No VMs listed in GUI

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Linux hosts.
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JC Pollman
Posts: 2
Joined: 6. Oct 2021, 14:26

No VMs listed in GUI

Post by JC Pollman »

Running VB 6.1.26 in Ubuntu 20.04. I have multiple VMs that work fine, but today none of them are listed in the GUI. The GUI that does show up is the original GUI with no VMs - just the Welcome to VirtualBox! Doing a: vboxmanage list vms does list all my VMs, and using this will start each of the VMs: vboxmanage startvm VMname. But, none of the VMS show up in the GUI like they used to. Any thoughts?

JC
mpack
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Re: No VMs listed in GUI

Post by mpack »

If you log in as a different user (e.g. admin user vs normal) then you will see no VMs.

It doesn't make sense VBoxManage and the GUI show different results - both get their info from the same place. However if you saw this on two sessions logged in as different users, then it would make sense.
fth0
Volunteer
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Re: No VMs listed in GUI

Post by fth0 »

Another possibility would be that the left column of the VirtualBox Manager is 0 pixels wide and consequently not shown. A screenshot of the GUI would show that to us.
JC Pollman
Posts: 2
Joined: 6. Oct 2021, 14:26

Re: No VMs listed in GUI

Post by JC Pollman »

fth0 wrote:Another possibility would be that the left column of the VirtualBox Manager is 0 pixels wide and consequently not shown. A screenshot of the GUI would show that to us.
You were exactly correct: after carefully playing with the left side of the GUI I was able to show the VMs again. Many thanks!
JC
scottgus1
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Re: No VMs listed in GUI

Post by scottgus1 »

fth0 wrote:the left column of the VirtualBox Manager is 0 pixels wide
Good eye, fth0! Seeing the welcome screen (which disappears after a VM is created) also made me think the wrong account was being used. But then Vboxmanage wouldn't see the VMs either.

Turns out that if the Tool pane at the top of the VM list is selected, instead of a VM, the Welcome message re-appears.
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