Vbox 4.1.18 crashes on OSX 1.8 Mountain Lion

[Wisewarrior]

Hey guys, updated my OS today to the release of Mountain Lion. I was running Virtualbox 4.1.15 and I kept getting a permissions message saying that I was unable to load Vbox because of security issues. I went ahead and upgraded to 4.1.18, and am able to open the Vbox program, but whenever I go to start any of my VMs, my OS crashes and restarts automatically. I saw that there was an related post issue with an older version of Vbox but it seemed was supposedly working since 4.1.16. Any ideas out there would be greatly appreciated!

[Wisewarrior]

Hey guys I got it working. Even though I installed a brand new copy of Vbox 4.1.18, I never thought about uninstalling, and reinstalling, but that worked. Simple answer thankfully!

[jetwife]

If I uninstall/reinstall, don't I have to also reinstall my Windows machine?

[rpmurray]

If I uninstall/reinstall, don't I have to also reinstall my Windows machine?

No. Uninstalling VirtualBox, if you use the tool that comes in the download, does not remove the virtual machines you've built. It just removes the application and the drivers, your settings and VMs will be untouched.

[jetwife]

So do I use the uninstaller, then just reinstall? Or do I need to download 4.1.8 again, THEN reinstall?

[rpmurray]

You use the uninstaller and then reinstall. If you already have the version of VirtualBox you want to use you don't need to download it again. You might also want to run Disk Utility and do a Repair Disk Permissions after the install. Occasionally the permissions get mangled and that may keep VB from running.

[jetwife]

Is there any way to find my VMs and save them to a backup file, just in case they get lost? Sorry, I'm a bit new at this, and just want to make sure I don't lose anything.

[rpmurray]

If you're using the latest version of VirtualBox and created the VMs in the default location then they should be in the "VirtualBox VMs" folder in this path:

[hard drive]/Users/[your account]/Library/VirtualBox/VirtualBox VMs

On OS X 10.7 or above the Library folder is invisible, but you can still get to it in the Finder by holding down the Option key while clicking the Go menu and then selecting Library. Backup the whole VirtualBox folder and you'll have a backup of everything. Make sure that you've quit any running VMs and the VirtualBox application first.