[Resolved] How to change UUID on 10.9?

[tronnyjenkins]

I have a new machine that apparently has a duplicate UUID to one that I already have (same person made VM, but still weird to me)

Can someone help me give the new one a new UUID? It's got a .vmdk, .vbox, and .vmx file in the folder if that matters.

[socratis]

I have a new machine that apparently has a duplicate UUID to one that I already have

Do you know what are the chances of getting a duplicate UUID?

the number of random UUIDs which need to be generated in order to have a 50% probability of at least one collision, is 2.71 quintillion

2.71 × 10¹⁸ !!!
Are you still trying to convince me that a "new machine" got the same UUID as an "existing machine"? Please don't continue down this path.

So, please tell me the exact steps that this situation occurred. To me it seems that you tried to import the same VM twice, or you hacked your '.vbox' file, or something else, still unknown/unrevealed.

You need to provide the exact/full details of what you did exactly and how you ended up with this.

[tronnyjenkins]

I thought it was a bit weird, and I don't claim to be not at fault, as it were. Haha.

So I have one VM called BMWCodingV3Lite that I've been using, and I decided I need the full version for some more diag tools. So now I also have BMWCodingV3. I didn't do anything aside from try to launch the VM by using the included .vbox file and it says "Failed to open virtual machine in /users/myname/downloads/BMWCodingV3-VirtualBox.vbox".

Inside Details tab:
"Trying to open a VM config '/Users/AaronCarpenter/Downloads/BMWCodingV3/BMWCodingV3-VirtualBox.vbox' which has the same UUID as an existing virtual machine.


Result Code:
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component:
MachineWrap
Interface:
IMachine {85cd948e-a71f-4289-281e-0ca7ad48cd89}
Callee:
IVirtualBox {9570b9d5-f1a1-448a-10c5-e12f5285adad}"

[tronnyjenkins]

Just tried to create a new VM and got a very similar message:

"Failed to open the disk image file /Users/AaronCarpenter/Downloads/BMWCodingV3/BMWCoding.vmdk.

Cannot register the hard disk '/Users/AaronCarpenter/Downloads/BMWCodingV3/BMWCoding.vmdk' {59b3f9c7-3a12-4695-beaa-2ea221442507} because a hard disk '/Users/AaronCarpenter/Downloads/BMWCodingV3Lite/BMWCoding.vmdk' with UUID {59b3f9c7-3a12-4695-beaa-2ea221442507} already exists.

Result Code: NS_ERROR_INVALID_ARG (0x80070057)
Component: VirtualBoxWrap
Interface: IVirtualBox {9570b9d5-f1a1-448a-10c5-e12f5285adad}
Callee RC: VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80BB0001)"

[tronnyjenkins]

OK- fixed it. Used Terminal code:
/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/Resources/VirtualBoxVM.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid "/Users/MyName/Downloads/BMWCodingV3/BMWCoding.vmdk"

It assigned a new UUID, then I edited the .vbox file in TextEdit of the Hard Disks to be that number, then renamed the VM UUID within the same file by just changing one of the 4's to a 3. haha.

Thanks!

[socratis]

You kind of solved it, by hacking it.

What happened was that you were trying to import the same VM. Can't do that. But, you "hacked" your way into changing the UUIDs for the hard disk and the VM itself.

Not something I would suggest, definitely not for new users. There's a big warning in there for a reason!

** DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE.
** If you make changes to this file while any VirtualBox related application
** is running, your changes will be overwritten later, without taking effect.
** Use VBoxManage or the VirtualBox Manager GUI to make changes.

But I'm glad you got it going. Marking as [Resolved].