I have just upgraded from VB 2.2.0 to VB 2.2.4 and I am rather unhappy (but not too surprised) to find that USB support is totally broken. Again.
I get the following error when I try to access and setting window:
Failed to access USB subsystem.
Could not find the Host USB proxy service (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND). The service might not be installed on the host computer.
Result Code:
E_FAIL (0x00004005)
Component:
Host
Interface: IHost {926469ca-9091-42ef-928e-582d78b66c70}
Callee: IMachine {13420cbb-175a-4456-85d0-301126dfdec7}
USB was sort of working before this, but it is now totally hosed. Nothing shows up in the guest when I run it. I am going to try a repair/uninstall-reinstall and see if that fixes it. If not I will have to log a bug and hope it gets sorted.
Can I respectfully suggest that the VB team (do you guys read these forums and the continual problems with USB?) spend time testing and fixing their USB problems before the next release? It makes it very hard to use VB and impossible to recommend to anyone.
Well, the fun continues. Firstly, an attempt at a repair install via Control Panel does not work because the installer cannot be found. So I ran the install again using the downloaded file. I can now access the set up windows without getting the USB error above.
Now when I try to start an image, I get this little beauty.
Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Ubuntu.
Virtual machine 'Ubuntu' has terminate unexpectedly during startup.
Result Code:
E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component:
Machine
Interface:
IMachine {13420cbb-175a-4456-85d0-301126dfdec7}
If VB 2.2.4 has destroyed my virtual machines, I am going to be less than happy.
Well, another round of reinstalls (having to use the downloaded installer and the one from Control Panel does not work) has me running my virtual machines again (thank goodness).
Although it now seems to have "forgotten" about the USB devices and I need to install them again. The filter is still there, but they do not appear in "Devices/USB Devices" and when I attach them, Windows needs to install the VirtualBox driver for them. The guest then needs to be rebooted before the device is usable in that guest.
So version 2.2.4 and USB support still not really working.
Maybe it's me having a bad day, but this is almost enough to make me go back to VMware. Plug in a USB device, and it just works in the guest; no hassle.
I have had problems with USB devices since I started to use VBox and posted several bug reports. The only thing I got out of the bug reports were it was it is very hard to get it to work properly in Windows. I developed work-arounds that I could use but any time I rebooted the host I had to go through the process all over again. It finally became so much of a hassle I ceased using the USB portion as well as the 3D effects and disabled them. Both of these cause GUI shutdown and VBoxsvc errors which caused me to need to stop all VBox services and re-start them. Since I stopped trying to use these "features" I have once again been able to sustain an extremely stable environment. I really didn't need these "features" because I could map the device as a share and just leave it to the Host to take care of which works really well and my blood pressure has once again gone down to a manageable level. And while the 3D effects were cute it really didn't make my work any better or faster, so...... Now I am a happy VBox user and do tons of things that I want to do every day on one computer instead of having to buy 5 computers to do what I want to do.
By the way I really think this is a Windows sharing problem. I have been using and supporting Windows since it first came out and it really does not play well when you try to yank something from it that it though was theirs. OK off my soap box now! Going back to work.
A bit like yourself I played with the 3D stuff for a bit and then switched it off. Looks funky, but I had no use for it in that environment.
If VB offered no USB support it wouldn't matter, I'd just used mapped drives or something. But VB does claim to offer USB support and in that case it should work. The fact it doesn't work means that I cannot recommend VB to anyone as I know the first thing they will say is "How do I get USB to work? What? It doesn't? Useless." whether or not they actually need USB (people are like that).
VB has some really nice features, in many ways it betters VMWare Workstation 5.5 and runs on Linux distros (I have not tried VMWare Workstation 6 as I have no license as yet). It's just with USB that they let themselves down. Oh, and the inability to runa repair install from Add/Remove Programs (Imust raise a bug about that).
And the fact the upgrade totally breaks USB support.