NO_MEMORY rcAlloc=VERR_NO_MEMORY rcSeed=VINF_SUCCESS cHandyPages=0x8
cAllPages=0xe1047 cPrivatePages=0xc03a9 cSharedPages=0x0 cZeroPages=0x20c79
GMM: Statistics:
Allocated pages: bf3ad
Maximum pages: e009e
Ballooned pages: 0
PGM: Failed to procure handy pages; rc=VERR_NO_MEMORY rcAlloc=VERR_NO_MEMORY rcSeed=VINF_SUCCESS cHandyPages=0x7
cAllPages=0xe1047 cPrivatePages=0xc03aa cSharedPages=0x0 cZeroPages=0x20c78
GMM: Statistics:
Allocated pages: bf3ad
Maximum pages: e009e
Ballooned pages: 0
VM: Raising runtime error 'HostMemoryLow' (fFlags=0x2)
Changing the VM state from 'RUNNING' to 'SUSPENDING'.
Thanks.