I got to be honest and say that I have been having so many problems running Windows VMs on Unraid. In short; usually (not always) installing them is smooth and they will run for days/weeks and then after a reboot they will become stuck on the Unraid VNC splash screen. I tried posting about it here, but no help.

 

So today I tried installing a brand new Windows 11 VM for the millionth time. Everything went fine during the Windows installation but as soon as the VM is attempting to restart (for the first time ever) I am presented with a black screen in the VNC. It's basically stuck forever.

 

en-us_windows_11_consumer_editions_version_23h2_updated_sep_2024_x64_dvd_edcefbe4.iso

 

2024-10-09 14:37:00.621+0000: Starting external device: TPM Emulator
/usr/bin/swtpm socket --ctrl type=unixio,path=/run/libvirt/qemu/swtpm/70-62266548-swtpm.sock,mode=0600 --tpmstate dir=/var/lib/libvirt/swtpm/2b1db981-894c-fb2b-30a6-4febec7e588e/tpm2,mode=0600 --log file=/var/log/swtpm/libvirt/qemu/62266548-swtpm.log --terminate --tpm2
2024-10-09 14:37:00.653+0000: starting up libvirt version: 8.7.0, qemu version: 7.2.0, kernel: 6.1.79-Unraid, hostname: nova
LC_ALL=C \
PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin \
HOME=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-70-62266548 \
XDG_DATA_HOME=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-70-62266548/.local/share \
XDG_CACHE_HOME=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-70-62266548/.cache \
XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-70-62266548/.config \
/usr/local/sbin/qemu \
-name guest=62266548,debug-threads=on \
-S \
-object '{"qom-type":"secret","id":"masterKey0","format":"raw","file":"/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-70-62266548/master-key.aes"}' \
-blockdev '{"driver":"file","filename":"/usr/share/qemu/ovmf-x64/OVMF_CODE-pure-efi-tpm.fd","node-name":"libvirt-pflash0-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"}' \
-blockdev '{"node-name":"libvirt-pflash0-format","read-only":true,"driver":"raw","file":"libvirt-pflash0-storage"}' \
-blockdev '{"driver":"file","filename":"/etc/libvirt/qemu/nvram/2b1db981-894c-fb2b-30a6-4febec7e588e_VARS-pure-efi-tpm.fd","node-name":"libvirt-pflash1-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"}' \
-blockdev '{"node-name":"libvirt-pflash1-format","read-only":false,"driver":"raw","file":"libvirt-pflash1-storage"}' \
-machine pc-i440fx-7.2,usb=off,dump-guest-core=off,mem-merge=off,memory-backend=pc.ram,pflash0=libvirt-pflash0-format,pflash1=libvirt-pflash1-format \
-accel kvm \
-cpu host,migratable=on,hv-time=on,hv-relaxed=on,hv-vapic=on,hv-spinlocks=0x1fff,hv-vendor-id=none,host-cache-info=on,l3-cache=off \
-m 16384 \
-object '{"qom-type":"memory-backend-ram","id":"pc.ram","size":17179869184}' \
-overcommit mem-lock=off \
-smp 12,sockets=1,dies=1,cores=6,threads=2 \
-uuid 2b1db981-894c-fb2b-30a6-4febec7e588e \
-no-user-config \
-nodefaults \
-chardev socket,id=charmonitor,fd=35,server=on,wait=off \
-mon chardev=charmonitor,id=monitor,mode=control \
-rtc base=localtime \
-no-hpet \
-no-shutdown \
-boot strict=on \
-device '{"driver":"qemu-xhci","p2":15,"p3":15,"id":"usb","bus":"pci.0","addr":"0x7"}' \
-device '{"driver":"virtio-serial-pci","id":"virtio-serial0","bus":"pci.0","addr":"0x4"}' \
-blockdev '{"driver":"file","filename":"/mnt/user/vm/vms/62266548/vdisk1.img","node-name":"libvirt-3-storage","cache":{"direct":false,"no-flush":false},"auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"}' \
-blockdev '{"node-name":"libvirt-3-format","read-only":false,"cache":{"direct":false,"no-flush":false},"driver":"raw","file":"libvirt-3-storage"}' \
-device '{"driver":"virtio-blk-pci","bus":"pci.0","addr":"0x5","drive":"libvirt-3-format","id":"virtio-disk2","bootindex":1,"write-cache":"on","serial":"vdisk1"}' \
-blockdev '{"driver":"file","filename":"/mnt/user/vm/iso/isos/en-us_windows_11_iot_enterprise_version_24h2_x64_dvd_3a99b72b.iso","node-name":"libvirt-2-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"}' \
-blockdev '{"node-name":"libvirt-2-format","read-only":true,"driver":"raw","file":"libvirt-2-storage"}' \
-device '{"driver":"ide-cd","bus":"ide.0","unit":0,"drive":"libvirt-2-format","id":"ide0-0-0","bootindex":2}' \
-blockdev '{"driver":"file","filename":"/mnt/user/vm/iso/virtio-win-0.1.262-2.iso","node-name":"libvirt-1-storage","auto-read-only":true,"discard":"unmap"}' \
-blockdev '{"node-name":"libvirt-1-format","read-only":true,"driver":"raw","file":"libvirt-1-storage"}' \
-device '{"driver":"ide-cd","bus":"ide.0","unit":1,"drive":"libvirt-1-format","id":"ide0-0-1"}' \
-netdev tap,fd=36,id=hostnet0 \
-device '{"driver":"virtio-net","netdev":"hostnet0","id":"net0","mac":"52:54:00:e5:83:e5","bus":"pci.0","addr":"0x3"}' \
-chardev pty,id=charserial0 \
-device '{"driver":"isa-serial","chardev":"charserial0","id":"serial0","index":0}' \
-chardev socket,id=charchannel0,fd=34,server=on,wait=off \
-device '{"driver":"virtserialport","bus":"virtio-serial0.0","nr":1,"chardev":"charchannel0","id":"channel0","name":"org.qemu.guest_agent.0"}' \
-chardev socket,id=chrtpm,path=/run/libvirt/qemu/swtpm/70-62266548-swtpm.sock \
-tpmdev emulator,id=tpm-tpm0,chardev=chrtpm \
-device '{"driver":"tpm-tis","tpmdev":"tpm-tpm0","id":"tpm0"}' \
-device '{"driver":"usb-tablet","id":"input0","bus":"usb.0","port":"1"}' \
-audiodev '{"id":"audio1","driver":"none"}' \
-vnc 0.0.0.0:1,websocket=5700,audiodev=audio1 \
-k no \
-device '{"driver":"qxl-vga","id":"video0","max_outputs":1,"ram_size":67108864,"vram_size":67108864,"vram64_size_mb":0,"vgamem_mb":16,"bus":"pci.0","addr":"0x2"}' \
-device '{"driver":"virtio-balloon-pci","id":"balloon0","bus":"pci.0","addr":"0x6"}' \
-sandbox on,obsolete=deny,elevateprivileges=deny,spawn=deny,resourcecontrol=deny \
-msg timestamp=on
char device redirected to /dev/pts/0 (label charserial0)
qxl_send_events: spice-server bug: guest stopped, ignoring

 

I tried to force stop it. Then start it now it is stuck on this screen for about 10 minutes:

 

 

I am not sure if I am doing anything wrong because there is basically no documentation on how to install VMs.

 

11 hours ago, Bob-omb said:

Then start it now it is stuck on this screen for about 10 minutes:

Depending on the numbers of CPUs and RAM you gave to the VM you may need to wait much longer than 10min.

Be patient young Padawan!

Have a coffee and come back in an hour or so.

 

It doesn't matter, because eventually all my VMs stop working after reboots or updates.

But installing Windows usually takes only a couple of minutes.

I got an i9-14900K and a Samsung 970 EVO Plus and 128 GB RAM.

 

Just to clarify I have been installing Windows probably around 20 times because they all die eventually so there has got to be something wrong.

Edited October 10, 20241 yr by Bob-omb

Hmm, post a screenshot of the vm settings (not that xml stuff, its too tedious to decipher it), usually its just missing switch somewhere.

I ran into problems with the current 24H2 W11, it installed but killed itself soon after. Reason was a bad update windows11.0-kb5043178-x64_2db945d13d188131efd2f449454dc368dd77c209. The machines entered a boot loop and rebooted every 3mins, but the update never installed successfully, so everything started over and over.

This Update seems to be deleted yesterday and was replaced by KB5044284 which worked smoothly and cured the bad stuff.

 

The only thing I know that prohibits W11 on Unraid is, when you set cpu emulation to "qemu" instead of "passthrough <your host cpu>". Then W11 refused to boot and install because of missing processor features and commands.

 

Mine is set as q35 and has never had any problems.