Relocation of VM's failes with error "UUID already exists"

[WhiteGandalf]

I'm trying to make an innocent relocation of my virtual machines into another folder (the cause being irrelevant here).

After moving them to the new location, i deleted the VM's in the VBox Manager Display, changed the default path to the new one and thereafter tried to add the relocated machines back into the list.

At the fourth machine i got the error message:

Code: Select all

Konnte die virtuelle Maschine in D:/Medien/vboxen/Lehrserver/Lehrserver.vbox nicht öffnen.

Cannot register the DVD image 'd:\Werkzeug\Runtimes\vbox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso' {2a28d3fa-c057-444b-b23f-1448250f7aa4} because a CD/DVD image 'D:\Werkzeug\Runtimes\vbox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso' with UUID {32986cab-89a0-42df-9798-6e6fd46df012} already exists.

Fehlercode:E_INVALIDARG (0x80070057)
Komponente:VirtualBox
Interface:IVirtualBox {c28be65f-1a8f-43b4-81f1-eb60cb516e66}

Well: The actual CAUSE is somewhat obvious, but the REASON remains in the dark for me for now:
Why is the user forced to temporarily unload any loaded CD media in the VM's to JUST BE ABLE to add other VM's into the VM list?!?

Is that a feature or is that an error?

For me it looks like nothing than an error: It's absolutely legal (with regard to virtual machines) to have the same medium loaded into multiple machines (more than anything those guest addition cd which is the culprit here, but not limited to it: Since i have VM's cloned from each other, there are other VM's with another cd image mounted which get the same error message).

Why is the VM manager completely happy as long as the machines are only copied of each other, but spits acid when it comes to moving (unloading/reloading) the VM's?

By the way: I cant even remove those nagged iso images: I can neither reload the VM's in their former place nor in their new place! They are totally blocked! Is there a way to solve this situation? (Well, i can of course rebuild them, that's not that big problem at the moment, but for the future, if someone wants to seriously rely on this VM's - such a fail can become a head-shot, does it?...)

Any suggestions?

OK, temporary solution (but not clearance of the problem as is): delete the accountable entries in...
vbox file::VirtualBox/Machine/MediaRegistry/DVDImages/

Maybe this forum entry should move into error reports?

[mpack]

IMHO it's a bug, but a trivial one. ISO's do not have embedded UUID identifiers so VirtualBox (whose internal architecture requires a UUID to identify every media), invents a UUID on the fly for ISOs. In some rare circumstances (usually involving complex manipulations affecting multiple VMs) it does this more than once for the same ISO and an error such as you have seen results. You are already aware of the workaround.

If this bugs you a lot then you should search for an existing BugTracker ticket and add to it - create a new ticket if one isn't found.