How do I fix the 1908 Virtualbox error?

Question

I have the following error:

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

Please install the virtualbox-ose-dkms package
and execute 'modprobe vboxdrv' as root.

This forbids me to launch any virtual machine. I checked and I already have the virtualbox-ose-dkms package installed. As a matter of fact I reinstalled it too, but it did not solve the problem.

Answer 1

Looks like you had an update on virtualbox and because of that, its kernel module wasn't recompiled (that's why it wants you to install the dkms package).

I don't know if you're running the open source version of virtualbox, but usually running this command:

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

solves the problems.

Answer 2

Because of useful and regular updates it is recommended to install and run Virtual Box from the repository maintained by Oracle. For avoiding to manually update the kernel driver on every update DKMS is useful.

See also this answer for details on the installation of Virtual Box.

Answer 3

I had precisely the same error. Running virtualbox from the command-line gave the following error:

WARNING: The character device /dev/vboxdrv does not exist.
     Please install the virtualbox-ose-dkms package and the appropriate
     headers, most likely linux-headers-generic.

     You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.

Consequently, I did the following and it solved the bug:

1. install the latest open-source version of VirtualBox as explained here. Nonetheless, this step does not seem essential.
2. install the appropriate generic kernel header. As for me it was linux-headers-2.6.38-8-generic. To know the version you need, you should type uname -r in a terminal.