Virtualbox returning errorID=BLKCACHE_IOERR

Question

I was using a guide in order to create a basic Jira plugin as sort of a experimental/hands-on way to get comfortable and familiar with the Jira SDK and with creating plugins regarding Listeners. I am running Ubuntu on a VM, and I followed all the steps included in the guide. My VM started to freeze, and I thought it was maybe Jira at first but now I know there is something wrong with the VM itself. I get this error:

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. The I/O cache encountered an error while updating data in medium "ahci-0-0"(rc=VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR). Make sure there is enough free space on the disk and that the disk is working properly. Operation can be resumed afterwards.

The details say:

fatal=false, errorID=BLKCACHE_IOERR

I looked into the log file and this is right where it goes wrong/throws an error:

00:01:06.499361 I/O cache: Error while writing entry at offset 102912000 (110592 bytes) to medium "ahci-0-0" (rc=VERR_DEV_IO_ERROR)

Not really sure what to do. I have important stuff in the VM and I really don't want to set it up all over again.

Solution 1

I ended up finding a fix with the help of antiduh: I cloned my old vdi into a new vdi using: VBoxManage clonehd Linux.vdi LinuxClone.vdi Once that happened I opened up VirtualBox and created a new VM and when it came to the Hard Disk section, instead of creating a new virtual disk I selected my existing LinuxClone.vdi file and when I started it up, it ran! I got the idea from this article.

Solution 2

The solution is simply to enable the cache I/O host. It can be activated in the configuration of the machine, Storage »SATA Controller" Use the cache I/O host (all other values are those used by default VirtualBox). After this change the error disappears

Solution 3

I actually ran into this problem because the disk, where I save all my VM disks, was full. So I cleared some space and I was able to resume the VM.

Comments

[antiduh]

Your first problem is that your VM is freezing. An operating system should never freeze, and if it is, something else is wrong. Does the VM have enough memory? Does the host have enough memory? Is either swapping? Does the compilation step use a lot of memory? Do you have buggy VM software? Guest OS? Host OS? Bad hardware? Tilton's first law - fix the first problem first.

[davzaman]

Yeah I have ample hard drive space on both the VM and the host (And 1 GB RAM out of 4 for VM). My guess is that that compilation might be using a lot of memory. Nothing goes wrong until I try to compile the code. Then the VM just stops responding, clicking or typing anything has no effect but Virtual Box doesn't pick up on anything wrong, and I don't get a "Not Responding" from my host until I try to force quit the VM.

[antiduh]

You should watch memory, cpu, and disk/swap statistics on the host and guest to see what happens during compilation. FYI hard drive space doesn't have much to do with this.

[davzaman]

I wish I could copy and paste the output, is there a way I can send you the screenshots I took? I'm not very sure how to analyze the swap statistic and the Page in/out stats, it would mean a lot if you could take a look at them and see what might be going wrong. I don't see any issue with using more CPU, Memory or Swap greater than the amount I have on the VM monitor.

[antiduh]

Got a Dropbox or Google drive or similar? You can publish files from those.

[davzaman]

dropbox.com/sh/5y0htj20bl6ofet/AACRkihP2IIJTAizvsgbENmVa Here is all of the photos/errors I got. I tried looking up the error and following other people's ways but to no avail. Would you like my VB log file? Or at least the parts where it starts to fail? (I am going to edit the question so it is about VB and not Jira)

[antiduh]

I would post your VB log in the dropbox, or just make sure the relevant parts are in the question's text (so all the information can stay within SA).

[antiduh]

What version of VB are you using? Are you using snapshots? Have you tried the 'Use host I/O cache option' (forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=38523)? What kind of VB disk are you using - vmdk? vmdi? Could you explicitly list what host OS you're using, and what guest OS? (Mac and Ubuntu, but details would be nice).

[antiduh]

Found some more mac users having the exact same problem: davidmartinez.net/archivos/linux/… (use google translate); same solution - enable 'use host I/O cache'

[davzaman]

I added the log file to the dropbox link. I am using version 4.13.12 (my mac OS is 10.8.5 and 4GB 1600 MHz DDR3 memory, with a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 processor, I am considering trying updating to Mavericks?) and I am not using snapshots. I already had it selected (I wish that was the fix) I tried deselecting and reselecting and hoping for a miracle but VB laughs in the face of hope haha. I'm not sure if this means anything but it recently started opening up to a GNU GRUB startup instead of automatically logging me in like it usually does. Guest OS: I believe Ubuntu version 12.04.4

[antiduh]

The end of that log is trying to tell us something - a bunch of IOs are taking forever to flush to disk. It honestly sounds like its either a bug in VB/VB's kernel drivers, or with OSX (too many pending flushes? got me). Some ideas - make sure you're using a "pre-allocated" disk for the VM; try giving the VM more or less ram; try changing the number of processors the VM emulates; try changing to a different VM disk type (vmdk?).

[antiduh]

Here's one - try attaching a decent-sized thumb drive to the computer, wipe any filesystems on it, and create a new VM that uses the thumb drive as a raw disk; if you can't use a thumb drive, maybe a spare hard drive? Install ubuntu to it, and run a test that does ton of disk IO (copy some big files around inside the VM). Maybe if the VM can use a raw block device, you can get around these host cache flush problems.

[davzaman]

Thank you for helping me figure out what is going wrong and taking your time to help me! I'm using pre-allocated disk space,and I tried giving +/- RAM and changing the # of processors both of which didn't work. I'm not very sure how to change to a different disk type? (Or how I would do that while avoiding erasing what I have now?) Would you consider 16GB flash drive big enough? I'm a little confused about how the flash drive helps, does it become an outlet for the flush?

[davzaman]

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

[TMa]

Yes! Works also for SATA/.vmdk. Thanks

[x5657]

First boot after doing this went blue-screen, but second boot was all good.

[Aquadarius]

Worked for booting from a physical drive! Host: Windows 10, Guest: Ubuntu 18.04

[Lajos]

This worked for me too. The top voted was failing during e2image copy