Installation fails on MacOSX 11.2.3 Big Sur host (rc=-1908)

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SlugRightsNow
Posts: 4
Joined: 21. Apr 2021, 15:36

Installation fails on MacOSX 11.2.3 Big Sur host (rc=-1908)

Post by SlugRightsNow »

(mod edit - original topic "Installation fails on 10.13.x, 10.14.x (rc=-1908)")
MacOSX 11.2.3 Big Sur host, Linux guest; always getting "Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)" error popups; no system preferences > security and privacy "Allow" popups to date (several days of retries)

Hello, smart people who know more about this than I do!

I’m having a bit of trouble with Virtual Box for Mac, with the following details:
Program Version: Virtual Box version 6.1.20
Operating System: macOS Big Sur 11.2.3 (20D91)
Hardware Model: Early 2015 13-inch Macbook Pro
Memory: 16GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Processor: 3.1 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7

(In case this model has known issues I’m unaware of…I hope not).

The program seems to install, but I get that years-old error message that lots of mac users keep getting (and apparently also some linux users?)

I am getting the following error popups whenever I try to run a linux-based virtual machine (I have tried Ubuntu, Nitrux, Mint, and Porteus) in virtual box for MacOS:

- "The virtual machine 'Linux Test' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1).
Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: MachineWrap
Interface: IMachine {85632c68-b5bb-4316-a900-5eb28d3413df}
"

- "Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

Make sure the kernel module has been loaded successfully.

where: suplibOsInit what: 3 VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED (-1908) - The support driver is not installed. On linux, open returned ENOENT. "

I have been troubleshooting this for a few days now, without any real luck. I read the entire thread on this error message here and I have tried, really, almost everything I saw other people trying, with only one exception.

- Tried to use System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General to consent to the kext, but it has, to date, never appeared for me (as per the mod edit of "Santiago92"’s post, first post in the thread, not sure which mod) after double (maybe triple, at this point) digit reinstallations
- Tried "spctl kext-consent add VB5E2TV963" in recovery mode terminal with disk data mounted & unlocked, verified with "spctl kext-consent list" that it worked (it’s actually on there multiple times, if that matters, since I tried it multiple times) (I saw multiple users have success with this command, especially "Jack Wang", "Sy", and "Darius123")
- Tried "chflags restricted /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/private/var/db/KernelExtensionManagement" & "…/Staging" in recovery mode terminal with disk data mounted & unlocked, seemed to work (verified out of recovery mode that they were sorted after) (I saw user "TheQL" had success with these commands)
- Tried "kextcache —clear-staging" in recovery mode with disk data mounted & unlocked, got the message "Executing: /usr/bin/kmutil clear-staging
clearing all staged extensions…" and got the "bash-3.2# " prompt line up again afterwards, so it seems to have done as instructed, but still no luck whatsoever getting the popup during a fresh install after rebooting… (I saw users "bucknaked" and "sudokillall" had success with this command)
- Updated from Big Sur 11.1 to Big Sur 11.2.3 (after backing up my machine, of course) and tried all of the above again, no luck
- Reinstalled Big Sur 11.2.3 from the online recovery menu (as in, freshly downloaded a copy of the OS off of apple’s servers, and installed that) as recommended to another user having lots of trouble by user "Socratis", with no luck
- Tried all of the above (minus the update and reinstall) after reinstalling, no luck
- Tried "csrutil clear" in recovery mode terminal with disk data mounted & unlocked, as seen in a bug report from two months ago…no luck

I have not yet tried "csrutil disable" in recovery mode with the disk data mounted & unlocked (as found to be successful by user "Amarok2") because it is my understanding that this is a security risk. It also seems like re-enabling csrutil will in some cases bring you back to square one (as happened to user "TheQL"), so it might be futile anyway.

I hope I did a tiny thing wrong and that you smart, patient people will be able to say "oh, you missed a dash in this command" or something to me, buuut I’m not super convinced that’s going to be the case, just due to the extensive troubleshooting I’ve done (I thought it would be rude to ask for help if I didn’t try everything).

The only morsel of a clue that’s apparent to my untrained eyes is that Terminal will tell me that I’m missing "com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageClass"…however, all of my USB ports and devices work, and a kext that appears to be named "IOUSBMassStorageClass.kext" is present in Library>Extensions (but not System>Library>Extensions, which has different USB kexts listed), sooo…I have no idea what’s up with that (especially considering I just straight-up reinstalled Big Sur last night).

I’ve attached zip files containing the installer logs, multiple system profiles, all of my virtual box crash logs from the console from today, the terminal output of a few recommended commands, and screenshots from the Extensions folders (in case any of the USB kexts look noticeably messed up).

I also apologize if I’ve missed any forum etiquette; I’ve read the rules and such, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually needed to post to a forum for tech support/troubleshooting purposes, ever, even once in my life…the solutions that other people used have always eventually worked for my situation. That’s pretty lucky, I guess!

Thank you very much for your time, even if it winds up being something unfixable…maybe I’ll try a live USB, if that’s the case.
Attachments
Screenshots.zip
(240.89 KiB) Downloaded 14 times
System Profile, Install Logs, Crash Reports, Terminal Commands.zip
Just from this morning
(141.04 KiB) Downloaded 14 times
SlugRightsNow
Posts: 4
Joined: 21. Apr 2021, 15:36

Re: Installation fails on MacOSX 11.2.3 Big Sur host (rc=-1908)

Post by SlugRightsNow »

Hello again, VirtualBox forum users!

I tried to troubleshoot the moved/missing kext, because I couldn't figure anything else out, and I went through a lot of searching, but couldn't find a lot of documentation on it. One thing I did notice, however, was that Apple's source code viewer (located at https://opensource.apple.com/) does not include the relevant kext as part of Big Sur, but does include it as part of Catalina. I've had this mac since at least High Sierra, so it's possible that this is a deprecated kext that is no longer part of macOS. If that is the case, it may have been moved automatically as part of the installation of Big Sur...that's my best guess, at least.

If the latest version of VirtualBox still requires this specific kext to be present in System/Library/Extensions, that should mean that anyone with a fresh install of Big Sur will be unable to properly use the program, even if they have no intention of using the USB ports (which, according to what I can tell from apple's source code viewer, are now governed by a different kext that begins with "IO", although I can't tell which one). If anyone has gotten the installation working in Big Sur, then please give me a hand; please put

Code: Select all

kextload /Library/Application\ Support/VirtualBox/VBoxDrv.kext 
kextload /Library/Application\ Support/VirtualBox/VBoxNetAdp.kext
kextload /Library/Application\ Support/VirtualBox/VBoxNetFit.kext
kextload /Library/Application\ Support/VirtualBox/VBoxUSB.kext 
into terminal, and attach what it spits out at you as a zipped terminal log in the reply. If anyone has gotten it running with the same error messages I had, then that probably means that something else is the problem...however, if nobody else is getting that error message, then maybe I somehow managed to get a messed up copy of Big Sur (even though I did internet recovery and downloaded it from Apple's servers...unlikely, but hey, cosmic rays and all that).

In versions of macOS prior to Big Sur, I could simply compile the kext from Apple's provided Catalina source code and put it in System/Library/Extensions myself, even if it's not supposed to be there; however, as of Big Sur, this folder is not editable by the end user, even with system integrity protection turned off (ie the effects of "csrutil disable"). Apparently, the OS even verifies that the kexts haven't been messed with by checking the most recent image of the machine (great from a security perspective, not so much for testing what's wrong). The only way to get this kext in there if it's not supposed to be there would be to mess around with those complicated, risky tools designed for hackintosh users, which I would greatly prefer to avoid. I bought this machine new, and I'm pretty sure Apple would refuse to help fix it if I busted it using those things...I'm not really in the market for thousand dollar paperweights.

I did notice a post on a hackintosh forum when I was researching this kext from a few months ago, asking if it was possible to be missing this kext on Big Sur, with no replies. I'm pretty sure, based off of everything I've seen, that the kext is simply not present in Big Sur, and that I only have it on my machine at all from an earlier version of macOS. It's worth noting that I'm not particularly tech-savvy, though, and this is all stuff I had to learn about over the past two weeks alone; I could be way off-base.

Thanks again for taking the time to look over this, and especially thank you to anyone who helps test the issue with those terminal commands!
SlugRightsNow
Posts: 4
Joined: 21. Apr 2021, 15:36

Re: Installation fails on MacOSX 11.2.3 Big Sur host (rc=-1908)

Post by SlugRightsNow »

Hi again!

As I was researching this installation failure further, I realized that I was unable to find a list of error messages and to what they correspond anywhere in the end user documentation. Since the original message I got was "Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)", and since on earlier macOS versions, that seemed to refer to the VirtualBox kernels being unable to load, I thought this error could only refer to missing Library/Extensions kexts or self-contained VirtualBox folder kexts...however, I'm now wondering if this can also refer to macOS system kexts that VirtualBox is unable to locate? If this is the case, it would explain why none of the troubleshooting based off of the older thread I read would work for me, and would also explain why a fresh install of Big Sur would not solve the issue, assuming my theory that the IOUSBMassStorageClass kext has been deprecated by Apple is correct.

What I've done temporarily is create a persistent live USB (maybe that just means it's a bootable USB? I'm unclear on the terminology) of a Linux operating system that suits my needs. The Ubuntu instructions weren't working for me, so I went with ParrotOS, even though it's usually for more advanced users (if you are having the same problems I am and wish to do this yourself, I would strongly strongly strongly recommend receiving help from an IT professional, and being VERY careful- your computer's hard drive will display as an erasable external drive, and using the "dd" command improperly will ALSO erase your hard drive...definitely make your frequent time machine backups!!!)

I would prefer, of course, to be able to use the excellent and foolproof tool, VirtualBox...but I haven't yet been able to find a viable solution to this issue. I think the next step would probably be for me to search the Big Sur bug reports and see if anyone has been able to provide a bug report with the details I've been able to find. If not, then I might be able to provide useful development info, which would be really neat! I'll keep trying to troubleshoot this for other people having this issue, though. I would also like a Windows VM, and the bootable USB solution to Windows is significantly more complicated, requiring access to an existing Windows PC (even if you have your own legally obtained license, you still need it to already be installed if you want to be able to boot into it without using Bootcamp to permanently partition your Mac computer, which seems to definitely defeat the purpose to me. Plus, it's way over my head in terms of complexity.)

One last quick note for the people having issues on Big Sur looking to use my temporary workaround to access a Linux OS; the official instructions for ParrotOS (found here: https://docs.parrotlinux.org/info/usb-live-persist/ and chosen due my circumstances, so absolutely look into less advanced ones) are slightly outdated; a different guide (found here: https://www.rzegocki.pl/blog/create-par ... ce-volume/ during my troubleshooting) fixes the issues with it. It's not as good as having a working VirtualBox installation for me, especially since you need two blank, sacrificial pendrives on-hand (one small one for gparted live, one reasonably sized one for the actual distribution) and because it's easy to make a mistake and format your actual hard drive...but it's what I've been able to come up with for now.

Hopefully, my bug report will be useful to the development team, and nobody else who's just looking for virtual machine functionality will be stuck with that workaround. However, these things usually take time, and I'm sure there are a few people who might benefit from this suggested workaround in the meantime- especially since you might even be able to access VirtualBox from a live persistent USB install of Linux. I haven't tried that yet, though, but will report back when I do. It could be useful to confirm that none of the Linux distros that I tried before had bad data, and that none of my hardware is messed up in any way.

I wish everyone taking the time to read this a pleasant day, and I hope your troubleshooting is more successful than mine!
granada29
Volunteer
Posts: 690
Joined: 3. Mar 2015, 07:27
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Linux, macOS, Windows

Re: Installation fails on MacOSX 11.2.3 Big Sur host (rc=-1908)

Post by granada29 »

@ SlugRightsNow

Did you try working throught the steps I enumerated in:
Re: Unable to start client

Some people reported success - others not so much.
granada29
Volunteer
Posts: 690
Joined: 3. Mar 2015, 07:27
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Linux, macOS, Windows

Re: Installation fails on MacOSX 11.2.3 Big Sur host (rc=-1908)

Post by granada29 »

as a followup ...

You should also check that you have no other 3rd party kexts installed. For example, Intel Power Gadget which is known to cause problems with VirtualBox. You can check using the kextstat command

Code: Select all

user@machine ~ % kextstat -l|grep -vi apple
Executing: /usr/bin/kmutil showloaded --list-only
No variant specified, falling back to release
  176    3 0xffffff7f9b381000 0xb2000    0xb2000    org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv (6.1.22) 1D7585CE-080A-304D-8F83-466458C5B2A1 <8 6 5 3 1>
  183    0 0xffffff7f9b45e000 0x5000     0x5000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxUSB (6.1.22) FFEC89DC-6242-369E-96FF-81063D9625B2 <182 176 61 8 6 5 3 1>
  184    0 0xffffff7f9b459000 0x4000     0x4000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetFlt (6.1.22) B15B9D1B-A553-351A-AA00-3F1A1993BF7F <176 8 6 5 3 1>
  185    0 0xffffff7f9b453000 0x2000     0x2000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetAdp (6.1.22) 66101E0E-D20E-3395-81B1-4554ECDA72C1 <176 6 5 1>
SlugRightsNow
Posts: 4
Joined: 21. Apr 2021, 15:36

Re: Installation fails on MacOSX 11.2.3 Big Sur host (rc=-1908)

Post by SlugRightsNow »

Hi there, granada29!

Yes, I did attempt that solution, although it was coincidental (it appeared in the the rc=-1908 megathread at one point). Unfortunately, it did not work for me, even in recovery mode.

I also tried running the commands you added just now, without any virtualbox installation on my mac, and it returned no kexts. That should mean I don't have any third party kexts installed, right? I haven't installed anything new at all since the last time I attempted a virtualbox installation, so that should mean it wouldn't have been the problem, either...I'm pretty stumped.

I also was able to successfully run a virtualbox installation in the persistent live linux USB I created, so that should mean my hardware is in good working order; from what I understand, that would make use of all my mac's hardware except the hard drive. Disk Utility has returned nothing wrong with the hard drive, either, so that should theoretically cover every physical part of the machine.

Is there any other little weird thing that has sometimes managed to get the installation to work properly? I've looked around the forum on all the threads I could find referencing this error post-Sierra (since it seemed to get big around then), and it seems like I've tried just about everything.

I did submit a support ticket with all the information I could glean, though, so that should cover all the bases in case this is a new bug.

Thank you so, SO much for taking the time to offer a helping hand!
granada29
Volunteer
Posts: 690
Joined: 3. Mar 2015, 07:27
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Linux, macOS, Windows

Re: Installation fails on MacOSX 11.2.3 Big Sur host (rc=-1908)

Post by granada29 »

SlugRightsNow wrote: I also tried running the commands you added just now, without any virtualbox installation on my mac, and it returned no kexts. That should mean I don't have any third party kexts installed, right?
...
Is there any other little weird thing that has sometimes managed to get the installation to work properly?
Yes - that is the expected response if you have no 3rd party kexts installed.

I have also checked 'App store and identified developers' in System Preferences/Security & Privacy. I would guess you have already done this, but it might help if you haven't already done so.
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