Qemu 2.6.0 freezes with windows guests

[je-vv]

When launching qemu with the same command line as before 2.6.0, with SDL display, with virtio, for a win-10 guest:

qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -name win-10 -machine type=pc,accel=kvm -cpu host -smp cores=1,threads=2,sockets=1 -m 2.7G -balloon virtio -drive file=/home/<username>/.qemu/imgs/win10-coe.qcow2,index=0,media=disk,if=virtio -drive file=/usr/share/virtio/virtio-win.iso,index=1,media=cdrom -drive file=/usr/share/spice-guest-tools/spice-guest-tools.iso,index=2,media=cdrom -net nic,model=virtio -net tap,ifname=tap0,script=no,downscript=no,vhost=on -usbdevice tablet -usb -display sdl -vga qxl -soundhw ac97 -rtc base=localtime -usbdevice host:0b0e:0032 -usbdevice host:0b0e:0348 -usbdevice host:0b0e:0410

Qemu at some point just freezes with no error message at all with newer version 2.6.0-1.

Reverting to prior version 2.5.1-1, things go back to normal.

A simple way to accelerate the freeze is to have qemu launch in a workspace/desktop, and then move to a different workspace/desktop, and then move back to the qemu workspace/desktop, and you'll find out it's frozen.

BTW, there's no way to get into qemu monitor mode terminal at all once frozen. The monitor terminal shows up, but does nothing...

Perhaps it's useful to notice that I have up to date win-10 virtio drivers for ethernet, scsi/storage, qxl-dod, balloon, and serial interface drivers. The ISO version used is 0.1.118.1 (virtio-win AUR package).

Using the standard (std) qemu video driver, rather than the qxl-dod one makes no difference BTW.

Just in case, running on up to date x86-64 Arch, plain qemu command line.

[John Snow (jnsnow)]

Can you please try with 2.6.1 or 2.7.0-rc4?

[je-vv (je-vv)]

Tested 2.6.1, fails/freezes the same way, :-(

[je-vv (je-vv)]

Tested as well 2.7.0, and it now fails on windows start with:

KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (viostor.sys)

Notice 2.5.1 still works just fine.

[je-vv (je-vv)]

Qemu 2.8.0 is no better. Actually now win-10 can even boot, getting the light blue window with sad face saying: "Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart...". Moreover, the qemu monitor mode (alt-2) pops up a frozen useless window, so no way to try reseting...

[je-vv (je-vv)]

More narrowed now, :-)

With 2.8.0 qemu keeps freezing bad, when used with "-display sdl". However when used with "-display gtk" or "-display none", then it doesn't freeze.

So it seems "-display sdl" is the one totally breaking windows guest on qemu.

Notice that if I don't try other displays, then I wouldn't even notice it was just the SDL display.

If there's no intention on fixing SDL, given other alternatives are available, in particular a GTK one for displaying the graphics output, then I'm OK with a "no fix" for this.

As a bonus, it seems no display (-display none), with current qxl-dod windows driver from Fedora project, seems to be working fine with spice. That was not working before... So getting away from SDL display now. But no sure if this means SDL never again? :-)

[Thomas Huth (th-huth)]

Which version of SDL were you using here? SDL 1.2 or SDL 2.0? If you were using SDL 1.2, could you please try with SDL 2.0 instead? Support for 1.2 has been removed now...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for QEMU because there has been no activity for 60 days.]