Monterey VM reboot loop and kernel panic in VirtualBox 6.1.32 (on Apple host hardware)

Question

Environment

• Apple MBA 2020 MacBook Air9,1 / Intel / x86_64 machine
• Host OS: macOS Big Sur 11.6.2
• Host OS Build: 20G314
• SW: VirtualBox 6.1.32 r149290 (also tried on VirtualBox 6.1.30 r148432)
• Guest OS: macOS Monterey 12.1 (21C52)

Purpose

• Upgrade VM from Big Sur 11.6.2 (fully functional with VB 6.1.32) to Monterey 12.1.
  OR
• Installation from scratch a Monterey VM. Both have same final result: instability.

After the first boot with Monterey, the VM suddenly HANGS AND REBOOTED BY ITSELF, reporting "This system was automatically rebooted after panic". It seems it enters in a "reboot loop" because after some time, even doing nothing, a reboot still happen again and again, like in an infinite loop.

How to reproduce

1. Open VB 6.1.32

2a. Start a VM upgraded to Monterey
OR
2b. Start a VM installed from scratch with Monterey
OR
2.c Start a VM with "Install macOS Monterey ISO" as only Storage added to VM (NO other Hardisk present)

3. Just wait some time...
   

==> You'll see in 0-15 min Guest OS HANGS AND SUDDENLY REBOOTS by itself.
==> Then the console message is: "This system was automatically rebooted after panic"

Logs and info

I unfortunately continue to note the instability of Monterey as Guest with VB 6.1.32, even on Apple Hardware!

All config data, and a video are at disposal to have an idea, as well as VB Logs (see attachments).

• VirtualBox 6.1.32 Logs: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pcvHhReFDUKKYQJoSo0-c7S84K8HD2Rw/view?usp=sharing
• Monterey (VB 6.1.32) reboot loop video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F5xHo5DTnD2z9Sc5Lw7P2w4EUscepDR2/view?usp=sharing

Questions

I asked to VirtualBox forum here topic 104998 with hope of receiving helpful feedback, which has not been the case as yet.

I'm primarily interested in sharing to the community and finding other user experiences.

Does the same or similar behaviour happens to someone else?
Has anyone perhaps applied a workaround or found a fix?
Has anyone ever gotten a really stable and usable Monterey guest installation (on Mac HW) with VirtualBox?

---

Added later...

I just came back a few days later, just for a minor update on this topic.

I was wandering if something changed with Monterey (Host), perhaps hardware resources are managed differently in Monterey, or that more generally something has changed.

So I just repeated the tasks with the same VM, so VirtualBox 6.1.32 with Monterey (Guest) on Monterey (Host on Apple hardware)

Environment (revised)

• Apple MBA 2020 MakBookAir9,1 / Intel / x86_64 machine
• Host OS: macOS Monterey 12.1
• Host OS Build: 21C52
• SW: VirtualBox 6.1.32 r149290
• Guest OS: macOS Monterey 12.1 (21C52)

I unfortunately note that the result is still the same: VM do a reboot loop and kernel panic.

Answer 1

After some research, the problem seems to be about TSC (Time Stamp Counter) emulation.

The following worked for me:

1. Close ALL VirtualBox windows (otherwise the next setting will be overwritten)
2. Run commandline command, where YOUR_VM_NAME is the name of your VM:
   VBoxManage setextradata "YOUR_VM_NAME" "VBoxInternal/TM/TSCMode" "RealTSCOffset"
3. If you still see kernel panics, double-check that your .vbox file contains the applied settings and also check VM's logs for errors related to RealTSCOffset.

Answer 2

I found that changing number of virtual CPUs to 1 helps. But then it's slower, of course.

Answer 3

I still need to try @Codeguard answer, but for me it appears that changing my GraphicsController from VBoxSVGA to VBoxVGA fixed the issue.