virtualbox-guest-utils.service not starting

Hello, please remove the packages (--purge) and install them again.
It got disabled in some previous release, it now should automatically start by default again

On Ubuntu Mate purged and reinstalled. Service still not started.

On Lubuntu reinstall failed - will investigate further.

Can you please try a clean install?

I will try clean installs but it may be a day or so. In the meantime I also have a couple of 18.04 VMs running on a Windows 10 host. In an Ubuntu Mate guest the service isn't started. In a Kubuntu guest it is started.

I've been trying various things - not sure if they help or confuse! Firstly I should clarify one thing. For these trials Xubuntu and Lubuntu are 32 bit, the rest all 64 bit. I did not think this relevant as originally one 32bit worked, one didn't, one 64bit worked, one didn't.

I have tried to do a clean 8.04 install using the daily builds and then install the guest packages as above. The results are as follows:

Kubuntu, Ubuntu and Ubuntu Mate all worked as expected.

Lubuntu - couldn't get the installer to work.

Xubuntu - installed OK and the tried to install the guest packages. This failed with the following message:

Loading new virtualbox-guest-5.2.8 DKMS files...
Building for 4.15.0-10-generic
Building initial module for 4.15.0-10-generic
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 4.15.0-10-generic (i686)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/5.2.8/build/make.log for more information.

I attach the log referred to.

However, despite the error everything worked!

The above does not really equate to the work I was carrying out. I am part way through installing 16.04 VMs and updating to 18.04 and will report soon.

I have now done clean installs of 16.04, installed the virtualbox-guest packages then upgraded to 18.04.

In all cases the 16.04 install worked. When adding the guest packages I received the messages similar to:

vboxguest:
Running module version sanity check.
Error! Module version 5.0.40_Ubuntu for vboxguest.ko
is not newer than what is already found in kernel 4.13.0-36-generic (5.1.28_Ubuntu).
You may override by specifying --force.

However everything worked fine at 16.04.

I then ran the upgrade to 18.04. In each case the guest packages were removed during the upgrade so I then reinstalled them. The reinstalls had various results.

Kubuntu, Ubuntu - All OK.

Lubuntu - reinstall failed as follows:

Setting up virtualbox-guest-dkms (5.2.8-dfsg-2) ...
Loading new virtualbox-guest-5.2.8 DKMS files...
Building for 4.15.0-12-generic
Building initial module for 4.15.0-12-generic
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 4.15.0-12-generic (i686)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/5.2.8/build/make.log for more information.

Will post log mentioned separately. The virtualbox-guest-utils.service does not start automatically but strangely can be started manually and then things work.

Ubuntu Mate - Reinstall seemed to go OK however the virtualbox-guest-utils.service is not started automatically. It can be started manually.

Xubuntu - reinstall failed as follows:

Setting up virtualbox-guest-dkms (5.2.8-dfsg-2) ...
Loading new virtualbox-guest-5.2.8 DKMS files...
Building for 4.15.0-12-generic
Building initial module for 4.15.0-12-generic
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 4.15.0-12-generic (i686)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/5.2.8/build/make.log for more information.

Will post log mentioned separately. However the virtualbox-guest-utils.service starts automatically and shared folders work.

Here is the Lubuntu log

Here is the Xubuntu log

Hello Tony!

dpkg-architecture is not installed, can you please try:
apt install dpkg-dev
and then dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-guest-dkms? thanks!

I'll fix dkms in case :)

Installing dpkg-dev solved the compilation problem. The DKMS modules now seem to compile on all systems.

However on Lubuntu and Ubuntu Mate, even though modules now compile, the service is not started automatically even though it is shown as enabled. This matches the situation reported at the beginning.

Also, my experimentation has shown up another issue. On all systems the 16.04->18.04 upgrade resulted in the guest packages being uninstalled. Is this a fault? If so where would I report it?

Hello Tony, without an upgrade log I find difficult to followup :)

This bug was fixed in the package dkms - 2.3-3ubuntu6

---------------
dkms (2.3-3ubuntu6) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Move dpkg-dev to a real depends, needed for dpkg-architecture
    calls (LP: #1753430)

 -- Gianfranco Costamagna <email address hidden> Mon, 19 Mar 2018 10:31:39 +0100

Slightly confused by this response and the move to "Fix released".

The fix referred to fixes the compilation error. However there are two other problems - the service not starting even when the module compiled and the packages being uninstalled during the upgrade. Do I need to raise those as new bugs?

You ask for an upgrade log. Please can you clarify which log you need.

@ximera I fixed the upgrade issue, unfortunately it is still in bionic new queue
there is now a virtualbox-hwe package, that provides an upgrade path from xenial virtualbox-hwe package
(right now it is at the same version as the normal virtualbox one
https://launchpad.net/~costamagnagianfranco/+archive/ubuntu/locutusofborg-ppa

please check it out!

for the service not starting, I don't know where to look, feel free to open a new bug even if I don't know how to fix it yet

I thought virtualbox-hwe was a host package. My problem was when upgrading guest systems.

Had a look at your PPA and realised that you had got hwe versions of the guest packages as well as virtualbox-hwe.

So, added your PPA to 16.04 Kubuntu guest and tried to upgrade to 18.04. However do-release-upgrade disabled the entry before it upgraded. In that case I don't know how to test this.

Regarding the original service not starting problem.

If I do a clean 18.04 install everything works OK. (Apart from Lubuntu where I couldn't get the installer to work.)

If I do a clean 17.10 install without the guest packages because of bug #1683043, upgrade to 18.04, install dpkg-dev, install the guest packages everything works.

If I do a clean 16.04 install, add the guest packages, upgrade to 18.04 during which the guest packages are removed, re add the guest packages then Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Xubuntu work. For Lubuntu and Ubuntu Mate the virtualbox-guest-utils.service does not start automatically but can be started manually. This situation is a bit artificial as the packages shouldn't be removed during the upgrade.

I suggest we revisit this problem when the upgrade package removal problem is resolved.

Just did a fresh upgrade of Ubuntu Mate from Xenial to Bionic. The guest packages were installed on the Xenial system prior to upgrade. During the upgrade the guest packages were upgraded, NOT removed.

However, on the upgraded system the virtualbox-guest-utils.service was NOT started but could be started manually.

Thus the original bug reported on this number still applies, although all the other issues found on the way seem to have been addressed.