Virtualbox 6.1.4 is crashing on startup

[BeerGarden]

Hi everyone!

Maybe someone has a similar problem and can help me?

When I launch Virtualbox 6.1.4, it crashes with an exception. I have to close it and rerun.
Eventually, after 3-5 reruns it would run and after that everything works as normal.

I can live with it, but still, it's a little bit annoying.

Its Mac Mini 2014, Windows 8.1 (*not* MacOS).

RAM is ok (I have tested it with Memtest86+ for 3 hours straight, no errors).
I think it might be a faulty video driver.... because the exception is related to Qt5..

Thanks!

[scottgus1]

Its Mac Mini 2014, Windows 8.1 (*not* MacOS).

I assume this means your real computer is a Mac running Windows 8.1.

Try to get the main Virtualbox window open, then go to File menu, Preferences. Mark down any edits you made to the preferences, special NAT networks, or File Menu Host Only networks, etc.

Reboot the Mac so no Virtualbox processes are running. Go to C:\Users\{you} and move the .Virtualbox folder (note the period in the name) to your desktop. When Virtualbox restarts it will make a new fresh .Virtualbox folder with no guests showing and all File menu Preferences Nat & Host-Only networks, etc will be reset. The guests will still be there, though, ready to be re-registered.

Now start Virtualbox. If the window opens properly, close it, wait a minute, then open it again, try a few times to see if it is stable. Then use the Machine menu, Add command to find and register a guest .vbox file. Repeat the closing, waiting a minute, and reopening of the main Virtualbox window a few times with each guest you re-register.

If you can get all guests re-registered and Virtualbox doesn't crash out, then there may have just been a glitch in the original .Virtualbox folder. If the problem returns after a particular guest is registered, ther may be a problem in that guest's .vbox file.

Let us know what happens.

[BeerGarden]

I did everything as you prescribed... and it did help!

Supposedly, it had to be something with messed up file permissions?

Many thanks! [SOLVED]

[scottgus1]

Great! Glad you're running.

I don't know about the permissions question. The .Virtualbox folder goes back where it was before, and the guest files are all still where they were before, so all the permissions should still be set as they were before. Could be a bad bit from a cosmic ray caused a bad character to get written to the main config file Virtualbox.XML which is always re-written in the .Virtualbox folder. You could try comparing data from the old and new Virtualbox.XML files, to see if anything is different.