genymotion freezes entire Ubuntu Desktop

Question

I recently downloaded the latest Genymotion version,2.7.2 (I had a previous version before, I don't remember which exactly) however whenever I try to launch an emulator, the device pops up for about a minute but before loading completely it freezes. Not only that, but when this happens the entire Desktop freezes. I'm able to move the cursor, but nothing else responds (even the clock stops working). No clicks or keys do anything and I'm forced to restart my Desktop via the power button on my machine. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04.

I've tried 3 separate times with 3 separate emulated devices and the same thing happens every time. Until I get this fixed I can't do my job, so I would really like some advice.

Answer 1

Some of these VMs from Genymotion are using more memory than you know. When creating a Virtual Device in Genymotion, I used the down-arrow to ensure I had enough system memory to run. Look at the attached screenshots.

I have a 6GB system and I didn't realize a Samsung Galaxy S8 was using 4GB RAM. Switching to the Google Nexus 9, which is running 2GB RAM, I was able to launch without the sluggishness.

1Genymotion seems to run with VirtualBox. Therefore, launching VirtualBox will show you the created VMs from Geny. From there, you can use the Settings in VirtualBox to change the RAM size.

I hope this helps someone because it drove me crazy.

Genymotion showing how much RAM is used

Answer 2

Had the same error on 16.04, fixed it by uninstalling virtualbox, then reinstalling from the deb image from the official page here https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

then running

sudo dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-dkms

also switched to nvidia proprietary drivers

Answer 3

Had same problem, I changed video card driver from Software & Updates -> Additional Drivers rebooted and no freeze again