Kernel driver not installed (rc=1908) error.

[mdeixler]

Need some help.

Running Ubuntu 12.04 (lxle - 64 bit) (Host) with vbox 4.3.xxx installed. Getting error "Kernel driver not installed (rc=1908) error." This is second time its happened. First time running sudo apt-get purge virtualbox-\* and reinstalling got me back. This time it doesn't. I've tried this using repository installs (apt-get install ...) and downloading the latest version from Oracle and using the DEB package installer.

running "/etc/init.d/vboxdry setup" gives:

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bash: /ect/init.d/vboxdrv: No such file or directory

I have 3 questions now

First: How do I fix this? (the posted solutions I've tried all fail)

Second: Why does this happen when I haven’t changed the machine any?

Third: If there are silent, behind the scenes changes happening that cause this, how do I turn them off?

I am new enough to linux to need hand-holding through this process so please forgive the repeat nature of this request.

Thank you all

Marshall

[Perryg]

The most common problem is not installing dkms first. When your host kernel upgrades dkms keeps your external modules compiled to the newer kernel.

Then the second mistake is trying to install repo versions over the official one and so forth. Once you have done that you need to purge the install reboot and then install again to make sure you don't have mixed code.

[mdeixler]

I thought I tried that but did not reboot before the reinstall. Tonight I will purge both DKMS and Virtualbox, then reboot, install DKMS from repository and then Virtualbox download using the DEB package installer. I will attempt to track the logs on the two installs.

Thanks for the response. Will post back the result.

Marshall

[mdeixler]

Thank you for your help. It took purging 3 packages, rebooting and installing 3 packages.

They were Virtualbox, DKMS and Linux Headers.

On the off chance that another newbie sees this I will include the commands I used:

Purge Virtual Box

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sudo apt-get purge virtualbox\* 

Purge DKMS

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sudo apt-get purge dkms\* 

Purge linux-headers

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sudo apt-get purge linux-headers 

Re Boot the Machine

install linux-headers

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sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) 

Apparently (I think) this form of the command identifies and installs the correct version of linux-headers, at least it did that for me.

install DKMS

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sudo apt-get install dkms 

Install Virtual Box
This is where I departed from command line work. I downloaded the latest version of virtual box for my version of Ubuntu (14.04 trusty) and saved it to my hard drive. I then opened it in the Deben package installer, specifically "GDebi Package Installer" and used that to install. (I right clicked on the package name in the file manager window to get to that easily).

I hope this experience helps the next person puzzled by this.

Thank you for your help.

I can't help wondering however, why did a working installation suddenly stop working and return the error code?

Marshall

[mdeixler]

Two days ago my installation was working. I posted the steps I took to get it back at that time. This evening I have that same problem again! I didn't change anything! Can someone PLEASE explain why, for no apparent reason Virtual Box is working normally one day and two days later, without installing or configuring anything, I get a "Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908) error.

Please help. I'm about at my wits end with this.

Thanks

The error message in its entirety is:

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Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall the kernel module by executing

'/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup'

as root. If it is available in your distribution, you should install the DKMS package first. This package keeps track of Linux kernel changes and recompiles the vboxdrv kernel module if necessary.

[Perryg]

Hard to say since this would be a host issue and not so much a VirtualBox issue. The need to re-install to make it work means that either the host has changed something and the kernel modules were not rebuilt or there are changes being made at the host OS level. If you can run " /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup" and it works and works past a reboot of the host it has to be something the host is doing.

[mdeixler]

Perry:

Thank you for your continued help. Running that command I got this:

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root@wally:/# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules ...done.
Uninstalling old VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules ...done.
Trying to register the VirtualBox kernel modules using DKMSError! Your kernel headers for kernel 3.13.0-49-generic cannot be found.
Please install the linux-headers-3.13.0-49-generic package,
or use the --kernelsourcedir option to tell DKMS where it's located
 ...failed!
  (Failed, trying without DKMS)
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules ...failed!
  (Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong)
root@wally:/# 

Did not work.

I then ran a cat on the /var/log/vbox-install.log

If need be, I can post the entire contents of the log file but in the interests of shorter posts I'm posting only the start and end as I think much of the middle is not going to be helpfull here:

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Uninstalling modules from DKMS
  removing old DKMS module vboxhost version  4.3.26

-------- Uninstall Beginning --------
Module:  vboxhost
Version: 4.3.26
Kernel:  3.13.0-48-generic (x86_64)
-------------------------------------

Status: Before uninstall, this module version was ACTIVE on this kernel.

vboxnetflt.ko:
 - Uninstallation
   - Deleting from: /lib/modules/3.13.0-48-generic/updates/dkms/
 - Original module
   - No original module was found for this module on this kernel.
   - Use the dkms install command to reinstall any previous module version.

... Same entries for vboxnetadp.ko: and vboxpci.ko:

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depmod.......

DKMS: uninstall completed.

------------------------------
Deleting module version: 4.3.26
completely from the DKMS tree.
------------------------------
Done.
Attempting to install using DKMS

Creating symlink /var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.3.26/source ->
                 /usr/src/vboxhost-4.3.26

DKMS: add completed.
Failed to install using DKMS, attempting to install without
Makefile:183: *** Error: unable to find the sources of your current Linux kernel. Specify KERN_DIR=<directory> and run Make again.  Stop.
root@wally:/# 

Am I facing the purge and reinstall again?

Assuming that the system is making changes, can you think of any place I can start looking for help in stopping them? Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

Thanks

Marshall

[Martin]

The error message shows
"Your kernel headers for kernel 3.13.0-49-generic cannot be found.
Please install the linux-headers-3.13.0-49-generic package"

Is this the kernel version you are running and is this linux-headers package installed?

[Perryg]

After you answer martins question I though of something else. I have seen dkms get corrupted and cause this very issue. The only way I know to fix it is to purge dkms and then install it new again.

[mdeixler]

The error message shows
"Your kernel headers for kernel 3.13.0-49-generic cannot be found.
Please install the linux-headers-3.13.0-49-generic package"

Is this the kernel version you are running and is this linux-headers package installed?

Looks like I may have a mismatch.

Kernel:
root@wally:/# uname -r
3.13.0-49-generic


Headers (partial output of command)
root@wally:/# dpkg -l | grep headers
ii linux-headers-3.13.0-48 3.13.0-48.80 all Header files related to Linux kernel version 3.13.0
ii linux-headers-3.13.0-48-generic 3.13.0-48.80 amd64 Linux kernel headers for version 3.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP

I assume that to get this stable I need the same version Kernel and headers?

Thanks

Marshall

[Perryg]

Yes and that is what dkms is supposed to do. If it was loaded before the last kernel update and it did not also update the headers then dkms is corrupt and should be purged first then install new before you install the headers, if it does not do so when installed.

[mdeixler]

Yes and that is what dkms is supposed to do. If it was loaded before the last kernel update and it did not also update the headers then dkms is corrupt and should be purged first then install new before you install the headers, if it does not do so when installed.

OK

So I take it that the installation order should be:

1. DKMS
2. Linux-Headers
3. Virtual-Box.

If nothing get corrupted, then DKMS should help prevent a repeat as the kernel gets updated. Is all that right?

Thanks

[mdeixler]

Tried to correct the issues. I have purged all 3 packages, dkms, linux-heders (did each of the packages by the full name) and virtual box. Did a reboot and then started to reinstall:

sudo apt-get install dkms

got this result:

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  dkms
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 291 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/64.6 kB of archives.
After this operation, 349 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Selecting previously unselected package dkms.
(Reading database ... 168457 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../dkms_2.2.0.3-1.1ubuntu5.14.04.1_all.deb ...
Unpacking dkms (2.2.0.3-1.1ubuntu5.14.04.1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.6.7.1-1ubuntu1) ...
Setting up dkms (2.2.0.3-1.1ubuntu5.14.04.1) ...

I then tested to see if that installed linux-headers by:

shelly@wally:~$ dpkg -l | grep linux-headers
shelly@wally:~$

The command returned nothing so I installed linux-headers using:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

it gave me this result:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
linux-headers-3.13.0-49
The following NEW packages will be installed:
linux-headers-3.13.0-49 linux-headers-3.13.0-49-generic
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 291 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/9,579 kB of archives.
After this operation, 76.8 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Selecting previously unselected package linux-headers-3.13.0-49.
(Reading database ... 168504 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../linux-headers-3.13.0-49_3.13.0-49.81_all.deb ...
Unpacking linux-headers-3.13.0-49 (3.13.0-49.81) ...
Selecting previously unselected package linux-headers-3.13.0-49-generic.
Preparing to unpack .../linux-headers-3.13.0-49-generic_3.13.0-49.81_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking linux-headers-3.13.0-49-generic (3.13.0-49.81) ...
Setting up linux-headers-3.13.0-49 (3.13.0-49.81) ...
Setting up linux-headers-3.13.0-49-generic (3.13.0-49.81) ...
Examining /etc/kernel/header_postinst.d.
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/header_postinst.d/dkms 3.13.0-49-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-49-generic
Error! Could not locate dkms.conf file.
File: does not exist.

Please note the error message about no dkms.conf file.

Is this going to cause issues in the future, like the next time my kernel updates and if so, is there a way to fix the error?

Thank you

[Perryg]

No way to know until kernel is updated again. This is however a host issue and not one that VirtualBox can deal with. Consult the host forum for information about issues caused by the OS.

[mdeixler]

OK. Thanks.