[Solved] Windows 10 VM inacessible

[MartinLiddle]

First post so please excuse any newbie mistakes. I have been using VirtualBox for several years to run both Windows and Linux guests on a Windows Host without any significant problems. This afternoon I have a problem. A windows 10 32 bit guest running on a windows 10 host using Virtual Box 5.1.26 is marked as inaccessible. The details of the problem are shown as "Cannot attach medium 'C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso' {4b346ae5-a81f-4879-acac-94d2a07e3212}: medium is already associated with the current state of machine uuid {5067078c-6296-42ca-adb1-33d5b800b3c7}!.
Result Code:
VBOX_E_OBJECT_IN_USE (0x80BB000C)
Component:
MediumWrap
Interface:
IMedium {4afe423b-43e0-e9d0-82e8-ceb307940dda}"

After Googling for a solution I have tried editing the Windows 10.vbox file to remove reference to the DVD without success. I have also removed and reinstalled Virtualbox. Any suggestions for other things to try are welcome.

[socratis]

Right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log". Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response (see the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form).

Also, right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager. Select "Show in Finder/Explorer/Whatever". ZIP the selected ".vbox" file and attach it to your response as well.

[MartinLiddle]

Thanks but both those options are greyed out.

[socratis]

???
Those options are *never* greyed out! For new VMs, for running VMs, for hidden VMs, for crashed VMs, for any VM. Please try again.

[MartinLiddle]

Thanks. I have tried again, I have rebooted the computer and tried again, I have reverted to the vbox-prev file and tried again: in all those cases the only options that are available are: "Remove, Refresh, Sort".

[scottgus1]

Could this:

I have tried editing the Windows 10.vbox file

Have any influence? Try restoring the backup copy you manually took before you edited this essential file.

[MartinLiddle]

No neither the edited file nor the reinstated copy of the file before the edit changed the behaviour.

[socratis]

Remove, Refresh, Sort

Excuse me, but where are you right-clicking? I need to see a screenshot of that.

[socratis]

Could this:

I have tried editing the Windows 10.vbox file

Have any influence?

No, it couldn't. We're talking about the main VirtualBox Manager interface. Editing or modifying the recipe has no effect on the main GUI. It might be a really botched installation...

[MartinLiddle]

Screenshot as requested

screenshot.jpg (82.48 KiB) Viewed 4955 times

[socratis]

Hmm... First of all, let me say that this was *not* expected. If there is a problem with the .vbox file, the *least* you'd expect is to be able to see where that .vbox file is. I'd place it in the bug category. You should *not* be excluded from the .vbox if you have a duplicate entry for anything.

You say you have the .vbox file for this VM, right? Could you please attach a ZIPPED copy of that? Thanks.

And please tell me what you have under the Media Manager (default Ctrl-D), Optical Disks. If there is a VBoxGuestAdditions.iso entry there, select it and tell me if it belongs to any VM. If so, release it. Then remove it. Quit VirtualBox, wait for a minute, restart VirtualBox.

[MartinLiddle]

OK I am pleased to report that I have resolved the problem. I checked the other VMs and where the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso was in use removed it and shut all the other machines to power off. This did not resolve the problem. What did resolve the problem was to manually edit the .vbox file and remove the lines :

Code: Select all

       <AttachedDevice passthrough="false" type="DVD" hotpluggable="false" port="2" device="0">
           <Image uuid="{4b346ae5-a81f-4879-acac-94d2a07e3212}"/>
         </AttachedDevice>

which refer to Windows 10 installation media that was in the physical DVD at the time of installation but that was no longer present. Note prior to the problem arising I had not manually edited the .vbox file in any way. I have attached a zip file with the .vbox that works and the one that doesn't. Thank you to everyone that contributed ideas and kept me from giving up and starting from scratch. I had good backups of the data in the VM but I didn't previously have a backup of the VM; I do now. Lesson learnt.

[socratis]

A couple of things, I'll start from the last. Complete VM backups include the whole VM folder, not just the ".vdi". The ".vbox" is the recipe of the VM, which is equally important. Please read "Moving a VM" and interpret it as "Backing up a VM".

Next, the inaccessibility of the VM. I just remembered that I have a .vbox on my ToDo folder which exhibits the same behavior, or pretty close to yours. The underlying cause is the same, and the symptoms differ slightly. In your case the VM is inaccessible, the other one you can't even import it. This to me is the wrong behavior. I'm not sure when it started happening, but in my mind it shouldn't. It should clearly identify that there is an error with the media, not drop dead, no questions asked. I might get the example that I have and your case and file a bug report on this.

Last, but not least, thank you for the feedback! Glad you found the solution!