[vfio-users] VirtIO Drives and Network are causing issues with Windows

Jonathan Scruggs j.scruggs at gmail.com
Tue Jan 12 19:57:42 UTC 2016


Hi all,

On an earlier 4.1.4 (or .5 can't remember) kernel, I had a Windows guest
using a VirtIO system drive and a VirtIO network adapter. Everything was
fine and I was even able to upgrade to windows 10. This was when Windows 10
final was released. I removed the VM for a while because I got bored with
Windows.

However, I have since moved on to the new 4.1.15 kernel and wanted to redo
the windows guest. I saved my config files and reinstalled Windows 8.1. I
noticed now that the VirtIO network card would just stop transfering data
after a bit. I use the performance tab on Virt-Manager and all network
traffic just stops. Also the Hard Drive would slow down sometimes.

It's even worse when trying to upgrade to Windows 10. Any form of upgrade
would fail on the reboot phase. Also, the new 1511 build of the Windows 10
installation ISO would even fail to start up. You press the key to boot
from the disk and you would get a blue screen about a thread exception.
Changing to a SCSI_VirtIO controller would allow Windows 10 to at least
boot to the install screen, then you add the driver to detect the disk, but
the disk would freeze during the transfering files phase and never start
again. It would freeze at roughly the 22% level point.

I had to change to a bog standard SATA drive to install Windows 10. Network
with the VirtIO Network Card is still spotty.

Is there a serious bug in both Windows 8.1 and the new build of Windows 10
that fails on VirtIO devices or is it the implementation in the 4.1.15
kernel somehow causing issues? How do I test?

Thanks,
Jon
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