[TIP] Virtualbox breaks after 2.6.24-21 upgrade

[brianfreytag]

There have been several reports that issuing the following command will solve the issue. It is simpler than how I described at first. It did not work for me (that's why I posted this how-to), but I have been asked to add it to this main post.

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

This will re-setup virtualbox, obviously.

Again, this did not work for me, but several others are having success... If this doesn't work for you, follow my steps below:

*****************************************
Begin original message
****************************************
Note that this is NOT an upgrade to Intrepid, but a Hardy upgrade.

Yesterday's (Oct. 14, 2008 ) upgrade takes the kernel up from 2.6.24-19 to 2.6.24-21.

When you try to boot up a virtual machine, it sits at spawning session.

IIf you remove "quiet splash" in the boot options you see that there are no kernel modules, and this is what is causing it to fail.

If you get the new modules installed through synaptic (for the 24-21 kernel) or:

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose-modules-2.6.24-21-generic

when you boot up a virtual machine it will tell you that something isn't right (I apologize, I didn't copy the exact error down before I fixed it) and that you need to reinstall virtualbox.

If you go to synaptic and uninstall virtualbox-2.0, and try to reinstall it, it will tell you that it won't.

You have to go to the virtualbox site and download the .deb package from them:

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

Install it.

It will ask you if you want to recompile kernal modules, and several other things... Allow it to do that.

Problem is then solved, and everything will install like it should.

Let me know if this helps anyone else.

[olivao]

Hey that worked fine!

Thanks for your post.

[Guillaume Lecomte]

The mix of Virtualbox and ose edition remains mysterious but ...
It works fine.

Thank you for the tip.

[beun]

that did the trick

thanks

[MaindotC]

When you say this:

IIf you remove "quiet splash" in the boot options you see that there are no kernel modules, and this is what is causing it to fail.

Do you mean removing this from the host o/s boot option or a VM that uses grub?

[brianfreytag]

When you say this:

IIf you remove "quiet splash" in the boot options you see that there are no kernel modules, and this is what is causing it to fail.

Do you mean removing this from the host o/s boot option or a VM that uses grub?

In the actual Ubuntu 8.04 grub when you start up your computer.

[tuskenraider]

hey man i appreciate this.... it helped me alot!!

tusken

[howefield]

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose-modules-2.6.24-21-generic

when you boot up a virtual machine it will tell you that something isn't right (I apologize, I didn't copy the exact error down before I fixed it) and that you need to reinstall virtualbox.

If you go to synaptic and uninstall virtualbox-2.0, and try to reinstall it, it will tell you that it won't.

Surely running the command in the error you mention will fix the problem after the kernel modules are installed ?

Also, you are replacing the repository version with a non repository version, so you won't get updates to virtualbox unless you also add the virtualbox repository to your sources.list.

[joey-elijah]

Downloaded the .deb etc, but still it won't work.

Now all i get is a "spawning session" which never budges from it's 0%.

Any ideas?!

The error i lovingly get non-stop is

The VirtualBox support driver which is running is from a different version of VirtualBox. You can correct this by stopping all running instances of VirtualBox and reinstalling the software..
VBox status code: -1912 (VERR_VM_DRIVER_VERSION_MISMATCH).


Result Code:
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component:
Console
Interface:
IConsole {d5a1cbda-f5d7-4824-9afe-d640c94c7dcf}

[brianfreytag]

Make sure you uninstall virtualbox before running the .deb from the site:

sudo apt-get remove virtualbox-2.0

I believe that is the correct package. I'm not at my Ubuntu box at the moment.

If that doesn't work, go to Synaptic, search virtualbox.

The first (at least on mine) package shows virtualbox-2.0 or something along those lines. Right click on that, and click "Mark for Removal." Don't click "Mark for Complete Removal."

THEN proceed to download the .deb from the site and install it.