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[Andrea Azzarone <1180548@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

** Changed in: unity (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Invalid

** Changed in: unity
       Status: New => Invalid

** Also affects: virtualbox
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1180548

Title:
  High load when running VirtualBox

Status in Unity:
  Invalid
Status in Virtualbox:
  New
Status in unity package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid

Bug description:
  When running VirtualBox, the system load suddenly raises without
  stopping. When I kill compiz (which includes Unity), the load goes
  down again. If I don't kill it quick enough, the system locks up
  completely and I need to power off the machine.

  I was searching very long for a solution because I thought it's a
  VirtualBox problem. I'm using the Oracle 4.2.12 package provided on
  http://www.virtualbox.org/, but I also tried using the stock Ubuntu
  package and even with an older VirtualBox version (4.1), but the
  problem still occured.

  Before I had this problem, I was using Ubuntu 12.10 without any
  issues. When 13.04 came out, I decided to make a fresh installation
  and have this problem since then.

  Description of the problem:
  - I'm running Ubuntu 13.04 on an Asus Zenbook UX31A with 4 GB memory and 128 GB SSD.
  - Before I start VirtualBox, I have already opened several programs: Chromium, Firefox, Skype are the biggest in terms of memory usage (I think the problem occured less often when VirtualBox was running alone, so maybe it's related to memory usage)
  - When I start VirtualBox, the problem occurs sometimes during boot, but sometimes only after a a few minutes of uptime. Most of the time, it happened when the machine was idle and I was working in a different window.

  Workarounds:
  1) I can use Unity only when I run a background job which checks for the load and kills / replaces compiz & unity if the system load is too high.
  2) I decided to install ubuntu-gnome-desktop and switch to GNOME for the time being. It uses compiz as well but without Unity, and the problem is completely gone! (That's why I'm pretty sure it must be a Unity issue...)

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