VMs won't start

[vbnovice2]

Hi folks,

I've spent a fair amount of time here today. I know this problem has been posted in several of these forums; but I have yet to find a solution. So, I hope someone can help.

We had a brief power outage recently. Since then, VirtualBox will not start any of the VM's I have--including VM's that were not running at the time. I'm running Debian 7. I was running virtualbox 5.1, but after reinstalling I'm now running version 5.2.10 and getting the same results.

I'm getting the usual error message:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine windowsvr.

The virtual machine 'windowsvr' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1).

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: MachineWrap
Interface: IMachine {85cd948e-a71f-4289-281e-0ca7ad48cd89}

If I attempt a straight start through the VBox Manager, I get the following error message as well...

RTR3InitEx failed with rc=-1912 (rc=-1912)

The VirtualBox kernel modules do not match this version of VirtualBox. The installation of VirtualBox was apparently not successful. Executing

'/sbin/vboxconfig'

may correct this. Make sure that you do not mix the OSE version and the PUEL version of VirtualBox.

where: supR3HardenedMainInitRuntime what: 4 VERR_VM_DRIVER_VERSION_MISMATCH (-1912) - The installed support driver doesn't match the version of the user.

Most of the posts I've seen suggest completely removing Virtualbox and reinstalling from the official download. I've done this several times. I've also reinstalled the kernel headers, and taken the advice from above by running 'sudo /sbin/vboxconfig'. The rebuild seems successful. And, I've rebooted the host server when it seemed appropriate.

I'm still fairly new to Linux, so I may be looking in the wrong places, but I don't see any logs pertaining to WindowsHardening--though the primary vm I am trying to start is a Windows vm. I've renamed the VBox.log in the vm/Logs folder to VBox.log.a. But no new log has been created, and attempts to start the vm produce no new entries in the log.

A current dpkg listing shows the following:

root@debianhost01:/home/ron/VirtualBox VMs/windowsvr/Logs# dpkg -l 'virtualbox*'
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name           Version      Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
un  virtualbox     <none>                    (no description available)
ii  virtualbox-5.2 5.2.10-12208 amd64        Oracle VM VirtualBox
un  virtualbox-gue <none>                    (no description available)
un  virtualbox-ose <none>                    (no description available)

I'm running out of ideas. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[vbnovice2]

Additional Info: A brand new vm doesn't start either.

[socratis]

suggest completely removing Virtualbox and reinstalling from the official download. I've done this several times.

But it doens't seem like the installation was successful, right? Otherwise it would have worked. So, post the output of the installation and/or the VirtualBox setup log from /var/log.

Do you have the required build-essentials and kernel headers (that match exactly your kernel) installed?

[vbnovice2]

Well, in one last "Hail Mary", I was behind in updating my Debian host. Since my web servers weren't running, it seemed like a good time to update. I also thought this might just update some package that was corrupt and causing my problem. I used the Synaptic Package Manager to do this.

After updating, I rebooted, and voila! My vm's now start!

Now, I really believe (though it took me several tries) that I had fully removed and reinstalled virtualbox correctly. Yet this problem persisted. Isn't there some way to tell exactly what is out of sync', and update those things manually? This process totally feels like a shot in the dark.

I'm having another issue, but it's separate.

[socratis]

I'm a fan of Synaptic as well, but sometimes apt-get tends to be more thorough...
Glad you got it going. Marking as [Solved].

Edit: [Solved] was removed after the OP's request.

[vbnovice2]

I'm afraid I'm back in the same boat. I can't start any of my vm's. I was running fine for a few days, but found the servers down again this morning. Now, however, I start a vm and just as it begins to come up, the window closes and the state of the vm is "aborted".

After realizing that this was happening for ALL vm's, I have attempted the same process of completely removing VirtualBox and reinstalling from the downloaded package. I've also installed the extension pack.

virtualbox-5.2_5.2.10-122088~Debian~wheezy_amd64.deb
Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.2.10-122088.vbox-extpack

The VirtualBox Manager comes up fine. I've added my vm's, but they still abort upon starting. The log for the vm doesn't show anything that looks like an error. The .Virtualbox/VBoxSVC.log however, shows the following:

00:06:23.226107 nspr-9 WARNING [COM]: aRC=NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005) aIID={afca788c-4477-787d-60b2-3fa70e56fbbc} aComponent={HostWrap} aText={VirtualBox is not currently allowed to access USB devices. You can change this by adding your user to the 'vboxusers' group. Please see the user manual for a more detailed explanation}, preserve=true aResultDetail=0

O.K. So, removing (actually purging) the old installation probably removed me from the group. But I have re-assigned myself to the 'vboxusers' group; but am still getting the same behavior and message.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Martin]

Did you reboot or at least relogin after adding your user to the vboxuser group?
Group membership changes are only updated/activated at login.

[socratis]

completely removing VirtualBox and reinstalling from the downloaded package

Something's not right here:

• You wouldn't have to re-add your VMs, they should be there.
• You wouldn't have to re-add yourself to the 'vboxusers' group.

So, what exactly did you do, what did you delete?

As for the logs, unless you have a significant experience on how to read them, you should include them verbatim for us to take a look as well, you can't be filtering out what you think is important or not. ZIPPED.

[vbnovice2]

Fair enough. I'm still relatively new to Linux. So, please forgive my ignorance with the following. These are a reasonable representation of the commands I have entered several times today to try to resolve this. In my last posting, I simply removed virtualbox. This time I used the "purge" option. And yes, I did it more than once...

Code: Select all

apt-get purge virtualbox-dkms
apt-get purge virtualbox
apt-get purge virtualbox-dkms

sudo dpkg -P virtualbox-dkms
sudo dpkg -P virtualbox
sudo dpkg -P virtualbox-qt
 
reboot
apt-get clean
apt-get autoclean
sudo dpkg -i virtualbox-5.2_5.2.10-122088~Debian~wheezy_amd64.deb 
(Used VirtualBox Manager to install Extension pack.)
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

sudo apt install build-essential module-assistant dkms
sudo m-a prepare
usermod -a -G vboxusers ron

This is what is currently installed...

Code: Select all

root@debianhost01:/home/ron# dpkg -l | grep virtualbox
ii  virtualbox-5.2                        5.2.10-122088~Debian~wheezy        amd64        Oracle VM VirtualBox

I have also attempted to install virtualbox-dkms, virtualbox-qt, and virtualbox-guest-utils...

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-dkms virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-qt

...but these seem to be incompatible with the current version of virtualbox. At least that's how I am interpreting the messages that result.

Log files are attached. Thanks for taking a look.

[vbnovice2]

Here is a new batch of logs. I have been toying with settings, based on some other posts. I've reduced the memory to 2Gb--even though there is plenty of memory. I disabled the USB interface for now--even though it looks like the Extension pack has been installed correctly. I found that a recommendation for an entry into /etc/fbtab that I followed yesterday knocked out my USB hard drive mount. I've reinstated that, but I can't see where it would have an effect on the vm's--since it isn't a shared drive.

The vm still aborts.

I keep looking at these logs, and they seem to be O.K. up until things stop. My other significant vm is a Debian server and it is aborting as well. I need to focus on this one (Windows 2003). I'm hoping that a clue here will tell me what to look for in the other.

Can anyone here give me a clue?

[vbnovice2]

PLEASE DO NOT MARK THIS THREAD AS "SOLVED"...at least not yet.

I have suspected that part of the problem here is because the vm's have been unable to initiate their video driver(s) in the vms "show" window. So, this morning I tried to start the vms using the command line...and they loaded successfully!

So, great. My public server is back online. But this DOESN'T explain why they abort when I try to start them via the VirtualBox Manager. I am pretty sure that if I attempt to start these vms through the VirtualBox Manager again, they will abort.

My other serious concern is that these servers were running for about a week before everything shut down again for no apparent reason.

Please! Can someone from Oracle help to shed some light on this situation???

Currently, I can't get to my logs from here, so I will post separately...

[vbnovice2]

Here's the latest collection of logs...

[socratis]

PLEASE DO NOT MARK THIS THREAD AS "SOLVED"

You asked me three days ago to "Unmark as [Solved]", which I did two days ago (2018-05-11, 23:39). After you clearly told us that is was [Solved] and you changed your mind. Not sure what's going on or what you're referring to...

Please! Can someone from Oracle help to shed some light on this situation???

This is a user-2-user forum. And I'm not sure that without an Oracle support contract you can be asking for something like that. So, peer users are your best bet at the moment. Not that it can't happen, just don't bet on it...

[vbnovice2]

I know and I appreciate the change. My note was to avoid marking this as "SOLVED" again just because I got the vms running. The problem really is not solved yet.

So, now, I think the questions are:

• Why do these vms start using the command line, but not via the VirtualBox Manager?
• What would cause these vms to run for a week or so and then shut down?

[socratis]

Ah, got you... Well, we don't usually mark something as [Solved], [Resolved], [Invalid], [WorksForMe], [NotSupported], [Fixed], plus a couple more I'm working on, unless it's clearly spelled by the OP, so no worries...