virtualbox.org

Running VBox VirtualBox 4.2.16 86992-Win (stable).exe and Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.2.16-86992.vbox-extpack with USB 2.0 enabled on a Windows Ultimate 64 Service Pack 1 host.

Guest is Windows Ultimate 64 Service Pack 1.

To get the printer working have followed this guide: http://complete-concrete-concise.com/vi ... sb-devices

Of course I also got the drivers and software for the printer here: http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/c ... ndSoftware

The printer driver I have installed on the host as well as guest. Printer shows up fine on the host in "Devices and Printers".

However when I try to attach the printer in the Guest settings when running the guest I get this error:

Failed to attach the USB device Canon iP4200 [0109] to the virtual machine Windows Ultimate 64 SP1.

USB device 'Canon iP4200' with UUID {07f70521-7266-40ba-b99b-8288b8336523} is busy with a previous request. Please try again later.

Result Code: E_INVALIDARG (0x80070057)
Component: HostUSBDevice
Interface: IHostUSBDevice {173b4b44-d268-4334-a00d-b6521c9a740a}
Callee: IConsole {db7ab4ca-2a3f-4183-9243-c1208da92392}

Thank you for any help.




--- Conclusion after days of trying ---
Advice to people new to VirtualBox and needing a printer for the Guest:
Anyone that does not specifically need to print from the Guest ONLY and is OK with having a network connection between Guest and Host is strongly advised to share the printer via the homegroup or workgroup instead of investing time in trying out the USB option. I could not get it to work for the Canon iP4200 no matter what I tried, so don't grow grey hair over it if you are OK with having
- a Host-Guest network
- make a Homegroup or Workgroup on Windows
- have the corresponding and needed Windows services turned on and
- have correctly configured your Windows or other software firewall to allow and send traffic to and from the Guest and printer.

You will save yourself A LOT of time.

If you're just trying to print from the guest and are willing to have a network connection between the host and guest, it would be far easier to share the printer on the host and load up the shared printer on the guest.

If' you're really looking to get the USB connection working, Socratis has posted a how-to list a few times. Maybe he'll do it again here or you can search for it...

Thank you for your reply.

Would this network connection only allow through "printer traffic" or other traffic as well? At the moment I have host-only enabled. Trying to keep the guest from accessing the outside/net/www.

Do you by any chance have the name of this "how-to" list?

If you are referring to this

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=62824&p=294510&hili ... is#p294489

I have done all these and followed the guide here

http://complete-concrete-concise.com/vi ... sb-devices

. Also got Office 2013 and Acrobat Pro XI working.

Now just needing to be able to print from the guest since I don't want to install Office or Acrobat on the host.

Is there another list to check or anything else to know to get the USB printer working. Got USB filters in place the printer shows up in the filter list, all should be fine, no?

Thank you for any help.

If you are using host only you already have a network connection between host and guest. You should be able to use Windows printer sharing, just as you can between two physical machines on a network.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... =windows-7

I have spent all night to figure this out and this is the conclusion I come to:

To share a printer between two Windows boxes (regardless of if they are virtual or physical) a Homegroup needs to be established between the two boxes.

I tried the suggested route from above link first but there are many requisites for this to work, basically for this to work the host has to be wide-open to obvious attacks etc.

For the Homegroup to work the network adapter location setting has to be set to Home instead of Work or Public and the Windows Firewall service has to be set to automatic as well.

First of all I have Windows Firewall service turned off as well as the DNS client due to a rather large HOSTS file, also I rely on a software firewall that suits my needs 100%, being able to close all the ports and only allow connections I really need for browsing and email.

Then my network location, for security purposes as well, has always and will always be set to Public, even at home. From the Windows help notes is says: If you know you won’t need to share files or printers, the safest choice is public network.

Last, I don't want the two boxes to be on the same Homegroup, nor do I ever want to be on any Homegroup. This is also due to security concerns.

Yes of course there are tons or backdoors etc for the Windows OS to break in despite such settings, but with closing all the important ports (NetBIOS etc, 137, 138, 139, & tons more etc) and only allowing outside connections of the host through very restrictive rules and only through a VPN the windows host can be made somewhat secure, with emphasis on "somewhat".

All this leads me to the point where, out of fun and for trying out if this works, I set all above conditions to "open-wide-homegroup-windows-firewall-automatic-sharing-printer" and it did work. However given all the loss of security this brings with it I cannot choose this option, at least not for this host.

What does this leave me with?

1. Rely on help from the VirtualBox forum members to get true USB printer sharing/USB pipe going, without connecting the guest to the host through a network. I am fine with Host-only if must be, however all other above mentioned Windows file and printer/homegroup/sharing options are out of the question.

2. Since I do not want Office or Acrobat (Adobe Acrobat especially is detested with a passion here) installed on the host I would have to reply on, for example SumatraPDF to print PDFs and some VBscript/C# to get Office 2013 Word, Excel & Powerpoint files printed after doing work with them on the guest and saving them in a designated sandboxed and av-scanned shared folder.

For option 1 I think http://askubuntu.com/questions/48982/ho ... ose-win-xp is pretty important regardless of the guest and host OS, I think the issue is that the Windows user group is not the same for the USB printer, or at least it should be vboxusers, though I have no idea is this is up to date info (3 years old) and if this would work.

To sum all this up I make an honest plea to the users that got their USB printer to work through VirtualBox USB sharing, with the USB filer setting, to come forward and let myself and other users in need how they have accomplished this task.

If there are none such users I would suggest that this feature of VirtualBox is not working or at least not with version 4.2.16 86992-Win since I have really really tried everything else.

More than happy about any suggestions on points 1. or 2. though I would LOVE to learn how to really get VirtualBox USB sharing/pipe working on a Win host Win guest setup.

Thank you

Running the printer in that manner would be rather tedious. The USB device can be attached to the host or the guest. It cannot be attached to both at once. That is why you get the "busy with a previous request" message - the printer is still attached to the host OS. It is not a printer sharing system, it is a one or the other situation.

Happy to do just that, attach the printer to the Guest only and pipe the USB connection.

How can I get this done? How have other people done this?

I have numerous OS images of the host before doing all this testing, with the host untouched regarding printer driver.

Do you suggest to install the printer on the Guest only, so ONLY run the printer driver there and then SIMPLY plug in the USB cord and the Guest will automagically recognise the printer?

Don't I have to install the printer driver on the host first and then plug it in? Since the USB connection is giving me trouble, will the Guest, once the printer driver is installed ONLY there, recognise the printer once plugged into the USB connector of the host with the host NOT having the printer driver installed?

Thank you for any help. I am still looking for people that managed to get USB printing from Guest only working.

Just went back to an earlier image of the host before the printer driver even touched the disk.

Added the ext pack as well as guest additions to the guest.

Then installed the printer driver on the guest.

Tried to set the USB filter to the printer though this was not possible BEFORE plugging in the printer into the host.

As soon as I plugged in the printer into the host the host jumped on it and tired to install a driver, that obviously was missing and this resulted in the "device not properly installed" message.

Back in the Guest the printer was shown in the USB list now, however plugging it in gave me the same result as before, busy with a previous request.

Now I wonder what previous request this is when there is no printer driver installed on the host?

I am now going to write down the USB filter details of the printer (that I only got after plugging it in), go back again on the host OS image to before the printer was plugged in, as well as a previous snapshot in the Guest and there I will try to set a filter BEFORE the printer is plugged in the first time on the host while the Guest is running AND has the printer driver installed. Perhaps like this the Guest might be the first in line BEFORE the host OS can jump on it.

IF all this does not work some dev some where is surly having a good evil laugh at my expense and I shall be stuck with method 2. or skip over to VMWARE and see if they also have issues with this sort of stuff.

Believe me, I HAVE indeed tried everything, relying on the info I can find about this here as well as reading lots of info all over the web from other people struggling with this.

If you have any more info to throw at me I am all ears, this is getting tense and ... well I need to print and do my work and can't spend days on trying to get the printer working, day 3 of the printer vs. vbox battle is nearing, I should not laugh but should I cry instead? Nah, in this case I prefer to laugh, there is noting else I can do, is there?

Thank you for any help that you might be able to share.

After suggestions and since you don't seem to have found it, here is my USB troubleshooting list. Follow the steps below. If there is a failure, please state which step failed:

1. Make sure that the Extension Pack is installed on the host. The same version as VirtualBox.
2. Create a USB filter in your guest settings while the device is plugged in the host. Delete all values except VendorID and ProductID.
3. Unplug the device.
4. Start your guest (the one that you applied the filter to). Let it start completely. Log in if you have to.
5. Plug your device. The filter should capture it and pass control to your guest. You might get a "New hardware found" wizard on the host, that's normal.
6. If the device shows up in your host and is not captured by the filter, either the filter is incorrect, or there might be a problem with your filter installation.

Remember, with USB, there is no sharing as you seem to think. You couldn't have a USB stick at two computers at the same time, could you? As for the "Device is busy", that is irrelevant of the existence of a driver. Again, the hardware (your printer) is captured by the host. And it is exclusive. Either the host OR the guest. Not both.

Before I go through the list here something else that failed.

Reverted the Host back to an image before the printer driver was installed on the Host.

Went back to a snapshot in the Guest before the printer was plugged in or the printer driver was installed.

Installed Guest Addition and Ext Pack for the Guest. (Yes I got the exact same Ext Pack version as the version of VBox, see my other Thread on finding that exact same version)

Made a printer filter with the exact values from the screenshot of last night that I got once I plugged the printer in. Filled in all the values exactly as given.

Installed the printer driver on the Guest.

Plugged in the printer to the Host and before the Guest could catch it the Host jumps on it and fires up "device not properly installed".

The Guest then shows the "busy with previous request" error.

I have understood that a physical device cannot be shared at two different locations at the exact same time, even though it is plugged in at just one location.

I have also understood to think of the Guest as a completely new computer though I think I never had trouble understanding just that. Yesterday all day and the day before all day and night when I was doing network troubleshooting, mounting folders in both Host and Guest to be accessible via the local network and each other (classic Windows file sharing etc) without the "Share folder" function of VBox this was made pretty clear to me. Generally I am not computer illiterate or a beginner.

I am now going to try and go through the list step by step as lined out and skip certain values in the USB filter and see if that helps. Fingers crossed.

I did try exactly as you said and it still keeps telling me device is busy.

Must be the USB filter in that case.

Don't know what else to try.

Quite sad.

You will keep having problems as long as you continue to ignore the advice you get from more experienced users.

So, for the last time I think: the proper way to share a printer is via the network interface. That can be done using the "Host-Only" network mode with no malware risk. In any case a printer share can't be used to spread malware by any mechanism I've ever heard of. The steps involved in configuring a network (e.g. being part of the same workgroup) are true of any network situation and can be found in books and Google searches.

mpack wrote:You will keep having problems as long as you continue to ignore the advice you get from more experienced users.

So, for the last time I think: the proper way to share a printer is via the network interface. That can be done using the "Host-Only" network mode with no malware risk. In any case a printer share can't be used to spread malware by any mechanism I've ever heard of. The steps involved in configuring a network (e.g. being part of the same workgroup) are true of any network situation and can be found in books and Google searches.

Please try to read carefully what has been posted in this thread so far.

A USB filter is something completely different than a networked shared printer, even the title suggests to enable the printer via USB (filter) instead of the network, I think you will be able to understand this.

Socratis also acknowledges here viewtopic.php?f=2&t=62861#p295064 that there might either be a problem with the USB filter installation, though I would not know what and taking it for granted really that when installing virtual box (the main software package) and the installation dialogue finishes without any error messages the USB filter installation would be part of that.

The other point made there, Socratis' post, was that the USB filter might be wrong. In any case it does not work, at least not for me and given the fact no other users have come up to mention they got their printer working through the USB filter, I take it as given that this is not possible with virtual box. I even tried with the extension pack and USB 2.0 enabled in case the signal would only be let through on a USB 2.0 line but I highly doubt this is dependent on USB or USB 2.0.

It would be excellent to include this in the manual or installation notes, at least warning users that USB filters are not 100% operational and might or might not work in varying set ups, similar to the drag and drop feature only working with specific hosts and guest.

In conclusion on my part I like to thank the users that tried to offer help with this issue in this thread, thank you for time and effort regarding this, this is very much appreciated.

I'm well aware of what the thread has been about so far. Now perhaps you can try to understand the point I was making: which is that the USB route is a red herring, and all this thrashing around getting it to work reliably - entirely pointless.

But, if you insist on doing things the hard way way then certainly that's your right. Good luck with that.