Inaccessible Virtual Machine

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
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sydney router
Posts: 2
Joined: 21. Nov 2012, 19:09

Inaccessible Virtual Machine

Post by sydney router »

Failed to open virtual machine located in /Users/Carolyn/VirtualBox VMs/windows 7 x64/windows 7 x64.vbox.

Trying to open a VM config '/Users/Carolyn/VirtualBox VMs/windows 7 x64/windows 7 x64.vbox' which has the same UUID as an existing virtual machine.

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: Machine
Interface: IMachine {22781af3-1c96-4126-9edf-67a020e0e858}
Callee: IVirtualBox {3b2f08eb-b810-4715-bee0-bb06b9880ad2}

Can anyone help. I am a new user to this and was working away on my mac. When I started the VM it came up with this message.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39134
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Inaccessible Virtual Machine

Post by mpack »

I take it you cloned a VM by manually copying the folder. That's fine, but you can't have two copies of the same VM on the same PC. Remove the older one, shut VBox down for 30 seconds, start it again then add the newer VM. If you need to keep the older VM then clone it properly first, keeping the clone.

In general, if you have copied a VM to another PC and wish to return it the first PC then you simply copy it back, overwriting the older folder and files. There is no need to use Machine|Add, because the VM is already registered.
sydney router
Posts: 2
Joined: 21. Nov 2012, 19:09

Re: Inaccessible Virtual Machine

Post by sydney router »

Thanks for your reply. But I have not made a deliberate attempt to copy a file and it has not been transferred from another pc. I set this up new on my macbook pro about six weeks ago with win 7 x64 and it has been running fine. then earlier today, when I started VM up, it just came up with this error message. Any ideas??
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39134
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Inaccessible Virtual Machine

Post by mpack »

The error message clearly says that it has two different .vbox files with the same UUID stamped inside the xml. I know of no way for that to happen except if the user has manually copied a VM settings file and then tried to register both in the same manager interface.

How are you starting the VM? I don't know about Mac hosts, but on Windows: double-clicking the .vbox file causes it to be registered with the UI (this does not launch the VM) so the second double-click would produce the above error. To create an icon you can launch the VM with you use the "Create shortcut" feature of the UI.
HiAll
Posts: 16
Joined: 7. Apr 2015, 12:41

Re: Inaccessible Virtual Machine

Post by HiAll »

Im having this same problem. Any thoughts?
loukingjr
Volunteer
Posts: 8851
Joined: 30. Apr 2009, 09:45
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: just about all that run

Re: Inaccessible Virtual Machine

Post by loukingjr »

HiAll wrote:Im having this same problem. Any thoughts?
How can you have the same problem seeing this post is 3 years old and you are on a Windows host and the original poster is on a Mac?

Start a new thread with Minimum information needed for assistance.
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