Upgraded to 10.04 and no USB's are working

[dcb76107]

Yup, those are all set right...

Dean

[lonewohlf42]

Hi. the problem is that you may not have a USB group in your list of groups. I had the same problem and
with Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 the USB group existed by default as a group. For some reason in 10.4 it didn't
on my installation and when I created a USB group and gave it the group Id 85 and added my self to the group
the USB filters were no longer grayed out and I could access then and use them. There is mention of this in
the VirtualBox reference manual but it is vague at best. It tells you that you must be part of the usb group and
there is reference to the group Id of 85, but no detailed explanation of how to fix the problem only that this
condition must be met. Perhaps it may be that other users have installed packages that set up the USB group
before installing the VirtualBox package so for them it works automatically. I posted this same problem and
someone told me the same thing (just add the VirtualBox group to your user) but it doesn't work. Try it.

[dcb76107]

Do you have a link to set the groups up to make this work?

Dean

[dcb76107]

Got it!!!!!! DUDE, YOU ARE THE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dean

[lonewohlf42]

To make this work all you have to do is open on Ubuntu 10.4 in the menu bar is open SYSTEM>ADMINISTRATION>USERS AND GROUPS (I'm not yelling just trying to make this
standout. Click on USER AND GROUPS and then click on MANAGE GROUPS then click ADD then enter the group name as usb (lower caps) change the group id to 85
click the check mark for your group member( your user name) and click OK. You may have to restart your computer but I don't think so. Either way it wont hurt anything. Then usb's should be ungrayed. If you still have problems just ask, because you still have to select the devices in the setting screen and I'm not sure
if you know how to do that or not.
Try that.

[Sasquatch]

I can tell you that you do NOT need the USB group to get USB working in 10.04. I have a fresh install of 10.04 build up from CLI to GUI so I have only the absolute minimum of what I need and no USB group, no ID 85 and perfectly working USB. This is the output of the 'id' command for my user, compare with yours. You can ignore the 'pulse' groups.

Code: Select all

uid=1000(sasquatch) gid=1000(sasquatch) groups=4(adm),20(dialout),24(cdrom),29(audio),44(video),46(plugdev),104(lpadmin),105(sambashare),106(admin),107(fuse),109(pulse),110(pulse-access),114(vboxusers),1000(sasquatch)

Really the last group is all that you need (mine has ID 114): the VBoxUsers group. Udev rules handles the rest.

Lonewolf, if you want to make things stand out, use bold, italic or underlined markup instead.

[n3m3s1s4u]

When I edit my vboxusers group - I see it is ID 128 - and If I try change it to 114 as you say, it tells me in use by haldaemon.

[n3m3s1s4u]

Its ok - If you add yourself to the group vboxusers - it worked! Thanks

[Sasquatch]

When I edit my vboxusers group - I see it is ID 128 - and If I try change it to 114 as you say, it tells me in use by haldaemon.

Never edit the group ID of users, as you've figured out, it can and will conflict with existing groups and can cause strange behaviour for daemons and programs that rely on the ID instead of the name of the group. Your file system has the same dependency, and wrong numbers can cause a forced reinstall if you're not careful and know what you're doing.
Those who edit the groups and their respective IDs, just because they read something somewhere obviously have no idea what they're doing.

[drtebi]

I can confirm that a reboot may solve the issue. I am running Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 and VirtualBox 3.2.4 PUEL with guest additions installed on the guest, which is Windows XP SP2.

After fiddling around with the filters etc. for a while, I read this post and thought maybe it may really require a reboot of Ubuntu--something Linux users are certainly not accustomed to

However, it all worked right away after the reboot.

One suggestion I want to make is that you may not want to enable your USB keyboard; while my keyboard installed fine on the guest, it stopped functioning on the host. My keyboard is a Kinetic Freestyle, in case you wonder.

Good luck, and thanks to all VirtualBox developers for such an amazing product. I can now scan my 35mm film with my CanoScan FS4000FS in the virtual Windows box, use Photoshop while I am still not Gimp ready, and do everything else in Ubuntu... just great.

[Sasquatch]

I read this post and thought maybe it may really require a reboot of Ubuntu--something Linux users are certainly not accustomed to

True, but Linux users are familiar with logging off and on to get new group membership privileges working. Windows has the same, when you're added to the admin group, you aren't suddenly admin in the current session, you have to log off and back on first .

One suggestion I want to make is that you may not want to enable your USB keyboard; while my keyboard installed fine on the guest, it stopped functioning on the host.

Same goes for the mouse . Makes sense, as you basically unplug your keyboard. Why would you send the keyboard to the VM anyway? There is one already provided by VB and believe it or not, it has some more functions than you think. If the Host has no definition for a key, the Guest could very well pick it up (basic media only AFAIK).

[matteosistisette]

Hi, I have the very same problem.
Ubuntu 10.04 host,
Windows 7 guest
user already added to the vboxusers group (why do people keep replying "you have just to add the current user to the vboxusers group" if all the posters have already said they already have???)
VirtualBox 3.2.4 PUEL

All the USB devices are greyed out. They are there, but grey, I cannot check them nor anything. Not seen from within the guest. I tried adding an empty filter, and also tried with a filter with the vendor ID of a specific device I want to use (a dvb-t tv tuner), but nothing changes.

Do I perhaps need to restart Ubuntu (the host) after adding the user to the group?? (I have already restarted VirtualBox after that)

[Perryg]

Do I perhaps need to restart Ubuntu (the host) after adding the user to the group?

Yes or at the very least log off and back on. Groups/permissions are read at login/boot

[matteosistisette]

Do I perhaps need to restart Ubuntu (the host) after adding the user to the group?

Yes or at the very least log off and back on. Groups/permissions are read at login/boot

Oh yes indeed rebooting did fix the problem.

Thank you for the help.

On another thread (there are so many about this issue) some users also reported that sometimes you even need to REMOVE the user from the group, add it again and then reboot (or maybe log out and in). I think this happens after updating something. I'm sorry I cannot find the

I think this trick would deserve better visibility on the forum (a sticky post somewhere) _and_ a mention in the manual (maybe in troubleshooting).
Why doesn't the VirtualBox application (after configuring a usb device, or after creating a new virtual machine, or even after installing) output a pop-up message that would say "Please add your current user to the 'vboxusers' group and log off to enable USB devices"
in the first place????
(i guess it cannot automatically do it, otherwise I would wonder why it doesn't)

Whenever a program finishes installing and needs some action to be taken by the user (e.g. rebooting) it usually warns the user about it!!

There are really a lot of threads about this problem, most unsolved, many with incorrect answers or myths.

Now I'll try to figure out how to mark this thread as solved.