Can't start any VM - NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005) Component: MachineWrap

[lothario]

I've been pulling my hair out for the past 4 hours trying to figure this one out. What does "NS" in "NS_ERROR_FAILURE" mean? Non-Specific? Well thank you very much for the help in troubleshooting Seriously, this is error messages 101: offer the user a clear, actionable error message.

Anyway, I realize this is open source and that I'm at the mercy of the helpful folks here, so I'm not trying to antagonize anyone.

My host is Ubuntu 18.04 running on a ThinkPad X1C with Secure Boot disabled. I was using Virtualbox 6.0.4 just fine ~6 months ago, but today it broke with the error below. To make sure I'm on the latest version, I've purged the virtualbox-6.0 package and installed VirtualBox 6.0.12 from the Debian repo (bionic). When I attempt to start any VM, even a blank newly created "Linux" one, I get this message:

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

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: MachineWrap
Interface: IMachine {5047460a-265d-4538-b23e-ddba5fb84976}

What I've tried:

1. First I had Secure Boot enabled and signed the drivers. Same error. Disabled Secure Boot.
2. Made sure the VM directories weren't read-only.
3. Searched the forum for this error, but found only threads for Mac hosts, Windows hosts, or without an answer, or with solutions that aren't applicable (e.g. the read-only filesystem)
4. Checked that VirtualBox.xml is valid.
5. Made sure `virtualbox-dkms` was not installed, and `dkms` was ("already the newest version (2.3-3ubuntu9.5).")
6. The other way around - uninstalled dkms and installed `virtualbox-dkms`. This seems to have completely broken VirtualBox - I get

   VirtualBox: Error -610 in supR3HardenedMainInitRuntime!
   VirtualBox: dlopen("/usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxRT.so",) failed: <NULL>
   
   VirtualBox: Tip! It may help to reinstall VirtualBox.

   The installation log shows that virtualbox was downgraded to v5.2.32, which I suppose is the one in the Ubuntu repos.
7. Re-installed 6.0.12 properly from the Debian repo.
8. Downgraded to the v6.0.0 deb.
9. Ran Virtualbox as root.

I've been up all night trying to get Virtualbox to work. What else can I try?

[fth0]

What does "NS" in "NS_ERROR_FAILURE" mean? Non-Specific?

It could be.

Seriously, the NS stands for Netscape, the company that created the Netscape Navigator, which was the ancestor of Mozilla Firefox. Netscape also created XPCOM (Cross Platform Component Object Model), which is also used by VirtualBox on Linux hosts. And the error code NS_ERROR_FAILURE is indeed the non-specific error code to be used when no specific error code exists, so your interpretation was correct.

[scottgus1]

installed VirtualBox 6.0.12 from the Debian repo...installed `virtualbox-dkms`

I read somewhere recently that the official Virtualbox doesn't need dkms (I'm a Windows guy, trying to branch out, so I may be wrong.) The various forks may change Virtualbox in ways we don't know. Forum gurus recommend purging your Linux distro's version of Virtualbox, then downloading & installing from http://www.virtualbox.org. Try that and report back if you have problems.

[socratis]

I read somewhere recently that the official Virtualbox doesn't need dkms

Correct, not since VirtualBox 5.1.0.

'lothario', follow the advice from 'scottgus1': clean up your system from 'virtualb*' and 'vbox*' and then download the stand-alone installer, forget for a minute about setting up the repo...