Failed to open a session for the virtual machine

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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Csillag
Posts: 1
Joined: 10. Jun 2018, 01:40

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine

Post by Csillag »

This is the error message keep coming back, i have know idea, how to fix it. all of your help is appriciated.


The VM session was closed before any attempt to power it on.

Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: SessionMachine
Interface: ISession {7844aa05-b02e-4cdd-a04f-ade4a762e6b7}
Attachments
Windows XP-2018-06-09-19-28-40.log
(1.19 KiB) Downloaded 103 times
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Failed to open a session for the virtual machine

Post by socratis »

I split your post from the 2-year old "Failed to open a session for the virtual machine (Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)" thread. That's "The" most common error, no need to reply to a 2-year old thread.
VirtualBox VM 5.2.2 r119230 win.amd64 (Nov 22 2017 16:22:28) release log
00:00:01.225756 OS Product: Windows 10
00:00:01.225757 OS Release: 10.0.17134
You need to update VirtualBox. You have the 1803 Win10 version. If you want to use the latest version for your host/guests, you should also consider doing the same for VirtualBox. Download the latest VirtualBox. As of this writing, that would be version 5.2.12. If that doesn't work you should try the latest test builds, especially with all the Spectre/Meltdown patches coming in from all sides.
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
Terra18
Posts: 1
Joined: 16. Jul 2018, 20:44

Re: Failed to open a session for the virtual machine

Post by Terra18 »

I was having the same issue running 5.2.8 on host Win 7.
Upgrading to 5.2.12 fix it for me.
Dazur09
Posts: 11
Joined: 15. Nov 2018, 18:55
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10, Windows 7
Location: Switzerland

Re: Failed to open a session for the virtual machine

Post by Dazur09 »

I am receiving that same Error Message "Failed to open a session for the virtual machine" with Details "The VM session was closed before any attempt to power it on."
It's a Windows 10 VM running on a Windows 7 Host, but i created and am running that VM usually on another host PC running Windows 10. The VM files themselves are on an external SSD. In the past this switching from one PC to the other worked, I don't know what I'm doing wrong now. I disconnected optical disk that had guest additions.
Also when I try to modify the Settings I cannot save any change with the Error message "Failed to save the settings of ..." with Details "Runtime error opening 'F:\VirtualBoxVMs\....vbox-tmp' for overwriting: -35 (Unresolved (unknown) host platform error.).
F:\tinderbox\win-5.2\src\VBox\Main\src-server\MachineImpl.cpp[10136] (long __cdecl Machine::i_saveSettings(bool *,int))."
Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? Attached the log file (Btw I had to shorten the log file, as it was too high to upload with its 138 kB... I hope I didn't cut off important information).
Thanks for any help!
Attachments
Win10Pro_LV2015-SP1-2018-11-15-16-50-06 - Shortened.log
(84.65 KiB) Downloaded 39 times
andyp73
Volunteer
Posts: 1631
Joined: 25. May 2010, 23:48
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Assorted Linux, Windows Server 2012, DOS, Windows 10, BIOS/UEFI emulation

Re: Failed to open a session for the virtual machine

Post by andyp73 »

Dazur09 wrote:Btw I had to shorten the log file, as it was too high to upload with its 138 kB... I hope I didn't cut off important information
It looks like you probably have. Zip the whole log file and attach it in place of the one you have already posted.

-Andy.
My crystal ball is currently broken. If you want assistance you are going to have to give me all of the necessary information.
Please don't ask me to do your homework for you, I have more than enough of my own things to do.
Dazur09
Posts: 11
Joined: 15. Nov 2018, 18:55
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10, Windows 7
Location: Switzerland

Re: Failed to open a session for the virtual machine

Post by Dazur09 »

Thanks Andy for the tip, sorry here zipped and with the error messages printscreens.
Attachments
Win10Pro-2018-11-15-16-50-06.zip
(64.12 KiB) Downloaded 21 times
andyp73
Volunteer
Posts: 1631
Joined: 25. May 2010, 23:48
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Assorted Linux, Windows Server 2012, DOS, Windows 10, BIOS/UEFI emulation

Re: Failed to open a session for the virtual machine

Post by andyp73 »

VBox.log wrote:
00:00:01.989963 File system of 'F:\VirtualBoxVMs\Productive VM\Win10Pro_LV2015-SP1\Win10Pro_LV2015-SP1-disk001.vdi' is unknown
What type of disk is drive F: and how is it formatted? If it is an external USB device then you may find severe performance issues.
VBox.log wrote:
00:00:02.055594   NumCPUs           <integer> = 0x0000000000000004 (4)
00:00:03.013321 CPUM: Physical host cores: 4
You have assigned all your hosts physical CPU cores (the thing VirtualBox cares about) to this guest. This can lead to resource starvation on the host. I would reduce the CPU count to 2.
VBox.log wrote:
00:00:03.039000 SharedFolders host service: Adding host mapping
00:00:03.039017     Host path 'C:\', map name 'C_DRIVE', writable, automount=true, create_symlinks=false, missing=false
If you give a guest full access to the hosts boot drive through shared folders then be very careful. It wouldn't take much for key system files to be deleted by accident.

With the failed to save message, you need to check that you have full read / write permissions to the directory where the .vbox and .vbox-prev files are for the guest in question.

-Andy.
My crystal ball is currently broken. If you want assistance you are going to have to give me all of the necessary information.
Please don't ask me to do your homework for you, I have more than enough of my own things to do.
Dazur09
Posts: 11
Joined: 15. Nov 2018, 18:55
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10, Windows 7
Location: Switzerland

Re: Failed to open a session for the virtual machine

Post by Dazur09 »

Thanks so much Andy for your advice which helped me get running that Windows 10 VM again on this Windows 7 host! :D

What helped:
- your advice to have full read / write permissions, as they were set to "read only". I have no idea how full write permissions got lost on the folder containing the VM files...

Details:
- About the disk: it's an SSD in an external housing formatted with exFAT so I can use it across platforms on Windows and also on Mac OS hosts. The ports I have on those hosts are USB 3.0 which still gives me a 2-3x faster performance than VMs on one of the PCs which are on a second internal disk which is mechanical. I don't have enough space on the SSD's of those PCs to run my quite big VMs on the SSDs, so I can't compare performance of VM's running on external SSD with internal SSD. But the performance on the external SSD through USB 3.0 is good and enough for me.
- About the CPU cores: probably you see in the log that I tried with several number of processors before, but at the end was running always just 1 processor on that VM. I have to mention also that I guess that VirtualBox somehow couldn't distinguish that I had the "same" VM "twice", once the "original" VM on the host PC's internal second mechanical disk and then a copy of that VM without changing the name on the external SSD disk. So I think the log mixed information of both maybe? No clue.. I guess I should have changed the name of the copied VM..

Other things that may have helped a bit to get it running, too:
- Guest Additions iso was mounted in the Virtual Media Manager under optical disks and Virtualbox showed a Warning when I tried to launch the problematic VM 'The image file ... VBoxGuestAdditions.iso' is inaccessible and is being ignored. Please select a different image file for the virtual DVD drive.." FYI: here it occurred probably because I had the VM running on a Mac OS host before, but I have the impression this warning also popped up when switching the external drive with VM's on it between Windows 7 and Windows 10 hosts (image attached).
- A mapped Network drive pointed to the external SSD disk connected to another PC and through the work network this somehow disturbed windows explorer on windows 7, as the external SSD disk with the VMs showed up under mapped network drive instead of simply as an external disk. I needed to disconnect the mapped drive, even needed to restart the PC to get that right.
- at the beginning having a copy of the VM in the VirtualBox VM Manager window with same name as the problematic VM was also throwing a warning.

Thanks again,
David
Attachments
VirtualBox Folder Properties and VBoxGuestAdditions.iso inaccessible.zip
VirtualBox Folder Properties read only and VBoxGuestAdditions.iso inaccessible
(30.05 KiB) Downloaded 18 times
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