virtualbox.org

Running virtualbox 5.1.22 with Ubuntu version 17.04 guest OS on a Windows 7 host.

Was trying to get bidirectional copy/paste working and followed some internet instructions that said to do the following:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-*
$ sudo shutdown -r now


Now my guest OS won't boot and it goes to black screen. I unfortunately do not have a snapshot from before doing this as I didn't expect this to be a problem. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

First of all, I split your message. You posted in the Discuss the 4.2.12 release. There was no other option? 4.2.12 ?!?

Second, follow a "start the VM from cold-boot"/"observe error"/"shutdown the VM" cycle. With the VM shut down completely (not paused or saved), right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log". Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response (see the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form).

Sorry, I piggybacked on that message thread because the symptoms were the same and I didn't see an answer.

I don't know what the real answer is but what I did to recover was:

1) Boot into recover mode by holding the shift key on POR.
2) Select advanced options
3) Select the OS boot image with "(recovery mode)" in the name
4) Let it boot then select "Drop to root shell prompt"
5) $ mount -o remount,rw /
6) $ sudo apt-get purge virtualbox-*

reboot the system...

This seems to clean it out

Ah, I see, I thought (mistakenly) that you had a problem with the VM. Glad you sorted it out.

Specifically, I had a problem where I installed the virtualbox-* tools in the ubuntu vm ... then things wouldn't boot in the guest OS. Maybe I'm doing things wrong but I was trying to figure out how to get the copy/paste to work between guest and host... still not working but at least I've recovered the guest OS

You need to install the guest additions that come with VirtualBox. Go to menu Devices » Insrert Guest Additions CD Image... and from there either you'll be prompted to run the installer, or you can find it in "<cd>/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run".

See Ch 4.2.2. Guest Additions for Linux.

That is correct... was coming back to this thread to note that.

So the flow is to:

1) download the package from the website
2) execute the update
3) bring up your guest machine and go to menu Devices >> insert Guest Additions CD image ... then follow prompts

and make sure it is turned on

Thanks!