Virtualbox 0xc0000022 error - unable to start machine

[RWall5]

I've been happily using Virtualbox for years until yesterday (14/9/22) when I received the attached error - it means I am unable to start the machine. I have reinstalled several times as suggested but this hasn't helped. Virtualbox 6.1.38 is running on a Windows 10 machine - everything was running fine until 24 hours ago. I haven't actively installed or updated anything (to my knowledge...)

A quick search online suggests this is related to Avecto Defendpoint, which is installed, but I'm not aware of any changes to this in the last 24 hours. I don't have admin rights for this PC but have already contacted the people in charge - unlikely they will have Virtualbox-specific knowledge though. I can confirm that virtualbox.exe was not in the 'Image File Execution Options' folder in the registry as suggested in another post. Since I haven't found any recent posts on this, I assume this is a problem specific to my machine.

I've attached the vbox.log - any suggestions would be greatly appreciated - thank you in advance. Happy to supply any other information.

[mpack]

00:00:04.934602 Host RAM: 16263MB (15.8GB) total, 8367MB (8.1GB) available
...
00:00:05.253500 RamSize <integer> = 0x00000002c0500000 (11 816 402 944, 11 269 MB, 11.0 GB)
00:00:05.253787 VRamSize <integer> = 0x0000000001000000 (16 777 216, 16 MB)

The RAM you give to the VM has to actually exist, and not already be allocated to something else. I would reduce the VM allocation to 6GB (6144MB).

While you're in there you should increase the graphics RAM to 128MB, and reduce the vCPU count to 2, as that too has been overallocated (you have 4 cores total, so how can you sensibly dedicate all 4 to the VM? - what does the host code (including VirtualBox) run on?).

[scottgus1]

Sometimes a Virtualbox install can't replace existing Virtualbox drivers. Please try this:

Uninstall Virtualbox and reboot.
Go to "C:\Windows\System32\drivers", look for any files called 'Vbox*.sys' (there could be up to 5) and delete them.
Reboot again.
If you have any 3rd-party security or anti-malware software, disable the living daylights out of it for a moment.
Reinstall Virtualbox using right-click-Run-As-Administrator.

[fth0]

FWIW, the Sequencing-2022-09-14-13-58-50.log file shows VirtualBox 6.1.34 running a VM for nearly two days that was cleanly shut down.

The VirtualBox error message box is from another VM run failing in the early VirtualBox hardening checks. Please provide a (zipped) VBoxHardening.log file, if you haven't solved the problem with the suggestions given so far.

[RWall5]

Sorry for the slow reply - only just got admin rights to fix it.

Sometimes a Virtualbox install can't replace existing Virtualbox drivers. Please try this:

Uninstall Virtualbox and reboot.
Go to "C:\Windows\System32\drivers", look for any files called 'Vbox*.sys' (there could be up to 5) and delete them.
Reboot again.
If you have any 3rd-party security or anti-malware software, disable the living daylights out of it for a moment.
Reinstall Virtualbox using right-click-Run-As-Administrator.

This solved the problem, thank you very much - there were two vbox files that required deletion, then I reinstalled it and it starts as usual. Avecto defendpoint was switched off as a precaution but appears not to have been the problem.

00:00:04.934602 Host RAM: 16263MB (15.8GB) total, 8367MB (8.1GB) available
...
00:00:05.253500 RamSize <integer> = 0x00000002c0500000 (11 816 402 944, 11 269 MB, 11.0 GB)
00:00:05.253787 VRamSize <integer> = 0x0000000001000000 (16 777 216, 16 MB)

The RAM you give to the VM has to actually exist, and not already be allocated to something else. I would reduce the VM allocation to 6GB (6144MB).

While you're in there you should increase the graphics RAM to 128MB, and reduce the vCPU count to 2, as that too has been overallocated (you have 4 cores total, so how can you sensibly dedicate all 4 to the VM? - what does the host code (including VirtualBox) run on?).

Thank you also for the advice, I've made these changes too.