Inaccessible virtual machines images after an upgrade

[Cubytus32]

Hello there,

I've got some strange errors reported by virtual machines approximately after I upgraded VBox to 4.3.6.

Code: Select all

Cannot register the DVD image '/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso' {9bd4db01-7f82-45cf-a80a-53ce0ff7c3d5} because a CD/DVD image '/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso' with UUID {3561fa6f-bcb7-48c4-ba0d-715b7f097ec9} already exists.
Result Code: 
NS_ERROR_INVALID_ARG (0x80070057)
Component: 
VirtualBox
Interface: 
IVirtualBox {fafa4e17-1ee2-4905-a10e-fe7c18bf5554}

I am not sure what happened since the other virtual machines still work fine. I thought about reverting to a snapshot, or remove the iso from the virtual drive, but these buttons are not accessible.

How do I get back to the machines?

[socratis]

Post your .vbox file and I'll take a look at it.

[Cubytus32]

Uncompress the file to get the .vbox one.

Thanks for your insight.

[Perryg]

This issue is usually a result of leaving the guest additions mounted in the drive and creating a snapshot. This prevents the removal of the old guest additions because it is still mounted in a guest although you can not access it. You should be able to use the media manager to remove the previous guest additions.

[Cubytus32]

Ok, I detached the VBoxGuestAdditions from all virtual machines, and it seems to be back in working order after I restarted VBox. I performed this upgrade many times before, always with some quirks, as is usual with VBox, but never have I had a machine failing to be recognized.

[Perryg]

but never have I had a machine failing to be recognized.

Where does it say that? All I see is the error about not being able to register the new guest additions iso.

[Cubytus32]

Surely VirtualBox doesn't know if it failed for the first time or not. I know it. This is from experience with this flaky app.

[Perryg]

If you despise it so much why are you still using it? Surely there are other venues you could travel down.

[Cubytus32]

I don't despise it. Rather, as many software issued by large companies (Oracle is such a company, fyi), they seem to keep on harboring annoying bugs that never receive any attention from lead developers. For example, it is currently completely impossible to retrieve a password on the forum using Oracle's "unified login"; emails never get through, impossible to register new accounts, using a variety of email providers. So the issue is not on the user's side.

And on the other hand, there are no multiplatform alternatives for VBox.