Old version of guest additions--how to remove?

Discussions about using Linux guests in VirtualBox.
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RoyG
Posts: 18
Joined: 18. Mar 2019, 22:14

Old version of guest additions--how to remove?

Post by RoyG »

Environment: Windows 10 host, Ubuntu 16.04 guest.

The guest additions stopped working for me recently. I upgraded all the Ubuntu packages, and upgraded VirtualBox to 6.1.22. Nothing I did helped.

I uninstalled the guest additions, rebooted the guest from a cold start and found this line in the VBox.log:

00:00:20.514468 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 5.0.18 r106667 '5.0.18_Ubuntu'

Does this mean I have an ancient version of the guest additions somewhere hiding in my Ubuntu setup? Does anyone know where it is and how to get rid of it?

Thanks.

Full VBox.log attached. Note this is after removing the guest additions from the guest, and making sure that no other virtualbox packages from Ubuntu were installed.
Attachments
VBox.zip
VBox.log from cold boot to shutdown without guest additions installed
(35.71 KiB) Downloaded 7 times
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Old version of guest additions--how to remove?

Post by mpack »

Not a "Windows Hosts" question. The question concerns the guest, therefore I'll move the topic to "Linux Guests".
fth0
Volunteer
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Joined: 14. Feb 2019, 03:06
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VBox Version: PUEL
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Location: Germany

Re: Old version of guest additions--how to remove?

Post by fth0 »

RoyG wrote:Does this mean I have an ancient version of the guest additions somewhere hiding in my Ubuntu setup? Does anyone know where it is and how to get rid of it?
Part of the VirtualBox Guest Additions are Linux kernel modules, and an old version (*) of those is usually part of the Ubuntu linux-modules-* packages, which are installed by default. You can find them with find /lib/modules -name "vbox*" and remove them. Note that they will naturally reappear with later Linux kernel updates.

(*) In todays Linux distributions, the ancient version is sometimes 6.0.0, BTW.
RoyG
Posts: 18
Joined: 18. Mar 2019, 22:14

Re: Old version of guest additions--how to remove?

Post by RoyG »

fth0 wrote:
RoyG wrote:Does this mean I have an ancient version of the guest additions somewhere hiding in my Ubuntu setup? Does anyone know where it is and how to get rid of it?
Part of the VirtualBox Guest Additions are Linux kernel modules, and an old version (*) of those is usually part of the Ubuntu linux-modules-* packages, which are installed by default. You can find them with find /lib/modules -name "vbox*" and remove them. Note that they will naturally reappear with later Linux kernel updates.

(*) In todays Linux distributions, the ancient version is sometimes 6.0.0, BTW.
I think that deleted too many things :(

Now the guest additions will no longer build:

Code: Select all

VirtualBox Guest Additions installer
Removing installed version 6.1.22 of VirtualBox Guest Additions...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.4.0-210-generic
Copying additional installer modules ...
Installing additional modules ...
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Starting.
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel 
modules.  This may take a while.
VirtualBox Guest Additions: To build modules for other installed kernels, run
VirtualBox Guest Additions:   /sbin/rcvboxadd quicksetup <version>
VirtualBox Guest Additions: or
VirtualBox Guest Additions:   /sbin/rcvboxadd quicksetup all
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Building the modules for kernel 4.4.0-210-generic.

VirtualBox Guest Additions: Look at /var/log/vboxadd-setup.log to find out what 
went wrong
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Running kernel modules will not be replaced until 
the system is restarted
and the file /var/log/vboxadd-setup.log just contains this:

Code: Select all

Installing X.Org Server 1.18 modules
VBoxClient: info: Try 'VBoxClient --help' for more information
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Old version of guest additions--how to remove?

Post by scottgus1 »

Those messages don't look bad to my non-Linux-ish view. Did you try this:
RoyG wrote:Running kernel modules will not be replaced until
the system is restarted
RoyG
Posts: 18
Joined: 18. Mar 2019, 22:14

Re: Old version of guest additions--how to remove?

Post by RoyG »

@scottgus1, I've never seen the "what went wrong" message before when building the guest additions, but it seems that maybe they are built now.

I'm still having problems with shared folders not getting mounted, but I will probably open a different question for that.
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