VirtualBox on Manjaro host. Windows 10 virtual machines constanly crashing with Blue Screen of Death for new Linux kernels

Question

Manjaro comes with newer Linux kernels.
I got weird situations for different combinations of new Linux kernels and VirtualBox versions.
There could be different guest OS troubles:

• sound problems, - not starting OS-es, - weird system errors during running of different applications, etc.
  I like Manjaro but I have to have a reserve laptop because an ongoing Manjaro update can ruin VirtualBox world in some or another way.

For 5.10 kernel and VirtualBox 6.1.16 all virtual machines work great except Windows 10 guests.
Windows 10 constantly crashes with "Blue Screen of Death" (BSoD).
It occurs unexpectedly, multiple times, with different BSoD errors.
Windows 10 guest OS-es behave similarly on 5.9 kernel, too.

Additionally you can't install or run some applications. For example installing of VSCode or running of Visual Studio 2019 are resulting with the following error:

External exception 80000002

I have a workaround for this

I am downgrading Manjaro kernels.

1. Download a LTS kernel to the Manjaro or any another kernel you'd like to try.

Go to the Start menu > Settings Manager > Manjaro Settings Manager.
Click on the Kernel icon.
Select there a kernel and click the Install button.
Wait until the kernel will be installed.

2. Enable Manjaro boot menu (GRUB).

Open the terminal and edit /etc/default/grub file by typing

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

You could replace nano with your preferred text editor. Install gedit or use mousepad on XFCE.

In the opened editor window replace GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden with GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu

3. Run Manjaro under the selected kernel.

Throw Manjaro to the restart and wait until "Green & Black" Manjaro menu appears for 5 seconds.
(It is because GRUB_TIMEOUT=5 in the previous grub file).
Select there "Advanced options" and select your kernel.

4. Manage VirtualBox to use "Host kernel modules" package related to the current kernel.

I completely delete and install VirtualBox. You can try to only add a corresponding "host kernel modules" package.

You can see that Pamac adds "host-modules" packages for all kernels installed on Manjaro.

But don't forget to run

sudo vboxreload

or restart your Manjaro at the end. Otherwise, you could get the following error.
Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)
The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver is either not loaded or not set up correctly. Please try setting it up again by executing
'/sbin/vboxconfig'

Manjaro implicit kernel switching

Everything could stop working after every Manjaro update.
Let's imagine that your selected 5.4 kernel has an update. For example 5.4.85 should be updated to 5.4.89.
In that case Manjaro will silently switch your kernel to the latest installed in your system. I.e. to 5.9 by default (currently) or to 5.10 in my case.

You have to switch your kernel back at the startup (GRUB) as I've described above.
Crashed, dead or hung VirtualBox Windows guest is a right sign to do this.

My question

Is it possible to have a stable Windows 10 VirtualBox guest OS ran on Manjaro with 5.10/5.9 Linux kernels?

Could you advise any other better solutions for this situation? Or am I doing everything right?

Answer 1

As noted in the comments in this ticket, this is no longer an issue with virtual box >= 6.1.24.

Answer 2

Same problem here. There is an active ticket: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/20165 and a longer thread https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=101667 both discussing the same problem.

The issue was only reported on 10th or 11th gen Intel processors, can you confirm this? I'm running Virtualbox under Ubuntu on an 11th Gen i7-1165G7, downgrading the kernel to 5.4 is no option as it seems to lack sufficient support for this CPU (won't even boot).