VirtualBox Manager failing to acquire COM object when no Network is present

[Koboy]

Hello Gurus! I am a total newb WRT virtual machines, but have learned enough to become a danger to myself. If I'm lucky enough to be able to garner some of y'all's help, it'll behoove us all if you could explain your thoughts and solutions to me as if I were a 3yo. Thanks

• Virtual Box 6.1.16 initially, but now running 6.1.22 as the result of attempting a solution
• Windows 10 Host running Fedora 33 Guest
• All typical use cases work as desired, except for the following UC
  • The use case's pre-existing condition includes having no network connection prior to launching the VirtualBox Manager
  • With this pre-condition the VB Mgr spins for 5 minutes and eventually times out with the following complaint
    

    Failed to acquire the VirtualBox COM object.
    The application will now terminate.
    
    Failed to instantiate CLSID_VirtualBox the first time, but worked when checking out why ... weird.
    
    Result Code: CO_E_SERVER_EXEC_FAILURE (0x80080005)
    Component: VirtualBoxClientWrap
    Interface: IVirtualBoxClient {d2937a8e-cb8d-4382-90ba-b7da78a74573}

• Data gathered in trying to figure out a solution:
  • If network is restored during the 5-minute spin cycle, VM Manager eventual recovers and a session can proceed as "normal"
  • Running as admin, does not provide joy
  • Uninstalling and installing as admin, does not provide joy
  • Removing the .../.VirtualBox directory prior to a run does not provide joy

[fth0]

In general, I cannot confirm this behavior:

On a Notebook, I disabled the WLAN interface and restarted Windows 10 20H2. After booting up, I opened the VirtualBox Manager 6.1.22, used it a bit and started one of the VMs, without encountering any problems (except for the missing network connections, of course ).

[Koboy]

Thanks fth0. The fact that you could get to a point of being able to kick off a VM is a lot further than I am able to. The Manager, itself, (the main program) doesn't even come up in my case

[fth0]

Please reproduce the problem and post a zipped copy of the VirtualBox global configuration folder (C:\Users\<username>\.VirtualBox). Could you perhaps describe what you mean by "pre-existing condition includes having no network connection prior to launching the VirtualBox Manager"? How exactly do you reach this state? You may pretend that I'm 6yo.

[Koboy]

pre-existing condition:
VB Manager off
Wifi off
Hard NIC not connected

This is really strange. To recreate the situation and provide you with the .zip. I booted up my laptop, which I had turned off last night, deleted the ./VirtualBox folder, made sure all the network connections were off, started the VB Manager and it popped open (i.e., it worked). Thoughts?

what of the following things that I have done, would've "fixed my problem"

• uninstalling/installing with admin privs
• upgrading to 6.22
• deleting ./VirtualBox directory
• rebooting the machine
• a combo of the preceding
• all of the above

[fth0]

Since I haven't understood the dependency described in this thread's title, how should I guess what solved it?

[Koboy]

I'll try it this way?

1) no network connections (turn off wifi, disconnect ethernet)
2) start the VB Manager
3) watch the Windows' progress circle spin until it times out.
4) scratch my head why it's not working

My first hypothesis: The VB Manager did not want to start because of a failed dependency on a COM object that is associated with the Windows network stack

My second hypothesis: The VB Manager is now able to start because of something I did trying to fix the problem. What could it be?