Page 1 of 1

Cannot unregister the machine 'Name' while it is locked

Posted: 23. Jul 2021, 22:34
by BobCrandell
I've seen questions about this fairly often. Occasionally one or the other suggestion works however the fall back is to reboot the host. That is not a good thing in a busy office.
How about adding an option to forcibly unlock a troublesome VM? This can be buried down in the menu system or even a separate add on program if there is concern about breaking the VM.

Thanks
Bob

Re: Cannot unregister the machine 'Name' while it is locked

Posted: 24. Jul 2021, 00:10
by scottgus1
Here are some ways that don't involve rebooting the host:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=46446
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=50590

From my web-searching, this error happens when one tries to remove a VM from Virtualbox while the process running the VM is still running. Note that the process may still be around for a short time after the VM reports being shut down. Maybe a delay before the unregister is needed.

Re: Cannot unregister the machine 'Name' while it is locked

Posted: 13. Sep 2021, 18:52
by BobCrandell
In a couple of cases I was able to work on a customer's server after hours so rebooting the host was only annoying. I fought with a particular VM for several minutes which is well over the several seconds required for a normal shutdown.
To allow for impatient techs, In my suggestion, the programmer would have a 10 second countdown before activating the button to forcibly unlock the troublesome VM.
This way you can work on 1 VM without bringing the whole company to it's knees.
Thanks

Re: Cannot unregister the machine 'Name' while it is locked

Posted: 13. Sep 2021, 19:01
by scottgus1
One other thing that came to mind recently why a VM might be locked and unregisterable is when the VM is a base for a linked clone. If the base VM were removed, the linked clone couldn't run either.

Of course, a VM that is running can't be unregistered. :D

A full understanding of the situation of the VM in question would be needed before we could say why it was locked.

Re: Cannot unregister the machine 'Name' while it is locked

Posted: 17. Sep 2021, 20:31
by BobCrandell
Thanks for trying to help but I was trying to make a suggestion not solve a problem, that is make a way to forcibly unlock a VM that is not running.

In my case completely shutting down VirtualBox is functionally the same as rebooting the host, referring to the links you gave above.

Not being able to frame a question or suggestion I believe is the reason Google hates me. It takes forever to figure out how to find an answer.

Thanks for being there.