Ubuntu

VirtualBox (non-free) guest VM USB not working under Lucid

Asked by Jiehan Zheng

I got the error info. when opening the Settings window:

"Could not access USB on the host system, because neither the USB file system (usbfs) nor the DBus and hal services are currently available. If you wish to use host USB devices inside guest systems, you must correct this and restart VirtualBox.

The USB Proxy Service could not be started, because neither the USB file system (usbfs) nor the hardware information service (hal) is available."

I removed the last VirtualBox line in `/etc/fstab`, because of it stops Lucid from booting up, which was added when I use Karmic.

I really need USB support, thank you!

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George Standish
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Best George Standish (george-standish-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#1

First open a terminal and type "groups", is "vboxusers" listed there? If NOT, you will need to run "sudo adduser YOUR_USERNAME_HERE vboxusers". Then log out and log back in! Again run "groups" in a terminal - is "vboxusers" listed? If yes, continue -- if no, something went wrong with above step.

Next still in a terminal run "sudo hald --daemon=no".

Note when I run the "sudo hald --daemon=no" I get an error:

   Runner started - allowed paths are '/usr/lib/hal:/usr/lib/hal/scripts:/usr/bin'
   Error binding udev_event socket: Address already in use

But it works anyways.

Then start VirtualBox as you normally would, and USB should work now.

Good luck,
George

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George Standish (george-standish-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#2

Oh ya, the "sudo hald --daemon=no" will need to be re-run after every reboot, before USB will work in VBox.

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Jiehan Zheng (jiehanzheng) said : 		#3

Hello George,

Thank you so much. The result of `groups` is "jiehan adm dialout cdrom plugdev lpadmin admin sambashare vboxusers", "vboxusers" is listed there.

I began to run `sudo hald --daemon=no`, then it solved my problem!

Thanks! And will Ubuntu fix this "problem" in the future, how to make the "hald" startup by itself on system startup?

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Jiehan Zheng (jiehanzheng) said : 		#4

Oh, I achieved that!

I just added `hald --daemon=yes` into '/etc/rc.local', and it now run automatically on startup! Other Lucid users may try this way.

Thank you very much!

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Jiehan Zheng (jiehanzheng) said : 		#5

Thanks George Standish, that solved my question.