Failed to acquire COM object error-(0x80004005)

[JohnShmo]

Hello;
I appreciate in advance any suggestions on this.
I had a VirtualBox crash which resulted in not only the failure to clone or re-start an old clone, but after reboot the VirtualBox will not open at all. This has been a periodic problem on an otherwise highly useful application (h/t programmers)

Sorry to say that I'm not well-educated in programming and system administration to understand all of the lingo in other related posts. But I'll share what is unique about this situation:
LinuxLite host (not windows or Ubuntu) with windows 7 guest
I get an error msg in Synaptic Pkg Manager to 'fix broken packages' when I try removing (to then re-install) VirtualBox. I was previously using 5.0.4 just now downloaded 5.1.22
There is no .xml-prev file (as stated in a different topic on this subject.
The error window states that there is an error with - .config/VirtualBox/VirtualBox.xml', line 1 (0), column 1.
When I looked into this file, it is 0-bytes so perhaps the error is that some data is missing. The same error msg appears in the log files.

Result code: S_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)

I've uploaded the log files here where you can view them
www towardzeroimpact(dot)net/uploads/

[Perryg]

You might be able to recover this by renaming the ".config/VirtualBox" folder to something else and the install VirtualBox again. Guests that you still have should be able to be associated again by using the add feature ( do not add then by hand ).

[socratis]

LinuxLite host (not windows or Ubuntu)

Actually, it is Ubuntu 16.04 based. If you look at the "VBoxSVC.log" you'll see the following:

• OS Product: Linux
  OS Release: 4.4.0-81-generic
  OS Version: #104-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jun 14 08:17:06 UTC 2017
  Package type: LINUX_64BITS_UBUNTU_16_04

I was previously using 5.0.4 just now downloaded 5.1.22

Did you download previously 5.0.4 or it came with the default installation? You downloaded 5.1.22 from where?