virtualbox.org

Hi,

I installed the VB 2.0 binary on Fedora 9 amd-64 using yum install. It worked quite well until I edited the settings .xml file to increase guest resolution (it was topping out at 800x600).

I've done this several times on other distros for earlier versions of VB without issue.

But this time, I'm getting the dreaded "Failed to create the VirtualBox COM object" error message when I try to launch it.

So I've tried to uninstall VirtualBox manually, by searching (as root) for "vbox" and virtualbox", then "rm -r" all found entries. I also deleted the .virtualbox settings file from my home directory. When rebooting, I notice the vbox kernel module and networking are still active. However, the Sun VirtualBox menu item is inactive (does nothing when clicked).

I tried to "yum install virtualbox [...].rpm", but it says it's all ready installed.

I then tried "rpm -Uvh --force virtualbox[...].rpm", which appeared to go through.

Now I'm back to VirtualBox launching into the same VB COM object error message.

Can someone please tell me how to completely uninstall VirtualBox from Fedora 9, so I can reinstall it properly through yum?

Thanks

Using the rm command to remove applications is bound to give problems. They didn't invent package managers without a purpose. You should have used that to remove VB. Now open your package manager and remove VB entirely. Go to the website and download 1.6.6 instead of 2.0. Install 1.6.6 and enjoy your VB. Be sure that you are a member of the vboxusers group.

Go to the website and download 1.6.6 instead of 2.0. Install 1.6.6 and enjoy your VB.

Er... am I missing something here?

I installed VB 2.0 specifically to run 64-bit guests.

Version 1.6.6 don't do that.

Read the manual too to see if you have the proper hardware and settings to run 64 bit guests. Chapter 1.6 explains this.
Did you remove the package using your package manager? It may find some residual config. It might be better to reinstall the first version and remove it entirely the right way if you keep getting some errors after the initial reinstall of 2.0.

Ah. I have successfully installed and run 64-bit gurests in it already.

Sorry if that wasn't clear in my original post.

I have earlier, 32-bit VB installs running on other hosts. No point in making yet another instance, when I really want to be able to preview 64-bit distros.

OK your suggestion to use the package manager to uninstall worked from Gnome (it didn't from xfce). So I did that, then searching on vbox and virtualbox I found a whole bunch of stuff which the package mgr left behind, including config files. So much for that. Anyway, I deleted all that stuff as root, then rebooted, then reinstalled VB 2.0 (yum install VirtualBox[...].rpm --nogpgcheck). Twice. Each time when I attempted to launch VB, I got the same error message:

NS_ERROR_FACTORY_NOT_REGISTERED

I searched on this +virtualbox and got here:

http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/1727

So, taking their advice I tried and got:
So... apparently the left hand of my VB installation ain't talking to the right hand. What now?

If you want to install RPM packages, you don't have to use the yum command, but use rpm -i <packagename> instead. Try a reinstall with that command.

Made an interesting discovery this evening.

I logged in as root, so I could once more uninstall VB 2.0 with the package manager and then do a manual cleanup, without faffing around in the cli. I was planning to then try the reinstall using the "rpm -i" command as you suggested.

Just out of curiosity, however, I decided to try and launch VB while logged in as root. It launched without error, and I was able to attach the Xubuntu 8.10a3 x86_64 VDI that I had previously created under my usual login, before VB broke. However, I did not create a machine to run it in or try to boot it.

Instead, I logged out (from root account), and logged back in as normal user. When I tried to launch VB, I got the same error message. I tried just deleting my /home/user/.virtualbox directory, but VB still would not launch (and recreated the directory).

I created a new user, logged in as that, and was able to launch VB. However this time I could not attach the existing Xubuntu VDI. I found the VDI's permissions were exclusive to my original login name and group (rw----), so I changed both to the new user.

This time I was able to attach the original VDI, create a new machine for it, and boot it. It is still stuck at maximum 800x600 resolution. I had succeeded in installing VBoxLinuxAdditions in this VDI under my original user login, before (as I reported) I attempted to manually edit virtualbox.xml and immediately VB stopped working for me.

I guess I could continue using VB under the new login (until it breaks), but I'm curious if this sheds any light on a more effective "cure" than reinstalling it (which has so far proven 100% ineffective, for me).

One would think that /user/name/.virtualbox is the only place for user-specific settings, and all users share everything else, but apparently not. Does VB put some other user config files elsewhere?

I would also really, really like to run my machine at full screen, 1280x1024 resolution. I applled the appropriate display settings in the VM's xorg.conf, but this did not do the trick. Apparently ubuntu 8.10 is using xorg 7.4, and configures resolution on the fly, rather than referencing xorg.conf (or indeed, writing this information out -- there were no resolutions when I opened it).

Just as a follow-up to my last post, I installed Mepis 7.0 x86_64 to a VDI in VB2.0 last night, and obtained full screen 1024x768 resolution 'out of the box'.

I haven't tried to add 1280x1024 to the Mepis xorg.conf yet (or indeed, guest additions), but the display issue I'm having with xubuntu 8.10a3 seems to originate with the particular guest.