VB 3.1, WinXP - Guest Add. confusion, no USB (PUEL ed.)

[runbei]

I have VirtualBox 3.1 running on a Linux Mint 8 (Ubuntu 9.10) host with WinXP Pro guest. Formerly, everything was fine, but now the USB devices are visible but grayed-out. Also, the mouse is captured, but the menu says "Install Guest Additions." Yet when I install and reboot it still says "Install Guest Additions."

I've tried various solutions including checking VBox config files - e.g., ensuring that the following line is present in (I forget which file). But nothing has changed. Still no USB devices, and "Install Guest Additions" still appears. Am considering going back to 3.0.12 Jaunty (would that work on Karmic/Mint 8?).

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", GROUP="vboxusers", MODE:="0664"

[rodangib]

Hey buddy, I had the same problem as you. Please follow the next steps and you should be sweet...
(for anyone else, this procedure applies to Ubuntu 9.10 karmic koala (host), XP (guest) and VBox 3.1 PUEL)

Step1:
Fire up a Terminal

Step2:
Type in the following command: grep vbox /etc/group
this will check for your vbox user id which you'll need for the next steps.

This will display a line that looks a bit like this: vboxusers123:myself
where 123 is the user id you're looking for (NOT 123 but the one your terminal displays)
(myself is my own username and should obviously be different on your machine, but this is not relevant).

Step3:
Still on the Terminal type in the following command:
sudo gedit /etc/fstab (this will open your text editor with this FSTAB file)

Step4:
Add the following line to the bottom of the file:
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=userid,devmode=664 0 0
where the userid bit is the number you found in Step2. Replace userid with your corresponding number.

Step5:
REBOOT your whole machine! the above changes won't succeed if you don't do this.

Step6:
Although not proven to be relevant, be sure to have your Guest OS (XP) turned off.
Once rebooted, go to VirtualBox's main screen (this is by firing up the Virtual Machine itself) and select "Settings"
Don't power on your guest OS just yet.

Step7:
Insert your USB stick (or any USB device you want to use)

Step8.
Unmount the USB from Ubuntu by selecting the device from Places > 'YourUSB' and right-click and choose Unmount.
Or if your USB screen pops up automatically once you've inserted the USB device, then select it there to Unmount.

Step9:
On the new screen that pops up, on the left pane, select "System", and on the right you'll find a box that reads: "Enable IO APIC", make sure it's ticked/checked.

Step10:
On the left pane go to "USB", ensure the "Enable USB Controller" and "Enable USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller" boxes, on the right-hand pane are ticked.
And also your USB device should be recognised and ticked in the lower screen. If not, press the 'add' button (to the far right, 2nd one with the green cross) and add it.

Step11.
Power on your guest XP and hopefully and if you followed all the above steps, it should work a beauty, mate!

Hope it works out for you as it did for me.

[runbei]

Thanks - I'm sure this would work for others, but not for me. It led to various problems: loss of mouse cursor in the WinXP guest; endless-cycle reboot of the guest, etc. So I'm returning to 3.0 - need to get work done and may revisit this later.

[rodangib]

Hmm... sorry to hear that, in fact, this procedure worked fine on my desktop computer and last night I refurbished a laptop and installed ubuntu 9.10 and then virtualbox 3.1 with xp and it came up with the same problems as you, xp restarting itself over and over..
Will get into it tomorrow and see what can be done to solve it. will post here again any outcomes.

[coastalQ]

There are definitely issues still with 3.1. Like to find out how going back was because I went back to 3.0.6 and had a hell of a time. Took 4 shots and half a day.

[runbei]

Alas, "going back" to 3.0 didn't go well at all - in fact, didn't go at all. 3.0 was designed for Ubuntu Jaunty (Mint Gloria), and with Mint Helena I got messages about stuff that didn't work with the newer kernel. Not worth the trouble.

When I reinstalled VB 3.1, I got a "can't find hard disk" message. The "cure" was to go in the VB settings menu => Storage, and make sure my winxppro.vdi storage medium was enabled. This allows me to get as far as username/password sign-on screen in Win XP Pro.

However, my USB mouse is frozen on that screen, requiring that I use the touchpad to proceed (or shut down the virtual machine).

The USB options on the Devices menu are no longer grayed-out, as they were formerly (don't know how that got fixed). And the USB mouse and keyboard are checked in that menu. But mouse isn't working (keyboard does work).

Also, installing the Guest Additions appears to proceed correctly to completion; but when I reboot Windows the menu still displays the option "Install Guest Additions." I assume the Guest Additions are already installed, regardless of what the menu says, since I'm able to mouse transparently between the host Linux and guest WinXP Pro.

If anybody makes progress with these glitches, I'd sure be happy to learn how.

[wrench]

I got virtualbox 3.1.0 r55467 running on a fresh install of ubuntu karma desktop (9.10) by:
1. making sure user is a member of vboxusers group as in http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-F ... 1715.shtml
2. setting up the filter thusly http://www.howtoforge.com/virtualbox-2- ... -8.10-host
3. setting up /etc/fstab as above. I had to reboot to get it to work, but "sudo mount -a" helped me find that fstab is tab delimited.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VirtualBox/USB for jaunty says about the same thing, but in bash, not english.

[runbei]

Followed the directions above and am, alas, worse off than ever.

1. I managed to get the USB mouse working in the guest. Right-clicked the USB icon in the VirtualBox bottom panel and UNselected the mouse, then it started working. HOWEVER, I immediately came back here to the forum and started writing a reply noting my progress - and the keyboard entered an endless repeat of last character I typed: lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll...

2. At that point, the guest automatically rebooted without any action on my part and entered the same old endless reboot cycle described earlier above. Stay tuned (or not). Will edit this if I learn more.

3. Keyboard is now messed-up in host. E.g., quote mark key is now @. Probably not permanent, will probably be fixed with logout/in.

4. Endless rebooting of guest has returned.

Over and out. VB was working flawlessly in the previous version, not so much now.

[constant]

.
How stable is Ubuntu 9.10? Because with openSUSE 11.2, VirtualBox versions 3.1.0 and 3.1.2 work flawlessly.

The upgrade went without a hitch as well.

Just a thought.
.

[runbei]

Re OpenSUSE - I wondered about that. Are you using the KDE or Gnome version? While I love Mint, I use lots of KDE apps and may end up switching to OpenSUSE, at least until the rumored Debian-based version of Mint comes out (2010?). Ubuntu introduces new bugs with each 6-mo. release, and Mint inherits at least a few, though it's much cleaner than Ubuntu. Wonder if Ubuntu is the source of the problems.

[constant]

.
I use KDE.
.

[runbei]

I've about given up on VB 3.1 - it seems to be fatally broken under Mint 8 / Ubuntu 9.10. Worked fine in Mint 7. And when I tried installing it under OpenSuse 11.2 it wouldn't even start up. Not much interested at this point - will put energy into setting up a Samba network to my desktop PC running Windows.

[constant]

.
There's either something specially good about my system, or something not quite right with yours.

Pondering..................
.

[runbei]

I agree - two systems, actually - Opensuse 11.2 on an old Dell Dimension 2400 that's always "had problems" with Opensuse - either it wouldn't install or there were glitches that nobody else seemed to have. OS 11.2 also hangs on shutdown on that PC. Oh, well.

[smilingfrog]

I have had a similar issue with Vbox 3.1. I upgraded Ubuntu from 9.04 to 0.10, and VBox from 3.0.x to 3.1. Not pleased with the results.
My VDI is stored on a separate partition. I am running Windows 2000 as a guest OS. In 9.04 the machine boots without diffculty, and I have complete access to my USB printer/scanner. When I boot to 9.10 using VBox 3.1, I have sound corruption, and USB function is severely handicapped. The USB mouse freezes if enabled in VBox, my tablet does not work, and the printer/scanner (which works flawlessly in 9.04) never becomes ungreyed.

Luckily I am dual booting between 9.04 and 9.10, so I can access the virtual machine from 9.04 when I need to use it. However, I am not happy with the regression. Not sure if this is a Ubuntu thing or Vbox thing.
G