Fixing VirtualBox crashing macOS on high load (Kernel Panic)

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For a long time I had a problem in my VirtualBox 5.x when I need to run heavy oracle database process and it crashed not only the VM but my role macOS forcing my MacBook Pro to reboot with the following error message:

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After it returns, as soon as I log in I could see the message below:

After clicking on "Report...", it was always clear the VirtualBox caused the crash as I could see the message BSD process name corresponding to current thread: VirtualBoxVM.

To solve, first I've tried to downgrade/upgrade my VirtualBox to another release or the latest version but the problem persisted. So, I've realized that this problem was somehow related to the parameters of my VM. So I started playing with them making all possible combinations of:

  • Reducing my VM to less or a single CPU.
  • Changing my VM Chipset.
  • Disabling PAE/NX.
  • Disabling Nested Paging.
  • Changing Paravirtualization Interface.

So the only one that really solved my problem and stopped those randoms Kernel Panic was the last one, changing Paravirtualization Interface to None.

Finally the crashes were resolved. By the way, I didn't notice any performance reduction after changing that, so this is how my VMs are defined from now on my Mac.

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7 comments

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  1. You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. I'd been facing this issue for a while now (VirtualBox randomly Kernel Panicking MacOS) and it was driving me crazy since my work involves a lot of VM creation/destruction (Test Kitchen testing for Chef). Changing this setting finally solved the issue for me. Thank you!

    For anyone having this same issue, you can add the following in your .kitchen.yml under `driver`:

    driver:
    name: vagrant
    customize:
    paravirtprovider: none

    1. I'm glad it helped. Tks!

  2. greeting sir
    I need help when I try to run Ubuntu in my virtual box I get error of kernel panic , what can I do thank

    • Federico on June 28, 2019 at 10:37
    • Reply

    Hi, this is ocurring to me too. But when I change paravirtualization parameter my VM won't start ( it's a ubuntu 18 ) any recommendations plz?

    • Tim Verdouw on September 6, 2019 at 02:58
    • Reply

    Saved me so much frustration. Thanks a million.

    1. You are welcome! =]

    • Captain on September 11, 2019 at 19:03
    • Reply

    Thank you as it finally fixed it.

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