# FreeBSD constantly freeze on VirtualBox 6.1.10 on macos Catalina 10.15.5



## mrusli (Jun 23, 2020)

Hi

I install XFCE4 with FreeBSD 12.1 on my virtualbox 6.1.10 on my macos catalina 10.15.5. 
After FreeBSD 12.1 power on and after a while the mouse cannot even click on the virtualbox and it complete frozen. I cannot seems to click any thing on my virtualbox. That goes the same install on Enlightenment Desktop environment. 

It was so dead frustrating. I really do not know what really happen. 

I try any desktop environment on my virtualbox it just crashed. The mac mini 2014 that i have is only using Intel Graphic card. 

I did not have any issues running linux on my virtual box but only on freebsd 12.1. 

I do have openbsd install. But the problem is that OpenBSD does not seems to work well with youtube. I get sound and video stutter and jerky. 

I really need to use FreeBSD as the Community with the TrueOS, Project Trident are no longer active as they are now being focus on FreeNAS project and Vivo Linux respectively. 

I sincerly have no clue what so ever happen to my frozen freeBSD virtualbox!


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## SirDice (Jun 23, 2020)

mrusli said:


> After FreeBSD 12.1 power on and after a while the mouse cannot even click on the virtualbox and it complete frozen.


There's some confusion here. Just because the mouse doesn't move doesn't mean the VM is frozen. It may just not pick up on the mouse. If  the VM is really frozen, nothing would  work and even keyboard input would fail. If the VM is completely frozen I'm more  inclined to think it's an issue with the VM software. The mouse not working is probably just a setting in the VM's configuration, make sure it's set to emulate a PS/2 mouse.


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## mrusli (Jun 24, 2020)

I have checked the settings on my virtualbox it is set to PS/2 mouse all the time. After the operating system sit idle without the movement of keyboard and mouse.
It was completely froze up. I cannot seems to click on anything on the virtualbox. Left and Right mouse button click are not responsive and so is the keyboard.
I wonder what makes it hangs. I try to run with Lumina now. It happen to hang with XFCE4 and Enlightenment desktop on my mac mini 2014. It was fine with Ubuntu, Manjaro Linux running with Virtual box 6.1.10.


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## Zvoni (Jun 24, 2020)

Are the Guest-Additions installed?


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## jmos (Jun 24, 2020)

All you describe says that a graphical environment isn't usable via VirtualBox, but again: That doesn't mean the machine is frozen; You could f.e. use a terminal for a remote login via SSH (if your guest has an IP and SSH server enabled), or check after the next boot the log files to get a clue about what's going on there (maybe there's something logged between the freeze and the reboot?).

Also I wouldn't search on the guest side for problems - it's the host system that has to provide an environment in which the guest is able to run (!). And in case of VirtualBox: The first years it was a fine thing, but since a huge company came in … well, to me it was sometimes a solution, and sometimes absolutely unusable - I remember many freezes (the way you described) and decided not to use it anymore (and those guest additions annoyed me always - that's a crutch, but not a solution). To me VirtualBox is just a waste of time, anything I've tried later was much better and: stable. And I wouldn't expect the problem related to a desktop environment…


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## jomonger (Jun 24, 2020)

Zvoni said:


> Are the Guest-Additions installed?



Zvoni is right imo. To pass inputs to GUI you need Guest Additions.

I runned FreeBSD on Windows 10 host both on Virtual Box and Hyper-V, and I needed Guest Additions for mouse. It was preinstalled on one of them, but don't remember which.


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## SirDice (Jun 24, 2020)

jomonger said:


> To pass inputs to GUI you need Guest Additions.


Actually, no. It's not  required. Both keyboard and mouse will work _without_ the guest additions. You won't have a  "seamless" mouse though, it'll be locked to the VM. Similarly for the video, it will work just fine using the vesa(4) or scfb(4) drivers. The vboxvideo driver however allows you to arbitrarily change the size and resolution of the Virtualbox  window from outside and inside the VM.


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## Sevendogsbsd (Jun 24, 2020)

To elaborate on what SirDice stated: you only need guest additions for shared directories, and clipboard, file drag and drop, etc. probably screen resizing as well but that is very flaky, at least on Linux guests for me. I don't currently have a FreeBSD guest but I can set one up as a test.


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## SirDice (Jun 24, 2020)

I quite recently created a new VM in Virtualbox 6 (on Windows) and purposefully used the official (quarterly) packages to install it, just to see if it would work. As I normally bake my own packages. But I had zero problems with the original FreeBSD packages and had it up and running quite quickly. 

Within Virtualbox -> System -> Processor; Make sure PAE/NX is enabled for a 64 bit FreeBSD  guest. Also in System -> Motherboard; Set the chipset to ICH9 en pointing device to PS/2. In Display, set the graphics controller to VBoxVGA.


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## jomonger (Jun 24, 2020)

Cool to know, thx.


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## Sevendogsbsd (Jun 26, 2020)

I did a 12.1 install in VB on a MacOS Catalina host and haven’t had any lock up issues thus far. To be fair, I only tried fluxbox and cwm and uptime was only 10 minutes or so. Tomorrow I’ll install xfce4 to see if I get any lockups. I have no right click menus but that is MacOS’s fault, not FreeBSD’s.


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## T-Daemon (Jun 26, 2020)

Sevendogsbsd said:


> I have no right click menus but that is MacOS’s fault, not FreeBSD’s.



If it's a Mackbook and you have _Tab to click_ and _Secondary click_ enabled, try two finger tab, or cmd + one finger tab. Optional tab multiple times on touchpad after startx, until a tab is received. If you press for clicking: cmd + 1 click (optional click multiple times after startx, holding the cmd key down).

If it's a iMac, Mac, Mac mini with mouse, try cmd + 1 click (optional multiple times).


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