Installation fails on 10.13.x (rc=-1908)

[socratis]

@everyone
Could you post your Mac models in the thread "10.13 Failing installation; Kernel driver not loaded"? Please post the model as it shows in the "System Information" » "Model Identifier", the OSX version that you tried it with, and state if you had a successful installation or not.

[monkeywithajetpack]

I'm having a very similar problem but nothing i've found anywhere helps me to solve it. My particular circumstances are that my macbookpro turned into a giant paperweight and i restored from a time machine backup onto a new machine. I believe I was already in High Sierra 10.13.3 before the failure of the machine.

I've restored all the directories and files to the pre-failure state and I get the Kernel driver not installed error.

There is also this error message:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Windows 10.

The virtual machine 'Windows 10' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1).

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: MachineWrap
Interface: IMachine {b2547866-a0a1-4391-8b86-6952d82efaa0}



Has a solution been identified to simply install the Kernel somehow?

Thank you and especially so since this seems to be a recurring question and a lot of people are spending time to answer variants.

[socratis]

A TimeMachine restore will not restore your system or its kernel extensions completely. You need to re-install VirtualBox:

1. Download the latest release, or the latest test build, if you don't already have them.
   
   
2. Mount the DMG from the previous step. Run "VirtualBox_Uninstall.tool". Make sure there are no error messages. If there are, please post them, exactly as they appear.
   
   
3. Double-click the "VirtualBox.pkg" to re-install VirtualBox.

[michaln]

I think this is yet another manifestation of the High Sierra kext approval requirement. The approvals are stored in the machine's NVRAM, which means they won't be there on a new system, even if all the files are. Either Apple didn't think of that or they didn't consider it a significant problem.

[monkeywithajetpack]

Socratis, thank you for your help.

I did as you said and the uninstall went without error.

Upon installing the new 5.26 version the installer completed with a

"The Installation Failed. The installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Please contact the software manufacturer for assistance".

Please advise... (Thank You!)

[Nutellinoit]

I think you had the same problem as mine

the OS is out of available slots for devices.

You need to check your loaded kext

Code: Select all   Expand viewCollapse view

kextstat | grep -v apple

and try to unload the ones stealing device slot

[socratis]

The approvals are stored in the machine's NVRAM

With all due respect, I highly doubt that. Unless VirtualBox has implemented a way to store the NVRAM, which is not the case AFAIK. Because the approvals work just fine in a VM.

[michaln]

Some information is stored in a database on disk, some in NVRAM. See for example here, with the caveat that I don't know how accurate the information is.

[socratis]

Right... Leave it to Apple to write a specification. That thing is going to last for 5... 4... 3...

The article was written on 2017-08-29, almost a month before the official release of 10.13 (2017-09-25). Plenty of time to change our minds! Even the author says:

A future update to macOS High Sierra will allow... If that is before or after the official release of macOS High Sierra is not known.

Not too reassuring...

But after that it states, in the Update section:

The configuration is stored in: /var/db/SystemPolicyConfiguration/KextPolicy

I have a "virgin" 10.13 VM where nothing has been ever installed, not even the updates. Or I could create one from scratch. It would be worthwhile to test this location after the installation of VirtualBox, to see if the DB has been altered or not. Either there, or somewhere else in the hard disk. But I can't see any reason to store that information in the NVRAM, it would simply fail on a VM.

[michaln]

If you look around, you will see that there is some relevant information stored in NVRAM. It may not be a problem if you don't have it, but did you consider the possibility that the new system did not start with an empty NVRAM and something in there interferes?

See here or here. I'm not Apple so I don't know how it really works. Based on the available information, I would definitely not assume that NVRAM contents are irrelevant for kext approval.

[monkeywithajetpack]

Upon installing the new 5.26 version the installer completed with a

"The Installation Failed. The installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Please contact the software manufacturer for assistance".

Socratis, any further thoughts on how to address this? I could not complete the installation in the manner you suggested.

[socratis]

1. Once you start the installer package, press Cmd-L to show the installer log window.
2. Choose to "Show All Logs" from the detail level drop-down list.
3. Before you finalize the installation, due to error or not, click "Save" on the installer log window.
4. ZIP it and attach it to your reply.
5. Post the output of the commands (from /Applications/Utilities/Terminal):
   

   
   ls -aled@ /
   ls -aled@ /Applications
   ls -aled@ /Applications/VirtualBox.app
   ls -aled@ /private/tmp
   

[monkeywithajetpack]

Socratis,

I'm happy to report that I was able to complete the installation and it's working now. After a restart in preparation for the steps you outlined I was able to 'Allow' in my Security & Privacy section Apps downloaded from Oracle. I had noticed in some previous discussion that this has been an issue for some with High Sierra so had that on my radar screen.

Thanks very much for your help!

[socratis]

I was able to 'Allow' in my Security & Privacy section Apps downloaded from Oracle.

You weren't able to do so before, or you hadn't realized that you had to go through this process?

this has been an issue for some with High Sierra

Still is. For most of the people. And no one knows the mechanism. I know what caused it: insanity. Sorry, I meant security.

[socratis]

I wasnt able to do it before.