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I have been running virtualbox (recent version that you get from apt-get) on an ubuntu 14.04 LTS host. There was just a "normal" update via System Tools -> Administration -> Software Updater that updated virtualbox to 4.3.34_Ubuntu r104062 . Now when I try to run a guest os (ubuntu 14.04) or start a new guest with ubuntu 15.10 the guest crashes as it tries to start up.

From the virtualbox log, the crucial lines appear to be:


00:00:31.838258 Guest Log: BIOS: Booting from CD-ROM...
00:00:32.028360 Display::handleDisplayResize(): uScreenId = 0, pvVRAM=00007f821b400000 w=640 h=480 bpp=16 cbLine=0x500, flags=0x1
00:00:32.028379 UIFrameBuffer::RequestResize: Screen=0, Format=843204434, BitsPerPixel=16, BytesPerLine=1280, Size=640x480, Sending to async-handler..
00:00:32.028436 UIFrameBufferQImage::resizeEvent: Format=843204434, BitsPerPixel=16, BytesPerLine=1280, Size=640x480
00:00:32.028445 UIFrameBufferQImage::resizeEvent: Resizing to FALLBACK buffer due to format is invalid..
00:00:45.670222 Display::handleDisplayResize(): uScreenId = 0, pvVRAM=0000000000000000 w=720 h=400 bpp=0 cbLine=0x0, flags=0x1
00:00:45.670249 UIFrameBuffer::RequestResize: Screen=0, Format=0, BitsPerPixel=0, BytesPerLine=0, Size=720x400, Sending to async-handler..
00:00:45.670375 UIFrameBufferQImage::resizeEvent: Format=0, BitsPerPixel=0, BytesPerLine=0, Size=720x400
00:00:45.670384 UIFrameBufferQImage::resizeEvent: Resizing to FALLBACK buffer due to format is invalid..
00:00:45.670845 Guest Log: BIOS: KBD: unsupported int 16h function 03

I am guessing that some kind of local preferences file is corrupted. Can anyone suggest how to get the virtualbox guests running again? I have tried:


sudo apt-get purge virtualbox
sudo apt-get install virtualbox
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-additions-iso

And that did not work.

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  • 1
    It turned out the update to virtualbox did not install the new version of the virtualbox extension pack. With the appropriate version of that downloaded from the virtualbox website, and installed, things worked again.
    – alangh
    Nov 27, 2015 at 5:01
  • Thanks to Oracle for making it so obvious. Just imagine that in case of extpack version mismatch they could delete random files on your disk, but instead they just crash VMs and write crap to logs. Let us know where we can vote for their well-deserved usability reward.
    – pfalcon
    Jan 10, 2016 at 17:08

5 Answers 5

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I experienced the exact same problem. In my case it turned out to be an outdated extension pack causing USB 2.0 to break at boot. I could boot my guests by disabling the USB 2.0 support.

You can find the latest extension pack here: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

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  • This worked for me. I downloaded the extension pack for 4.3.34 from the page you linked, and chose to open it in virtualbox. I was warned that I had an older version installed and asked if I would upgrade it and responded yes. Problem solved.
    – Elder Geek
    Nov 30, 2015 at 5:12
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After Ubuntu upgraded Virtualbox from 4.3.10 to 4.3.34, all my Windows 7 and Windows 10 virtual machines abort on startup. Was only able to get to run by disabling USB 2.0. Then I saw Marg G's entry on updating the extension pack, which then allowed USB 2.0 to work again.

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  • disabling USB on the guest worked for me as well. The only VM that would boot was a DOS machine which put me on track since I had never enabled USB on that one. I have yet to attempt installing the latest guest addition expansion. No time tonight
    – Elder Geek
    Nov 30, 2015 at 5:03
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I had the same problem. Solution for me was the update of the extension pack. Just download it from http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.3.34/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.34-104062.vbox-extpack then update in virtualbox via "global settings". Then it should work again.

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I too experienced this problem today and can concur with the previous solutions, downloading and installing the correct extension pack (http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.3.34/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.34-104062.vbox-extpack) solved the issue.

If you're running a Windoze guest then it's probably a good idea to update the Guest Additions once you've booted into it too. :)

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  • Well I am still running into a problem, virtualbox will share no usb devices with the guest os (another ubuntu 14.04). This is with the correct extension pack in place. Reboots of host and guest, as suggested above at one point, do not help. I reinstalled the guest additions on both guest and host, but that did not help. One thing I did note was that the guest additions was still 4.3.10 and not 4.3.34. But the later version does not seem to be in the ubuntu repositories, just the 4.3.10. Can anyone suggest what else to try?
    – alangh
    Nov 29, 2015 at 16:37
  • Got the USB showing up. It looks like the virtualbox purge mentioned in the original question removed the user from the group vboxusers. Re-adding it and logging out/in fixed it.
    – alangh
    Nov 29, 2015 at 17:27
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Same problem on KUbuntu 14.04 LTS: after 'auto-update' to 4.3.34 no VM did work. I had to update the extension-pack too. Then I updated the device/guest additions - and got my Windozs10 running with working shared directories (for file exchange with KUbuntu).

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