virtualbox.org

Hey everyone,

Hoping you can help! Did some google searches of the forums for my exact issue, but haven't found a solution in an hour of online research.

On Windows Vista x64, I've got 3.1.6 r59338 puel host running with guest extensions. Have a Windows Vista x64 guest with a small snapshot tree that branches before I install some software.

When I fire up the vbox gui, my VM (vista64-sp2 in the screenshot) is marked as inaccessible. The snapshot tab is not selectable. The error message is 'Cannot attach medium 'C:\path\to\VboxGuestAdditions.iso' {cd-uid} from snapshot '{snapshot-uid}': medium is already in use by snapshot '{snapshot-uid}'. Both of the snapshot-uid are the same. That is, the error as I interpret it reads: snapshot can't use the medium because the snapshot is already using the medium.

: screenshot of inaccessible vista64 guest; inaccesible_extensions_disc_vista64_guest_snapshots.jpg (53.23 KiB) Viewed 8872 times

I haven't deleted nor hand-edited any files, nor upgraded vbox.

Is there some reference manual or online help I missed?
Is there a quick edit I can make to restore some of the tree of snapshots?
Is this something an upgrade to a new vbox might fix, or would it make it worse?

Best regards,

-e

Close VB and make sure no process is running in the background. Then open your user profile (easy access by typing %userprofile% in the address bar) and go to the Application Data folder (it's hidden, you can use %appdata% instead to access it more directly) and look for the folder ".Virtualbox". In there you will find a few folders (Machines and Harddrives) and one will hold the settings file of your VM. Open that file (<vmname>.xml) in notepad and search for the CD/DVD entry. Clear the media that is listed there so it will only have the opening and closing tags for it (the media entry is indented). Save the file and start VB. The VM should now be accessible again.

If you're not sure it will work, make a backup of the file you edit so you can revert any changes.

Hey, awesome, thanks for the help!

I have 2 dvd drives, the virtual one for vbox extensions, and a physical pass-through one for install cd/dvd.

Somehow, through normal use, all of the pass-through ones were set to mount the vbox extensions, so each snapshot said both drives had mounted that disc.

Deleting the entire xml element for the Image of the pass-through disc for each snapshot fixed this, and now the machine and its snapshots are available again.

Thank you so much!

-e

That's fixed in 3.2.0.

Great! I see the update is available, snagging now.

I'm having the same problem:

Cannot attach medium 'C:\epm11121.iso' {1a6b3d0a-688b-4bad-83ce-3d223b0408f7} from snapshot '80ad972b-5a00-48cd-b23b-0a1512b53208': medium is already in use by this snapshot!.
Result Code:
VBOX_E_OBJECT_IN_USE (0x80BB000C)
Component:
Medium
Interface:
IMedium {9edda847-1279-4b0a-9af7-9d66251ccc18}

Problem appeared after rebooting host in VirtualBox 4.0.0 (and after upgrading today to 4.0.4). My host OS is Windows 7 64-bit and my client OS is Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 64-bit.

Any further suggestion? I tried the workaround (deleting 'C:\epm11121.iso' from VirtualBox.xml) but no joy. Any suggestion?

Cheers,

Maurice

The following worked for me on Linux:

stopped any vm on virtualbox
.
stopped the vboxdrv by
Code: Select all
```
/etc/rc.d/vboxdrv stop
```
(I don't know if this is neccessary at all, but I felt better with this)
.
identified the xyz.vbox file (XML) for the inaccessible vm and made a copy of it
.
opened that xyz.vbox file in a text editor
.

searched for the uuid for the failed medium /usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso, in your case that would be C:\epm11121.iso:

Code: Select all

<VirtualBox xmlns="http://www.innotek.de/VirtualBox-settings" version="1.11-linux">
  <Machine uuid="..." name="shouldBeTheNameOfTheInaccessibleVm" OSType="..." ...">
    <Description>...</Description>
    <MediaRegistry>
      <HardDisks>
        <HardDisk ...>
           ...
       </HardDisk>
           ...
      <DVDImages>
        <Image uuid="{d5939483-1581-4cc6-9ba2-41f597a3ad34}" location="/usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso"/>
           ...

and found {d5939483-1581-4cc6-9ba2-41f597a3ad34}
.

searched for that uuid in any <Snapshot ...> entity where it is to be attached twice:

Code: Select all

                <Snapshot uuid="shouldBeTheSnapshotUuidFromTheErrorMessage" ...>
                  ... (lots of contents snipped here)
                  <StorageControllers>
                    <StorageController ...>
                      ...
                      <AttachedDevice passthrough="false" type="DVD" port="0" device="1">
                        <Image uuid="{d5939483-1581-4cc6-9ba2-41f597a3ad34}"/>
                      </AttachedDevice>
                     ...
                      <AttachedDevice passthrough="false" type="DVD" port="1" device="1">
                        <Image uuid="{d5939483-1581-4cc6-9ba2-41f597a3ad34}"/>
                      </AttachedDevice>
                    ...

threw a dice to decide against one of them
.

deleted all but one <AttachedDevice ...> entities for that uuid so that the section finally changed to

Code: Select all

                <Snapshot uuid="shouldBeTheSnapshotUuidFromTheErrorMessage" ...>
                  ... (lots of contents snipped here)
                  <StorageControllers>
                    <StorageController ...>
                      ...
                      ...
                      <AttachedDevice passthrough="false" type="DVD" port="1" device="1">
                        <Image uuid="{d5939483-1581-4cc6-9ba2-41f597a3ad34}"/>
                      </AttachedDevice>
                    ...

saved the edited file
.
restarted the vboxdrv by
Code: Select all
```
/etc/rc.d/vboxdrv start
```
opened the virtualbox gui while praying to Murphy
.
started the VM

Maybe you have to change this a little bit due to your Windoze host OS (paths, names). But finally the VM definition files should be the same.

I didn't find the time for rolling the VM back to the "repaired" snapshot yet, so don't hesitate to try it and report here if it worked.
Maybe someone else can state here if my solution leaves unusable snapshots, too.

Best regards
rudi

MANY THANKS RUDI, It worked great for me!
I was sincerely worry about doing any mistake when editing my Win7 Ultimate Lite SP1 VM, but it is working very well since i did that,
I thought the error happenen bcuz I re-installer GuestAdditions.iso by mistake.

I would want to know it should I edit the file named "W7UltLiteSP1.vbox-prev" in the "/home/user_name/VirtualBox VMs/shared_folder_name/" folder, ¿Should I for the changes to apply in my VM? I ask about it bcuz that (.vbox-prev) file -unknowned for me about its using -
has the same information as my .vbox file.

Many thanks for your help!

Jose Azúul...

virtualbox.org

inaccessible guest - guest additions iso in use by snapshot

inaccessible guest - guest additions iso in use by snapshot

Re: inaccessible guest - guest additions iso in use by snapshot

Re: inaccessible guest - guest additions iso in use by snapshot

Re: inaccessible guest - guest additions iso in use by snapshot

Re: inaccessible guest - guest additions iso in use by snapshot

Re: inaccessible guest - guest additions iso in use by snapshot

Re: inaccessible guest - guest additions iso in use by snapshot

Re: inaccessible guest - guest additions iso in use by snapshot