VirtualBox not working on Fedora 18

[DougG]

Hi,

I installed VirtualBox (newest release) and created a Fedora VM, and everything worked great. I had it working for over a week.

Today I tried to run the VM, and it suddenly stopped working. I get two error dialog boxes:

First one:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine fedora18.

The virtual machine 'fedora18' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1.

Second one:

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908 )

he VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is probably not loaded.

If you installed or VirtualBox package recently you need to restart the computer for the driver to load.

Alternatively, you may attempt to load the driver by issuing the following command with system administrator (root) privileges:

'systemctl restart systemd-modules-load.service'

I didn't install any new kernels, and always successfully shut down my VM.

And this is the output of 'systemctl status systemd-modules-load.service' :

systemd-modules-load.service - Load Kernel Modules
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-modules-load.service; static)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Wed 2013-07-24 12:48:57 IST; 1h 45min ago
Docs: man:systemd-modules-load.service(8 )
man:modules-load.d(5)
Process: 1955 ExecStart=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-modules-load (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Can anyone identify what the problem is?

Thanks much appreciated

[Perryg]

But did you reboot the host?
The error message is telling you that the kernel module is not loaded.
Add the second error that shows systemd has issues and a cold boot may be in order.

[DougG]

But did you reboot the host?
The error message is telling you that the kernel module is not loaded.

Thanks for the reply. Because I did do a google search and suggestions were to uninstall/reinstall, which I tried, including a reboot, before actually reinstalling, but no luck.

I am guessing that the kernel modules are systemd-modules-load.service service? As you can see from my output of the 'systemctl status systemd-modules-load.service' command shows its status as failed? I know that it is a static service which means it is enabled by default on Linux and cant be changed. But mine shows that it is failed, which does not look healthy. I tried reloading/restarting the service, but still shows failed as its status?

Add the second error that shows systemd has issues and a cold boot may be in order.

What is a cold boot? Just a normal reboot? Which I have already done plus reinstalling VirtualBox, but nothing.

Thanks

[Perryg]

There usually never is a reason to re-install VirtualBox. Something has changed on the host and that is where you need to focus. You already said that a new kernel was not installed which is usually the cause for this issue if you do not have DKMS installed to keep the headers and dev modules updated automatically.

cold boot and then try the following as SU

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/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

Note anything in the terminal and post the following if it fails.
/var/log/vbox-install.log

Note: cold boot is a total shut down and a hot boot is a simple reboot.

[DougG]

Thanks for your reply.

Unless I did update any kernel modules, but I think it was updated well before I came across this error.

After shutting down the system, and booting back up the system I ran the the command

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/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

, I then got the following error output:
bash: /etc/init.d/vboxdrv: No such file or directory

Thanks again

[Perryg]

I would try installing the headers and devel packages that match your running kernel.

You can see the running kernel with uname -r in a terminal or install them with the following as su/sudo

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yum install kernel-headers-$(uname -r) kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

Also now it appears that you have removed VirtualBox and you will need to reinstall it once you have your packages right.

[DougG]

I ran the command

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 yum install kernel-headers-$(uname -r) kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

And my output was:

Loaded plugins: langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
Package kernel-headers-3.9.11-200.fc18.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Package kernel-devel-3.9.11-200.fc18.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Nothing to do

And yes I did removed VirtualBox (not reinstalled), which I then installed VirtualBox again to try and fix the error.

Thanks again

[Perryg]

And the /var/log/vbox-install.log I asked for?

[DougG]

Ah I missed that.

I actually don't have that log file in the /var/log directory. Or anything that relates to vbox ?

Thanks

[Perryg]

Then I am afraid VirtualBox is not installed. Install it and see if it installs and if not any error messages from the terminal.

[DougG]

But how can it not be installed, as I have it currently open (no VM's running of course) ?

Plus I closed VirtualBox and tried to install as it then outputted:

Loaded plugins: langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
Package VirtualBox-4.2.16-1.fc18.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Nothing to do

Unless you mean I should reinstall it? Which I have already done.

Say if it were to do with kernel updates, how can I find out that the latest VirtualBox package is updated with the newest kernel release?

Thanks again

[Perryg]

Where did you get your VirtualBox from? was it the VirtualBox.org? What is the full name of the install file?

[DougG]

On another note, I do recall when my graphical terminal froze (done dozens of times) which I then logged into another terminal (tty2) to kill a gnome-session which brought back my graphical terminal, but in the process, there was an output log in the terminal something like 'dbus has terminated' ?

This surely has no link to the current problem right?

Thanks

[Perryg]

See my previous post.

If you are installing the official version of VirtualBox from virtualbox.org there will be a /var/log/vbox-install.log & an /etc/init.d/vboxdrv

[DougG]

Where did you get your VirtualBox from? was it the VirtualBox(dot)org? What is the full name of the install file?

This is the complete rpm package detail:

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[root@localhost log]# rpm -qi VirtualBox
Name        : VirtualBox
Version     : 4.2.16
Release     : 1.fc18
Architecture: x86_64
Install Date: Thu 25 Jul 2013 01:20:42 AM IST
Group       : Development/Tools
Size        : 83200089
License     : GPLv2 or (GPLv2 and CDDL)
Signature   : RSA/SHA256, Sat 06 Jul 2013 01:37:30 PM IST, Key ID 36339914982e0a7c
Source RPM  : VirtualBox-4.2.16-1.fc18.src.rpm
Build Date  : Sat 06 Jul 2013 11:20:10 AM IST
Build Host  : builder1.ovh.rpmfusion.lan
Relocations : (not relocatable)
Vendor      : RPM Fusion
Summary     : A general-purpose full virtualizer for PC hardware
Description :
A general-purpose full virtualizer and emulator for 32-bit and
64-bit x86 based PC-compatible machines.

Yes it was downloaded from virtualbox(dot)org using 'yum install', and its file name is 'VirtualBox-4.2.16-1.fc18.src.rpm'

Thanks again

Note: I had to replace '.' with '(dot)' so I can post links on this post