Solved shared folders crash VirtualBox 7.0.18 with 14.1 guest on Windows 10 host

[ko56]

Hello,

I have been running FreeBSD on my laptop as a VBox guest on a Windows 10 host for about 3 years. I have a shared folder set up, which has been working fine after being mounted with a command like
mount_vboxvfs -w myshare /mnt as it says in the manual.
However, I am now having problems with FreeBSD 14.1 and VirtualBox 7.0.18 (latest).
After mounting, any attempt to copy a file between the VM and the host makes the VM crash and reboot.
It is possible that this started happening earlier, when I upgraded from 13.2 to 14.0, I am not sure.
I have tried to downgrade VBox, through various 7.0.x versions, even down to 6.1.50. Problem persists.
My only guess at this point is thatthe issue has to do with the upgrade from 13.2 to 14.x, or it has to do with Windows 10, which Microsoft is constantly updating.
Does anyone else see this problem? Any ideas?

 

[T-Daemon]

I am now having problems with FreeBSD 14.1 and VirtualBox 7.0.18 (latest).

I suspect due the fact that emulators/virtualbox-ose-additions (required to share folders) is available at most in version 6.1.50,

emulators/virtualbox-ose and all related slave ports (packages) version update to 7.0.18 is in progress, but this can take a while until finish (see comment #14).

As a workaround, the "Shared Folder" can be exported as a NFS share. Not sure though if that's easy feasible from Windows, I haven't worked with Windows for a long time.

Or use the FreeBSD guest as the NFS server, and Windows as the NFS client.

 

[ko56]

I suspect due the fact that emulators/virtualbox-ose-additions (required to share folders) is available at most in version 6.1.50,

emulators/virtualbox-ose and all related slave ports (packages) version update to 7.0.18 is in progress, but this can take a while until finish (see comment #14).

As a workaround, the "Shared Folder" can be exported as a NFS share. Not sure though if that's easy feasible from Windows, I haven't worked with Windows for a long time.

Or use the FreeBSD guest as the NFS server, and Windows as the NFS client.

I'll try the NFS mount, thanks. But where is this comment #14 that you're referring to?
Also, the fact that downgrading as far as Vbox 6.1.50 doesn't solve the problem is disquieting, and seems to point to something else.

 

[T-Daemon]

But where is this comment #14 that you're referring to?

271146 – emulators/virtualbox-ose{-*}: update to 7.0.18

bugs.freebsd.org

Also, the fact that downgrading as far as Vbox 6.1.50 doesn't solve the problem is disquieting, and seems to point to something else.

I was wrong in my additions version related suspicion, it's kernel version related. Sorry!

emulators/virtualbox-ose-additions provides vboxguest.ko and vboxvfs.ko kernel modules. Those modules are build against kernel sources, but official packages are build against the lesser supported FreeBSD version from a branch, in this case 14.0 branch.

You need to build emulators/virtualbox-ose-additions for 14.1 from ports with 14.1 sources installed.

 

[ko56]

Thanks. I built the port from source, and the problem seems solved!