File size transfer limit of 4 GB?

[maxtorm]

Is there a file size transfer limit in VirtualBox? I am using version 1.6.2 (upgrading to .4 as I write this). I have a 5.6 GB file in an Ubuntu guest that I have tried transferring via network share, via external USB drive and via shared folders. No matter the method, the process always fails when 4 GB of the file has been copied.

Depending on the method, I get a variety of errors. Copying from the command line, I get a "protocol error". Copying using the nautilus drag and drop to the external hard drive says "Error writing to file: file too large". There is plenty of space in all of the targets I have attempted to use.

Can anyone shed some light?

[Sasquatch]

See the Forum FAQ. You are using the FAT32 file system. Does not support files larger than 4 GB.

[maxtorm]

Sorry...I should have specified. I did see the posts on FAT32, but this is definitely not the case here. The drives I am writing to are NTFS.

[maxtorm]

One further note: though the USB drive I have attached is formatted NFTS, Linux reports that it has mounted it as FAT32. That might account for the error while copying it to the USB drive (though I don't know why it would mount in this fashion). However, another method I tried was a shared folder, mounted as vboxsf, and it too failed. Presumably, the 4 GB limitation does not apply to vboxsf and the shared folder was on an NTFS-formatted drive.

[Sasquatch]

There is a reason your external drive was mounted as FAT32 and not NTFS. It's FAT32 formatted. Use sudo fdisk -l to know the file system of the disk. I'm sure it will say VFAT or similar. Force mount it with ntfs-3g if you have it installed (modern distro's have it already) and see if you get an error. It likely will.

[maxtorm]

I'm sure this come as no surprise, but you're right. I don't get it. I could swear I ran a "convert" on that drive just last week because I had a file that I could not copy to it (completely unrelated to VirtualBox). Too weird. Thanks for your patience.