Kernel Driver isn't permanent any more; why??

[Alkan]

On 64 bit Ubuntu 14.04, I have two virtual machines installed with Oracle VirtualBox Version 5.0.20 r106931 that I have used for quite some time. A while back, I attempted to load a virtual machine by pointing to an iso file on my hard drive based on instructions in a magazine.

That, by the way, was unsuccessful, and I deleted the dregs of this (at least I believe I did anyway). Since then, however, each time I reboot, a system error dialog box pops up once I log in to the desktop. When I attempted to run the VirtualBox Manager or any of the VMs themselves directly, I get the following error message:

==============================================================================
VirtualBox - Error in suplibOsInit
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
'sbin/rcvboxdrv setup'
as root ... et cetera, and ending with
where: suplibOsInit what: 3 VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED (rc=-1908) -
The support driver is not installed. On linux, open returned ENOENT.
==============================================================================

Being an obedient and trusting sort, I ran 'sudo sbin/rcvboxdrv setup' in a terminal, entered my password and, after thinking about things for a while, the prompt returned and all was well with VirtualBox and my virtual machines --- until the next Log Out or Reboot.

I recently got a notification for the update to VirtualBox Version 5.0.22 r108108 and completed that as well as the guest additions, but the difficulty remained.

Trolling various Ubuntu and Linux boards, I attempted a number of suggested "fixes" that included things like separately running "sudo modprobe vboxdrv" and of course "sudo apt-get install --reinstall virtualbox-dkms". In short, no luck, although I thought for a short time things might have been fixed.

Finally, I tried "sudo apt-get remove virtualbox virtualbox-4.* virtualbox-5.0" and began from scratch with a fresh download of Version 5.0.22 r108108. I still get the same message on reboot, and both guests still work fine once I do the rcvbox setup routine.

I've looked at everything I can think of, and can find no "permission problems" so I'm at a loss as to what to look for now. The only odd thing I saw was that, in Synaptic, I see that there are a number of VirtualBox files for version 4.3.36 which I assume are the original files for the Ubuntu distro. With one exception, none of these are shown as installed, except for the dkms connection(?) virtualbox-dkms 4.3.36-dfsg-1+deb8u1ubuntu1.14.04.1, which DOES seem to be installed. Is there supposed to be a newer version of that?

I should mention that the kernel version I'm using is 3.19.0-61, which is "stock" for an updated Ubuntu 14.04. The contents of /usr/src are:
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 May 17 06:07 linux-headers-3.19.0-59
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 May 17 06:07 linux-headers-3.19.0-59-generic
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Jun 10 05:54 linux-headers-3.19.0-61
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Jun 10 05:55 linux-headers-3.19.0-61-generic
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Jun 16 09:15 vboxhost-5.0.22 -> ../share/virtualbox/src/vboxhost
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Jun 23 10:25 virtualbox-4.3.36

ls -l /usr/share/virtualbox/src gives:
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Jun 23 10:38 vboxhost

ls -l /usr/share/virtualbox/src/vboxhost gives:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1766 Jun 9 2015 build_in_tmp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1106 Jun 16 09:12 dkms.conf
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2052 Jun 9 2015 do_dkms
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3200 Jun 9 2015 Makefile
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 4096 Jun 23 10:38 vboxdrv
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Jun 23 10:38 vboxnetadp
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Jun 23 10:38 vboxnetflt
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Jun 23 10:38 vboxpci

Does anyone know what I'm missing?
Thanks much for any advice...

[Perryg]

Post the guests log file ( as an attachment ). Right click on the guest in the Main Manager then click show log. Save and post as an attachment. Compress if it is too large to post.

[Alkan]

Here are the logs for the two VM guests:

[Perryg]

If this were mine I would purge the current install and following a reboot install again. This would clear up any corrupt install or syms.

Your guests will not be affected.

[Alkan]

Thanks for all your thoughts, but still no.

I did a complete purge, including removal of the $HOME/.config/VirtualBox - rebooted, did a complete reinstall, used Machine|Add in the manager to reconnect the VMs, and then rebooted.

Same exact symptoms as before. I guess I'll attempt to add them one at a time now, but don't have high expectations.

I had read somewhere that VirtualBox no longer uses DKMS. Is there any truth to that? Should I remove DKMS from my installation?

I hesitate to do that, since it has all the earmarks of "flailing around in the dark," but I haven't thought of anything else.

Again, thanks for the ideas and suggestions.

[Perryg]

Yes VBox is moving away from dkms, but you should not remove it from the host. You still need to make sure that kernel modules can be compiled after a kernel update.

Usually a purge takes care of this issue but I think you will find it has more to do with the OS moving from init.d to systemd. I know I had a few issues for a while on 14.04 versions and when I finally purged it took care of it because the init scripts still lingered from an older version and was causing an issue with systemd.

You might want to ask the Ubuntu folks what needs to be done as I suspect this is more a host issue at this point. Just be careful if they tell you to remove the official version and install theirs instead. This usually does not work out well and we will not support a distro fork.

PS: One last thought. You can purge dkms and then install it again. I also remember having an issue with a corruption in dkms and solved it that way.

[Alkan]

Another try:

I just received notification of the new Version 5.0.24 r108355 this morning, and installed it. The same symptoms still exist.

One thing I hadn't noticed before though, was that if I simply log out and back in there are no problems. It is only when I reboot that I need to reinstall the vbox but that doesn't surprise me.

I also attempted to reinstall it using sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup, which as far as I can see is really just doing the same thing without using the links.

Thanks for the suggestions to talk to the Ubuntu folks, but that's actually where I started, without any luck.

It's almost as if the kernel updates are applied to some image in memory as opposed to the actual kernel on the hard drive. Is there any line of inquiry I might follow along those lines? Would this be something with initramfs not being updated? (although I've had at least one kernel update recently that didn't barf in any way that I could see.

[Perryg]

I have seen this before and it was caused by a left over of a previous install that was using init.d Like I said the only way I fixed it was a purge, reboot, Make sure that init.d portion of VBox was in fact gone and then install the new version. I know what you mean about the Ubuntu folks though, they mean well but not that knowledgeable IMHO, and don't like to be questioned.