How-To: Resolve Attached Media Conflicts in VirtualBox


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Here's another corker of an error in Oracle VirtualBox. First, you think your virtual machine is broken. Second you wonder how your storage tree got messed up.

When you move Virtual machine files around, revert machine Snapshots and update attached strage, you can get something like this:

Failed to open virtual machine located in /vm_data/machines/Quetzal-VM/Quetzal-VM.vbox.

Cannot register the DVD image '/usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso' {20f4b244-eb29-4082-ac34-4acf6ccb4904} because a CD/DVD image '/usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso' with UUID {62ebaac7-ba6d-4d7d-876b-362642de4c1b} already exists.

Result Code: NS_ERROR_INVALID_ARG (0x80070057)
Component: VirtualBox
Interface: IVirtualBox {3b2f08eb-b810-4715-bee0-bb06b9880ad2}

Which all looks a bit scary. It isn't.

While upgrading VirtualBox to 4.2, it had properly updated the .iso image of Guest Additions. Firing up  a virtual machine last used under 4.1, with the 4.1 Guest Additions attached under the media tree, it then rightly complains about the conflict; two .iso's, same name, different disk ID's. VirtualBox does a double-take at this sleight of hand.

The answer? Close the VM. First make sure the guest is shut down (not saved state).Open the Preferences, go to Media Manager. See if you can release and remove the old VBoxGuestAdditions.iso from there.

If that doesn't work, you need to edit a bit of XML. Again, make sure the guest is shut down (not saved state) and the VirtualBox program itself is not running. In the VM's folder is the settings file for that VM  a .vbox. You need to look for the VM by name in your designated machines folder. If the guest was created with version 4.0 or later, the file will be located in your home folder under VirtualBox VMs then the name of the guest, or wherever you specified in Preferences if you changed it. Make a backup of this file somewhere safe before you start editing.

In the .vbox file, you'll be looking for the attached media section, something like:

<DVDImages>
<Image uuid="{0fe1ba24-f623-405c-a7a9-8c157c9b0520}" location="/usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso"/>
</DVDImages>
Then edit the file and remove the line containing the offending image and UUID, leaving the opening and closing section tags <DVDImages> and </DVDImages> tags in place. In my case, editing from this:

      <DVDImages>
        <Image uuid="{20f4b244-eb29-4082-ac34-4acf6ccb4904}" location="/usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso"/>
        <Image uuid="{4cac70c8-689d-4e2c-8b2f-4e4b21c2cdcd}" location="/vm_data/machines/software/iso/quantal-desktop-i386.iso"/>
      </DVDImages>
to this:

<DVDImages>
</DVDImages>
Save the file. You should then be able to start the Guest VM and attach any media the normal way. RC

Comments

  1. Robert von Knobloch28 December 2012 at 10:49

    Thank you, worked well for me under OpenSuse 12.2

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown20 January 2013 at 19:13

    Great tip. This helped me out no end!

    Thanks again.

    Steve

    ReplyDelete
  3. Xeroid9664 February 2013 at 23:42

    ThankQ

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous15 February 2013 at 07:21

    Awesome it worked ..
    Thank you ...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous28 February 2013 at 07:44

    ..that helped me a lot. I tried a couple of days before without luck. Thank you :-))

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous2 March 2013 at 22:50

    Thank you. It worked.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anand10 April 2013 at 11:53

    Thanks. It helped.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous30 April 2013 at 20:56

    Thank you a lot! :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Gil14 May 2013 at 20:43

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous21 May 2013 at 16:04

    Best answer...
    thankss

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous15 June 2013 at 05:48

    You. You. Yes. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous27 June 2013 at 20:49

    Thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Gustavo10 July 2013 at 13:36

    Great!, thank you very much!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Chris19 July 2013 at 01:13

    Awesome!
    I frequently reload my system and this allows me to double-click the vbox file to add it back to the VirtualBox console.

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous28 July 2013 at 20:34

    You saved my day! Was googling the solution for quite some time...

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous25 September 2013 at 21:35

    Great tip, but one thing to note...I kept on getting a pop-up box to say that it couldn't mount the guest additions and asking if you wanted to force a mount, then bizarrely offering an unmounts button. After some investigation I found out that this message box meant that guest additions iso WAS ALREADY mounted, so the message box could actually be ignored.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous10 October 2013 at 17:44

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous26 December 2013 at 03:38

    Also useful to note that if you're simply in need of an immediate solution (and aren't too caught up on the vm configuration), just build a new machine and mount the old VDI...

    ReplyDelete
  19. Robin Catling26 December 2013 at 15:05

    Anon: that's also true. A bog-standard VM configuration is often quicker to recreate and re-use the disk image.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Unknown11 January 2014 at 16:05

    Thakssssssssssssss

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous6 March 2014 at 18:13

    i worked fine!.. thnks a lot!!!

    ReplyDelete
  22. coughy15 April 2014 at 14:36

    "First make sure the guest is shut down (not saved state)"
    If I can't load the VM (ie. it's already in saved state) how can I shut it down?

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous21 October 2014 at 14:55

    You saved me a day of work :)

    ReplyDelete
  24. Nostromov20 November 2014 at 17:21

    Me, I'm getting:

    Result Code: E_INVALIDARG (0x80070057)
    Component: VirtualBox
    Interface: IVirtualBox {fafa4e17-1ee2-4905-a10e-fe7c18bf5554}

    .. but, IDK - whether it's because I'd updated teh Oracle VM and/or whether it's because both, the new won and the old image that I had - are both of the same (exact) name, meh.

    (Tryin' 2 figure it out, ATM, but it's just a headache. :))

    ReplyDelete
  25. Nostromov20 November 2014 at 17:23

    Err, can't edit my previous comment: "Your comment will be visible after approval."

    ^^ By "both", I meant my old Xubuntu virtual machine and a new one that I created.. Since there's an update, of Ubuntu, just released. =)

    ReplyDelete
  26. Robin Catling21 November 2014 at 11:51

    Nostromov: yep, I understood; duplicate names of anything in VBox give it headaches, so no surprise. You have to de-register old instances before you can re-use a name.

    Top tips when doing any config changes; always update VBox, matching extensions and Guest Additions before you start changing things in Media Manager. Make sure VM's are shut down and not paused or suspended.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Anonymous27 March 2015 at 14:15

    I had a similar problem and editing the .vbox xml was the solution! Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  28. Unknown8 April 2015 at 01:36

    This worked great for me. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  29. quixote17 April 2015 at 00:31

    Editing the xml was the only thing that worked for me. I tried "VBoxManage closemedium something something" following other instructions, and all it would do is complain at me. Removing the duplicate guest additions iso in the xml (which was there because I was following Oracle's goofy instructions on how to update my GA!) solved the problem. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  30. Anonymous18 May 2015 at 18:07

    So many thanks!!!

    ReplyDelete
  31. Anonymous25 June 2015 at 19:29

    thank you very much

    ReplyDelete
  32. Anonymous1 July 2015 at 13:04

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  33. Hermini Lozano20 September 2015 at 20:10

    Thank you very much. You saved a couple of machines that didn't work, one of them with a vintage Windows98. Easy and useful tip.

    ReplyDelete
  34. db22 January 2016 at 21:18

    Thx for that really good hint...you saved my life :)

    ReplyDelete
  35. Unknown11 February 2016 at 13:20

    Probably you´ll have to delete another lines at the end of the file. Like I have to do.
    I have to delete all lines between "AttachedDevice" that have reference to the DVD. See more above:



    ReplyDelete
  36. Paul Paiva16 May 2016 at 08:56

    Me too - thanks a ton!

    ReplyDelete
  37. Unknown11 January 2017 at 15:01

    Thanks, really works!

    ReplyDelete
  38. Anonymous12 December 2017 at 19:57

    It works! I spent half a day looking for the answer to this. Thanks loads

    ReplyDelete

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