How long to let TianoCore and the spinning dots do their thing

[oh-tomo]

Chrome Remote Desktop reports at 9:15pm today that my Win10 VM was last online yesterday at 11:22pm.  This morning I saw the spinning dots TianoCore screen at 11:09am.  So letting the dots do their thing for 10 hours didn't seem to work.  Even when disconnecting the usb hub from the usb card assigned to the VM. I wish there was a way to understand the magic of the spinning dots.  

[oh-tomo]

So I forced stop and restarted the VM at 9:50pm and the dots are still spinning at 10:19pm. Do I continue waiting or reboot the unRAID.  These spinning dots are so uncommunicative as to what is going on and the progress of the boot up.  They just spin and spin and keep their secrets to themselves.  Windows login screen could pop up any minute or I could be looking at 12 hours of spinning still.  I just don’t know.  I. Just. Don’t. Know.  

[oh-tomo]

So I forced stop and shut down the unRAID and waited 10 seconds and powered the unRAID back on and then started the VM and saw TianoCore spinning dots accompanied by (timestamps in mm:ss included):

 

00:01 "Preparing Automatic Repair"

00:06 "Diagnosing your PC"

00:28 "Attempting repairs" 

00:39 black screen

00:51 TianoCore spinning dots

01:15 "Getting Windows ready. Don't turn off your computer" (white text blue screen)

01:25 Windows login screen

 

So that was faster than 12 hours.  Is powering down the unRAID then always the answer?  I don't know.  It seems kind of extreme.   Repair suggests that some kind of damage happened.  Was the damage caused because I forced stop during some important process that the spinning dots were hiding from my view?   

 

[oh-tomo]

I set the Win10 VM to restart and left the site of the unRAID and from my remote location I am not seeing any sign of it having come back online 6h50m later.   I only restarted because RAM usage in the Win10 VM was at 100% and restarting seems to be the only way to get it out of that sluggish state.   

[oh-tomo]

I restart the Windows VM (because it's getting sluggish at 99% RAM utilization), I go out to do some errands, come back two hours later and the VM is still offline.  This is why I'm reluctant to restart the VM.  Because it gets hung for some mysterious reason while restarting.   Is there another way to reset the VM and get the RAM back without restarting?   Why is it stuck?  Is it an attached USB periferal?   Does it just hate me?  Why does this keep happening randomly without reason?

[oh-tomo]

VM wasn't starting so I:

 

- disconnected USB connections to passthrough card

- shut down the unRAID

- started the unRAID

- started the VM

- re-connected all the USB connections

- VM froze

- shut down the unRAID again

- restarted the unRAID again

- started the VM and waited for the login screen

- re-connected just one of the USB connections (the hub to which the mouse & keyboard are attached)

 

So is this an issue with the passthrough card?

 

-- too hot?

-- incompatible?

-- the card is dying?

 

 

The USB 3.0 passthrough device in the VM settings is listed as:

 

VIA Technologies VL805/806 xHCI USB 3.0 Controller | USB controller (02:00.0)

 

Which is either (haven't looked inside to check which yet):

 

- Inateck KT5001 PCI-E to USB 3.0 5-Port PCI Express Card and 15-Pin Power Connector, Red

or

- Rivo PCI Express Riser USB 3.0 Card 5-Port PCI Extender Card and 4 Pin Power Connector

 

VM is working now, but for how long before another freeze during reboot.  Please advise next steps.

 

[oh-tomo]

So what stopped the TianoCore hanging on boot was to switch VM USB controller settings from:

 

    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-ehci1'>

      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07' function='0x7'/>

    </controller>

    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci1'>

      <master startport='0'/>

      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07' function='0x0' multifunction='on'/>

    </controller>

    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci2'>

      <master startport='2'/>

      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07' function='0x1'/>

    </controller>

    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='ich9-uhci3'>

      <master startport='4'/>

      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07' function='0x2'/>

    </controller>

 

to

 

    <controller type='usb' index='0' model='qemu-xhci' ports='15'>

      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x07' function='0x0'/>

    </controller>