How to fix and prevent VirtualBox Kernel driver not installed

Question

Today I noticed that my VirtualBox VMs no longer start. With messages

The virtual machine 'CGI' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1).

Result Code:
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component:
MachineWrap
Interface:
IMachine
Unknown macro: {b2547866-a0a1-4391-8b86-6952d82efaa0}

And

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

'/sbin/vboxconfig'

as root.

where: suplibOsInit what: 3 VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED (-1908) - The support driver is not installed. On linux, open returned ENOENT.

It seems this is caused by a kernel update. I actually wasn't aware that Ubuntu is doing automatic kernel updates. The log /var/log/dpkg.log shows that kernel update was going on right before problems started.

sudo dpkg --list | grep linux-image shows images lines with many 4.8, 4.10 and 4.13 versions.

[user:~] $ uname -a
Linux io 4.13.0-26-generic #29~16.04.2-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jan 9 22:00:44 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

The suggested solution for this problem unfortunately does not work.

[root:~] # /sbin/vboxconfig
vboxdrv.sh: Stopping VirtualBox services.
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.10.0-27-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.10.0-28-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.10.0-30-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.10.0-32-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.10.0-33-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.10.0-35-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.10.0-37-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.10.0-38-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.10.0-40-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.8.0-41-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.8.0-45-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.8.0-46-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.8.0-49-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.8.0-52-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.8.0-54-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.8.0-56-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/4.8.0-58-generic: No such file or directory
depmod: FATAL: could not search modules: No such file or directory
vboxdrv.sh: Building VirtualBox kernel modules.
vboxdrv.sh: failed: Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong.

There were problems setting up VirtualBox.  To re-start the set-up process, run
  /sbin/vboxconfig
as root.
[root:~] #

The install log /var/log/vbox-install.log is too large to post here but it starts with following message

make[1]: warning: -jN forced in submake: disabling jobserver mode.
test -e include/generated/autoconf.h -a -e include/config/auto.conf || (        \
echo >&2;                           \
echo >&2 "  ERROR: Kernel configuration is invalid.";       \
echo >&2 "         include/generated/autoconf.h or include/config/auto.conf are missing.";\
echo >&2 "         Run 'make oldconfig && make prepare' on kernel src to fix it.";  \
echo >&2 ;

There are actually three questions now I think * How do I fix kernel configuration? * How do I fix VirtualBox? Should I remove and reinstall? * How do I prevent these types of issues? Should I disable auto-updates of kernel?

score 37 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 16 '18 at 15:46

I met the same issue after VirtualBox upgrade to 5.2.6 r120293

Linux kernel version 4.14.13-041413-generic

The following commands sequence helped for me:

$ sudo apt install --reinstall virtualbox-dkms && sudo apt install libelf-dev
$ sudo /sbin/vboxconfig

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 14 '19 at 09:05

10

$ sudo apt install --reinstall virtualbox-dkms && sudo apt install libelf-dev

just this solved the same problem on my Kubuntu 18.4.2

answered Mar 14 '19 at 09:05

Asklep

147

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 20 '20 at 14:41

6

After reinstalling virtualbox-dkms as above, you may also have to sudo modprobe vboxdrv to reload the kernel module.

answered Mar 20 '20 at 14:41

Supernormal

181

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 10 '21 at 14:26

1

On Mac, re-installing Virtualbox fixes the issue

answered Sep 10 '21 at 14:26

Guy

121

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 13 '22 at 09:39

If you're running Ubuntu or Debian distribution (or either derivative of either), the driver management should be automatically handled by dkms if you have it installed.

If you didn't previously have dkms you can fix the problem for the currently running kernel version and Virtualbox version by executing the vboxconfig as root. In practice you can open new terminal window (with Alt+Ctrl+T by default) and simply type sudo /sbin/vboxconfig and press enter.

If you don't have dkms installed, you'll experience similar problem in the future, too, when Virtualbox or Linux kernel is updated next time. To avoid that, you can run sudo apt install dkms, too.

How to fix and prevent VirtualBox Kernel driver not installed

5 Answers5

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