Hi!,
I been having trouble the past few days with using VirtualBox, one minute it will open and when I try to install the extension pack I can't. But now when I close virtual box and reopen it says, failed to acquire the VirtualBox COM object. The application will now terminate. I don't know if it's the folder VirtualBox is being downloaded to or what. If someone has an answer, I will greatly appreciate it. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Cybergeek23
Failed to acquire the VirtualBox COM object.
Re: Failed to acquire the VirtualBox COM object.
Dude,
Imagine having the same problem and then searching for solution yet finding only one result on Bing? Exactly. It was your question. Which was just posted 6 days ago, and nobody has answered. So I thought maybe I could pull this off. Here is the solution that kind of solved mine.
Go to
Replace [yourUserName] with your PC's actual username.
Open that file through Visual Studio Code or any text editor. If you find it empty (or you find anything unusual), paste this code below:
Important Note: This forum blocks posting URLS/Links, that is why I added two (2) or double dots on the xmlns or name space on the second line of code. Make sure to remove the double dot to be replaced by only a single one.
Save the file. Then try opening the Virtual Box.
The only catch here is that already existing VMs won't immediately be recovered. Unless you have backed it up, then you should know how to import or add those files back again.
Imagine having the same problem and then searching for solution yet finding only one result on Bing? Exactly. It was your question. Which was just posted 6 days ago, and nobody has answered. So I thought maybe I could pull this off. Here is the solution that kind of solved mine.
Go to
C:/Users/[yourUserName]/.VirtualBox/VirtualBox.xml
Replace [yourUserName] with your PC's actual username.
Open that file through Visual Studio Code or any text editor. If you find it empty (or you find anything unusual), paste this code below:
Code: Select all
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<VirtualBox xmlns="http://www..virtualbox..org/"
version="6.1.26-145957" >
<Global>
<ImageCachePath></ImageCachePath>
<LogHistorySize>3</LogHistorySize>
</Global>
<Machines>
<!-- Machines will be listed here -->
</Machines>
</VirtualBox>Save the file. Then try opening the Virtual Box.
The only catch here is that already existing VMs won't immediately be recovered. Unless you have backed it up, then you should know how to import or add those files back again.
Last edited by Dandelion on 19. Mar 2025, 18:25, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Failed to acquire the VirtualBox COM object.
The "broken or zero sized VirtualBox.xml" issue should actually produce a descriptive error message about the failure to process the file.
The recipe in the previous message is actually excessively complicated and equivalent to a much simpler one: rename the file to VirtualBox-corrupted.xml and then retry. VirtualBox will automatically create an empty file similar to the mentioned one, so the risk is quite the same (actually less because renaming implicitly keeps the old content around which can be handy if the file isn't zero sized), losing the VM registrations which usually can be re-done quite easily using the "Add..." button in the GUI.
The recipe in the previous message is actually excessively complicated and equivalent to a much simpler one: rename the file to VirtualBox-corrupted.xml and then retry. VirtualBox will automatically create an empty file similar to the mentioned one, so the risk is quite the same (actually less because renaming implicitly keeps the old content around which can be handy if the file isn't zero sized), losing the VM registrations which usually can be re-done quite easily using the "Add..." button in the GUI.