Searching with GrepWin on a virtual Windows 2019 has been completely locking up the entire computer

[tommalia]

I have been experiencing this consistently on many different Windows 2019 Server virtual machines on both Hyper-V and Virtual Box. I have not been having the same problem on "real" computers with the same OS.
When I initiate any search, it starts off OK, then about 30 seconds to a minute into the search the grepWin progress bar stops updating, then basically EVERYTHING ELSE on that computer stops responding as well. The mouse still moves, but NOTHING else works.... not even Ctrl+Alt+Del.

[tommalia]

To add a little more info. about the problem..... I just tried creating an empty directory on the C: drive and I initiate a grepWin search inside that empty directory and it proceeded to completely lock of the entire server again.

[stefankueng]

check memory use. I hope you reserved more than just 1GB for the virtual machine...

[stefankueng]

Tried three different VMs with Hyper-V (Win7, Win8, Win10) - all work perfectly fine for me here.

[tommalia]

Thank you so much to going through the trouble of testing. I do appreciate that. I have recently had mixed results with Hyper-V VM’s, right after I submitted the issue, I tried it again on a hyper-V VM and it did NOT crash… then the other day on a different one it did. So, I’m obviously not 100% sure about the connection to Hyper-V VMs. However, this is happening 100% of the time on VBox virtual machines. An interesting possible related issue that I have encountered at a client makes me wonder if there’s a bug in the OS that grepWin is hitting and that might also be causing a problem with some DLL that is used by certain versions of the File Selection dialog box. At a client, they are running Windows 2016 server on a Hyper-V VM and every so often, when a user opens the “File Open” dialog box on that machine, the machine starts doing the exact same thing that grepWin does when I use it on a VBox machine…. Everything on he machine starts freezing up and the processor goes to 100% with disk utilization at 100% and you can either wait a few hours for it to finish whatever the heck it’s doing or you have to actually physically restart the machine because NOTHING else works to interrupt whatever process is running. By the way, this is a virtual machine that has never had grepWin on it… I’ve not tried testing grepWin on that machine because it’s the client’s production SQL Sver box and when it locks up like that it shuts the whole companies back office operations down, so I’m not eager to do anything that might intentionally cause this to happen. Again, I REALLY appreciate you taking a stab at replicating the problem on Hyper-V. I’m very confident that if you tried this on a VBox machine, you would be able to replicate it… but I understand that VBox does not have the market penetration that Hyper-V does so I understand if you don’t think it’s worth the effort on your end to drill into that scenario. Also, just THANK YOU in generally for the GREAT tool…. It’s been extremely helpful to me. From: Stefan Küng ***@***.***> Sent: Friday, March 19, 2021 4:44 PM To: stefankueng/grepWin ***@***.***> Cc: tommalia ***@***.***>; Author ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [stefankueng/grepWin] Searching with GrepWin on a virtual Windows 2019 has been completely locking up the entire computer (#226) Tried three different VMs with Hyper-V (Win7, Win8, Win10) - all work perfectly fine for me here. — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#226 (comment)> , or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AC7PUFD6BCCRNOK5ROZBFVTTEOZPVANCNFSM4XZAWHIQ> . <https://github.com/notifications/beacon/AC7PUFCVQQG6AHEEYBIGRYTTEOZPVA5CNFSM4XZAWHI2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOF7PI4EI.gif>

[henk-van-der-vaart]

Has there been any follow up related to this issue? The fact is that I am facing now also the same (similar) issue on my recent installed Windows Server 2019 running as VM in VMware Workstation 15.x
Any tips how to by-pass or even better resolve this are appreciated. I tried to run the grepWin in compatibility mode - however still same issue.

[tommalia]

I have continued to experience this problem on Virtual Box, but more importantly, on Hyper V machines as well. The work around that I have had to use is to share the directory I want to search on the virtual machine, then map a drive to that share from a REAL computer on the network and then run the WinGrep on the real computer, searching the shared drive on the virtual machine.
If I DON'T do this and instead forget and try to run grep on the virtual machine, which is usually one of my client's critical servers, is, I effectively crash that server for at least 45 minutes maybe longer because some low level driver or something on the server chews up ALL the processor time and the virtual machine becomes COMPLETELY non-responsive.

[henk-van-der-vaart]

@tommalia - I saw your comment. The work-around is an option but not very practical. The strange phenomenon is that using grepWin in VMware Workstation context in e.g. Windows 10 VM works as a charm. So somehow seems related to a Windows Server 2019 environment. If I have time I will try investigating further - until then are any tips/suggestions welcome.

[chviaud]

Hi,
I experienced exactly the same thing on VMWare Workstation 16, using Win7(Pro) or Win10(Enterprise, tiny version)
My workaround : go back to GrepWin v1.9.2
As of 2.0.0, GrepWin "explodes" the CPU (100%) and memory (I allowed 2 Gb to the VM)
In most cases, the VM hangs. Sometime I can kill the GrepWin process, and the CPU and memory go back to normal (10% CPU, 40% memory)
I always use the x64 installer.

Anyway, I can’t do without GrepWin. Even in 1.9.2, this tool is awesome !

[tommalia]

Thanks you so much for the information! So far, I’ve generally been able to work around this by sharing the directory on the VM I need to search, then I connect from a real computer to that shared drive and run Grep from there…. But that sometime is slow, so It’s good to know that there’s a version of GrepWin that will work on VMs. I hope stefankueng might be able to identify the cause of the problem so the current version will work as well. It’s an AWSOME tool…. Hard to live without. From: chviaud ***@***.***> Sent: Friday, May 17, 2024 7:44 AM To: stefankueng/grepWin ***@***.***> Cc: tommalia ***@***.***>; Mention ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [stefankueng/grepWin] Searching with GrepWin on a virtual Windows 2019 has been completely locking up the entire computer (#226) Hi, I experienced exactly the same thing on VMWare Workstation 16, using Win7(Pro) or Win10(Enterprise, tiny version) My workaround : go back to GrepWin v1.9.2 As of 2.0.0, GrepWin "explodes" the CPU (100%) and memory (I allowed 2 Gb to the VM) In most cases, the VM hangs. Sometime I can kill the GrepWin process, and the CPU and memory go back to normal (10% CPU, 40% memory) I always use the x64 installer. Anyway, I can’t do without GrepWin. Even in 1.9.2, this tool is awesome ! — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#226 (comment)> , or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AC7PUFBBPFOICONKI4G2QW3ZCXURDAVCNFSM4XZAWHI2U5DIOJSWCZC7NNSXTN2JONZXKZKDN5WW2ZLOOQ5TEMJRG42DCNJRGM2Q> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned. <https://github.com/notifications/beacon/AC7PUFHGR3CKPHLJWJDETY3ZCXURDA5CNFSM4XZAWHI2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOPY2TBXY.gif> Message ID: ***@***.*** ***@***.***> >