VB 7 - can't connect any USB device

[mpack]

But given that VB alternatives handle USB access without such issues is saying.

It's not saying much. VirtualBox devs are not required to share the priorities of competing platforms. If I was in charge we would have abandoned the always small and now rapidly diminishing Intel-based MacOS market long ago.

[scottgus1]

given that VB alternatives handle USB access without such issues is saying.

And again keep in mind that the devs did ask Apple, so they are working on a solution.

[JonH]

Also note that when new VM log files are created, they will be owned by root. This may be a minor problem the next time you start up the VM as yourself rather than as root. Just chown the root-owned log files back to yourself, or delete them if you don't care about their contents.

I consider it more than just a minor problem. Trying to start my WIN10 guest on my Mac host from the Vbox app like I always used to won't work in v7.0.8 after starting it w/ sudo because *.vbox also gets owned by root. OK, I can use chown and did to change it all back to user:staff as it was as installed. Probably should have used the -R switch. I appreciate your posted method and don't mean to be critical about the post. I have noted it for future use. My above is meant to alert future readers that there is a bit more to it than the Logs being altered.

Unfortunately, after all this, it won't read my stick, sez it's corrupt. Same stick reads fine in Win10 guest on Linux Host. I rarely use Win10 so I'll live without usb until it gets fixed. There are other alternatives to getting data too & fro, it's just more work.

Vbox isn't the only app having issues w/ Apple's increasing security changes. I have several apps that don't get along well due to Apple's security changes. I also find it annoying that Apple has made backing up of mobile devices to iTunes more difficult. Every.Single.Time I backup I'm asked to "trust" Apple's iMac (destination) on Apple's mobile device (source). So now I only back up every few weeks. Thanks Apple for decreasing my security.

[kapitainsky]

VBox does not have any issues with accessing USB devices (sudo vbox workaround) - it has problem with how it executes its own binaries. Obviously some part needs to be launch with elevated privileges and it is not. It is very normal for many applications to run their parts as `sudo` - when you see app asking for extra permission to install so called helper it is part of app being run later as `sudo`. All issue and time it takes to resolve it points rather at very limited dev resources for vbox project.

[seveneleven_711]

I do use the sudo-workaround here but I just saw that there ist a new Version of VB available. So I started my VB to update it. But without 'sudo'. Now I receive this error and wonder, how to get rid of it?

"Runtime error opening '/Users/chef/Documents/VirtualBox VMs/Windows 10 64Bit/Windows 10 64Bit.vbox' for reading VERR_ACCESS_DENIED (Access denied."

Is it a chmod thing as I used 'sudo' to boot the VM the last times?

[ejstubbs]

Just wanted to say: thank heavens for this thread! I've been tearing my hair out (what little I have left) trying to get my USB Blu Ray drive to connect to my Windows VMs under VB 7.0.8 (on Monterey 12.6.8), and now I discover that it doesn't actually work. At least, not without running VB as root, which I shall have a go at shortly.

Here's a thing, though: somehow, I did manage to use that USB drive to install Windows 7 64-bit on a bare VM a few days ago. It was very hit-and-miss, and I've no idea what happened, or what I did, to make it work but, simply put, after a deal of random fiddling, the disc appeared on the VM and the Windows install ran through without a hitch. In fact, I now remember that something similar happened when I wanted to install some printer drivers from DVD to one of my existing Win10 VMs - again, it was all very random and I couldn't repeat the exercise.

Come to think, the above sort-of successes may have been while I was running VB 7.0.10, before I reverted to 7.0.8 because of the starting-from-saved-state-with-TPM-enabled bug in 7.0.10 (viewtopic.php?t=109956). The only thing I can see about macOS hosts in the changelog for 7.0.10 is "Introduced general improvements in the installer area", which may or may not be relevant - but even if it is, it's no help to me if starting from saved is broken... (I did notice that VB was showing a version 7.0.10a, which makes me wonder whether they maybe slipped out a wee update to 7.0.10 without really telling anyone?)

[scottgus1]

somehow, I did manage to use that USB drive to install Windows 7 64-bit on a bare VM a few days ago.

If the host OS remains in control of the USB connection to the DVD drive, then Virtualbox will merely see it as a host DVD drive, mirror the inserted disc into the VM's CD drive, and allow the VM to boot from the host DVD drive. Virtualbox will allow the VM to pass a host CD/DVD drive into the VM's CD drive regardless of how the drive is connected to the host. This is not USB Filtering, so doesn't require the Virtualbox 7.0 & Apple USB sudo glitch going on for now.

[fth0]

I did notice that VB was showing a version 7.0.10a, which makes me wonder whether they maybe slipped out a wee update to 7.0.10 without really telling anyone?

The VirtualBox 7.0.10 macOS installer created several files with wrong access rights, making it impossible to run the VirtualBox Manager for a lot of users. The affected users were told.

[ejstubbs]

somehow, I did manage to use that USB drive to install Windows 7 64-bit on a bare VM a few days ago.

If the host OS remains in control of the USB connection to the DVD drive, then Virtualbox will merely see it as a host DVD drive, mirror the inserted disc into the VM's CD drive, and allow the VM to boot from the host DVD drive. Virtualbox will allow the VM to pass a host CD/DVD drive into the VM's CD drive regardless of how the drive is connected to the host. This is not USB Filtering, so doesn't require the Virtualbox 7.0 & Apple USB sudo glitch going on for now.

Aha: I can see the host drive in the list under the "Devices" menu, and the list provided by the UI 'mini icon'. However, selecting the host drive from either of those menus has no effect - the 'mini icon' stays grey, and no disc shows up in the guest VM's CD drive. But if I select the host drive via the Settings interface on the VB GUI (which you can do 'on the fly' i.e. without having to power off the VM) it appears on the guest VM (and disappears from the host desktop) and works just fine. Which strikes me as being a little odd, but at least there is a more or less painless way to get it to work.

Oh, except that it's now stopped working: this time around, when I try to connect to the drive via the GUI with the guest running, I'm getting:

Code: Select all

Failed to save the settings.

The object is not ready.

Result Code:E_ACCESSDENIED (0X80070005)
Component:MediumWrap
Interface:IMedium {ad47ad09-787b-44ab-b343-a082a3f2dfb1}
Callee:IMachine {300763af-5d6b-46e6-aa96-273eac15538a}

The DVD is sitting there on my Mac desktop, so it looks ready to me, but obviously not to VB.

FWIW I was getting the same error when trying to connect the drive via the GUI when the guest was powered off.

So unless I'm missing something obvious that I'm doing wrong, I'd say that it's still somewhat, er...temperamental. No wonder I couldn't remember how I'd got it to work before, is it doesn't actually seem to do it reliably...

The guest is Windows 10 32-bit, the host is macOS Monterey 12.6.8 and the VB version is 7.0.8r156879. Log of the last session is attached:

Windows 10 Working Copy-2023-08-18-15-33-43.log.zip

(40.76 KiB) Downloaded 52 times

EDIT TO ADD: Seems to be working again now, having quit the VB GUI and restarted it. With the guest powered off I attached the host drive to the guest CD drive in the GUI and started up the guest. It actually asked whether I wanted it to boot from the DVD, which was kind of a welcome surprise. I let it continue to boot from the vdi and there was the DVD all mounted and ready to use - and disappeared from the host desktop. I was able to remove the DVD from the virtual drive via the Devices menu - at which point it reappeared on the host desktop - and attach it again via the 'mini icon' menu. So basically it all seems to be working properly now. Looks like one of VB, macOS, or me, got their knickers in a twist before...

[lookingforward]

So it is version 7.0.10 and the problem is still there... The "sudo" trick works though.

[msbmsb]

I do use the sudo-workaround here but I just saw that there ist a new Version of VB available. So I started my VB to update it. But without 'sudo'. Now I receive this error and wonder, how to get rid of it?

"Runtime error opening '/Users/chef/Documents/VirtualBox VMs/Windows 10 64Bit/Windows 10 64Bit.vbox' for reading VERR_ACCESS_DENIED (Access denied."

Is it a chmod thing as I used 'sudo' to boot the VM the last times?

When you run with sudo, VB changes the ownership of the VB VM files to root:root. Change them back to owned by you (or mode 777?) and then start VB as your user (w/o sudo)

[baataboom]

For some, sharing the macos /Volumes directory to the Window VM might be of use. It would contain mounted file systems.

[wsm]

On Monterey, 12.7.5, using 7.0.19 r163377, I am able to connect USB devices to windows 10. So the fix appears to be working.

The previous versions required running sudo Virtualbox in order to work.

Just a heads up (not sure where to inform of this) Windows 10 can shut down, but restarts occasionally hang. Also, a leftover Virtualbox VM is left in the OSX Doc, doesn't launch anything, has to be deleted.

[nxtkitt]

this problem also occurs in Ventura.
VBox 7.0.2r154219

VERR_SHARING_VIOLATION does not occur if run as root
sudo virtualbox

I joined just to say thank you!!!

This was so infuriating.

Mac Mini (intel) running Big Sur headless for HomeAssistant in Virtualbox 6.1
I was tired of the notices to upgrade to Ventura from Big Sur (since I never did Monterrey) so I did, and figured I would take care of the Virtualbox upgrade to 7 at the same time. Big mistake! I spent hours looking into how I would downgrade back to Big Sur to be able to run VirtualBox 6.1.

NOWHERE in any of the upgrades did I see any warnings of "this will not work".

Thanks for your post to give me an easy workaround until this gets worked out.

Hey, did you ever get VB for Home Assistant to recognize the Intel Mac's USB port?
I just started with HA and am using an old intel macmini I had running Big Sur 11.7.8 to run HA OS 12.3 on VB 7.0.18.
It's working and I can access it from my main mac on same network and with the HA app, but I can't use a Sonoff Zigbee ZBDongle-EUSB antenna or a bluetooth USB because it won't recognize it. I once got it recognized for a hot second when I unscrewed the Zigbee antenna but it still wouldn't connect.I even got it to start up with sudo so at least I don't get the Sharing Error when starting HA. But what's the point if I can't get it to see the USB of the mac mini?
thx!

[klaus]

Everyone who has trouble with the VirtualBox USB support in combination with macOS Ventura and later: please try the 7.0.x test builds (not the development snapshots, they're more experimental).

There is a fix included which unfortunately missed the deadline of 7.0.18 by a day or so. It should really help!