How can I start VirtualBox in the face of a DKMS error?

Question

I'm trying to restart my virtual machine (Oracle VM VirtualBox) with a Windows OS on it from Ubuntu 14.04 after having upgraded from 12.04.

Whenever I try to start the VM session, I get two error dialog boxes:

(1)

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005) Component: Machine Interface: IMachine {5eaa9319-62fc-4b0a-843c-0cb1940f8a91}

(2)

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall the kernel module by executing

'/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup'

as root. If it is available in your distribution, you should install the DKMS package first. This package keeps track of Linux kernel changes and recompiles the vboxdrv kernel module if necessary.

Based upon the suggestion of error box 2, I then run the following:

user@user][user] sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup            [..]
[sudo] password for user]: 
 * Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules                                    [ OK ] 
 * Uninstalling old VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules                       [ OK ] 
 * Trying to register the VirtualBox kernel modules using DKMS                  Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 3.13.0-40-generic (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/make.log for more information.

 * Failed, trying without DKMS
 * Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules                                        
 * Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong

I have tried to vorrect for this by installing dkms, bbswitch-dkms, open-vm-dkms and open-vm-tools-dkms packages but this doesn't work.

EDIT: The log files in response to comment below state:

DKMS make.log for vboxhost-4.1.18 for kernel 3.13.0-40-generic
(x86_64) Wed Dec  3 21:14:39 GMT 2014 make: Entering directory
`/usr/src/linux-headers-3.13.0-40-generic'   LD     
/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/built-in.o   LD     
/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/built-in.o   CC [M] 
/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.o
/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.c: In
function ‘vboxdrvLinuxUid’:
/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.c:226:5:
error: incompatible types when returning type ‘kuid_t’ but ‘RTUID’ was
expected
     return current->cred->uid;
     ^ /var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.c: In
function ‘vboxdrvLinuxGid’:
/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.c:235:5:
error: incompatible types when returning type ‘kgid_t’ but ‘RTGID’ was
expected
     return current->cred->gid;
     ^ /var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.c: In
function ‘vboxdrvLinuxEuid’:
/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.c:244:5:
error: incompatible types when returning type ‘kuid_t’ but ‘RTUID’ was
expected
     return current->cred->euid;
     ^ /var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.c:248:1:
warning: control reaches end of non-void function [-Wreturn-type]  } 
^ /var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.c: In
function ‘vboxdrvLinuxUid’:
/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.c:230:1:
warning: control reaches end of non-void function [-Wreturn-type]  } 
^ /var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.c: In
function ‘vboxdrvLinuxGid’:
/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.c:239:1:
warning: control reaches end of non-void function [-Wreturn-type]  } 
^ make[2]: ***
[/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.o]
Error 1 make[1]: *** [/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build/vboxdrv]
Error 2 make: *** [_module_/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/4.1.18/build] Error
2 make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.13.0-40-generic'

Answer 1

This is a kernel/driver issue. It's the same under xen with xcp so not limited to virtualbox The blktap driver fails to compile on 3.13 kernels.

This might work:

wget http://es.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/b/blktap-dkms/blktap-dkms_2.0.93-0ubuntu4_amd64.deb

dpkg -i  blktap-dkms_2.0.93-0ubuntu4_amd64.deb 
(Reading database ... 115884 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace blktap-dkms 2.0.91-1ubuntu1 
(using blktap-dkms_2.0.93-0ubuntu4_amd64.deb) ...

------------------------------
Deleting module version: 2.0.91
completely from the DKMS tree.
------------------------------
Done.
Unpacking replacement blktap-dkms ...
Setting up blktap-dkms (2.0.93-0ubuntu4) ...
Loading new blktap-2.0.93 DKMS files...
Building only for 3.13.0-40-generic
Building initial module for 3.13.0-40-generic
Done.

blktap:
Running module version sanity check.
  - Original module
  - No original module exists within this kernel
  - Installation
  - Installing to /lib/modules/3.13.0-40-generic/updates/dkms/

depmod.......

DKMS: install completed.

You basically just use the version that comes with trusty tahr