Ubuntu
virtualbox package

USB Devices unrecognised by virtualbox (/proc/bus/usb missing)

Bug #151585 reported by OrthoDoc on 2007-10-11

This bug report is a duplicate of: Bug #156085: Could not open /proc/bus/usb/devices. Edit Remove

This bug affects 1 person

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	sysvinit (Ubuntu)	Won't Fix	Undecided	Unassigned
	virtualbox (Ubuntu)	Invalid	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

After upgrading from Feisty to Gutsy, virtual box unable to recognise USB devices. I used virtualbox to install Win XP.

This is the error report I got:
Could not load the Host USB Proxy Service (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND). The service might be not installed on the host computer.

Result Code: 0x80004005 Component: Host Interface: IHost {81729c26-1aec-46f5-b7c0-cc7364738fdb} Callee: IMachine {31f7169f-14da-4c55-8cb6-a3665186e35e}

This is the virtualbox log report:
00:00:00.466 VBox status code: -1908 (VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED)} aPreserve=false
00:00:00.492 Power up failed (vrc=VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED, hrc=0x80004005)

I found the solution to it as well at <a href="http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/747">this place</a>!

Since usbfs is not activated by default in gutsy I consider it a bug.

For those of who have already upgraded:

Please open the following file: /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh
Find the following lines:
    #mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
    #domount usbfs "" /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
    #ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
    #mount --rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb
Unmark them so that look like this:
   mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
    domount usbfs "" /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
    ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
    mount --rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb
Restart and your usb devices will be recognised.

Bug squashers, kindly turn on this script to default mode in gutsy!

See original description

Tags:

OrthoDoc (indianorthodoc) on 2007-10-11

description:

updated

Revision history for this message

Daniel Hahler (blueyed) wrote on 2007-10-13:

I've found the corresponding changelog entry from the initscripts package I think:
sysvinit (2.86.ds1-14.1ubuntu22) gutsy; urgency=low

* Drop /proc/bus/usb again; software should all be ported to check
/dev/bus/usb first by now.

-- Scott James Remnant <email address hidden> Wed, 11 Jul 2007 13:47:24 +0100

It appears that virtualbox should check /dev/bus/usb first.

Scott, would it do any harm to uncomment the change for Gutsy?

Revision history for this message

Daniel Hahler (blueyed) wrote on 2007-10-13:

Rejecting virtualbox task.
It should be "virtualbox-ose" instead, but it appears that USB is not (meant to be) supported (yet) by virtualbox-ose.
("virtualbox" only existed during Gutsy development, version 1.4.x).

It's still a sysvinit bug, as far as I can see.

Changed in virtualbox:
status:	New → Invalid

Revision history for this message

Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott) wrote on 2007-10-15:

We have opted to permanently drop /proc/bus/usb by default -- if you want it, uncomment the relevant lines in /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh

Changed in sysvinit:
status:	New → Won't Fix

Revision history for this message

TJ (tj) wrote on 2007-10-28:

There's a related bug to this affecting qemu/kvm:

Bug #156085 in kvm (Ubuntu) "Could not open /proc/bus/usb/devices"

Revision history for this message

Koen (koen-beek) wrote on 2007-10-29:

Hi, vmware server is also affected (don't know about vmware player as I can't install it on my AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+)

Revision history for this message

Martin Capitanio (capnm) wrote on 2007-11-13:

this 'deprecation' also breaks Gregs usbview 1.0-7 (gutsy)

Revision history for this message

Assid (assid) wrote on 2008-02-12:

I dont see this fixed upto gutsy etiher

Revision history for this message

Lazy (ubuntu-bugs-oittaa) wrote on 2008-04-02:

It is also broken in the latest beta of Hardy

Revision history for this message

SEBASTIANFFX (sebastianffx) wrote on 2008-05-04:

And also in the final version of Hardy...

Revision history for this message

Gene Caldwell (gene-caldwell) wrote on 2008-12-19:

#11

I for one am getting tired of getting this message, can someone figure out why this error from virtualbox never get looked at or fixed in ubuntu ? running virtualbox version 2.10 STILL gets this error( and started in version 1.4 ?!?!?!) and to add insult to injury, the so called magic lines needed to edit in this file "/etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh" no longer exist so we have no clue how to fix ubuntu to make the USB available.

Revision history for this message

Michael (michaeljt) wrote on 2008-12-19:

#12

@Gene: do

$ sudo mount usbfs -t usbfs /proc/bus/usb/ -o devmode=0666

before starting VirtualBox (if security is an issue, use a different mode and set a group using -o devgid). This will hopefully be fixed in the next version of VirtualBox.

Revision history for this message

shan (khoorasan) wrote on 2009-01-03:

#13

Screenshot.png Edit (956.1 KiB, image/png)

Hi there,

We really got close the solution with the command below, only problem: the mouse would be invisible in the VirtualBox, and won't work on Ubuntu, but as soon the virtualBox is shut down, the mouse appears to be working, also if I plug my external Hdd before I run the VirtualBox, windows xp would take forever to with the Blue Welcome screen, so I had to send the Power Off command to the virtualBox. Hope there would be a fix for this.

Thanks for the efforts tho.

Attachment: screen shot

@Gene: do

$ sudo mount usbfs -t usbfs /proc/bus/usb/ -o devmode=0666

before starting VirtualBox (if security is an issue, use a different mode and set a group using -o devgid). This will hopefully be fixed in the next version of VirtualBox.

Revision history for this message

shan (khoorasan) wrote on 2009-01-03:

#14

also, is there any way to undo that command?

thanks,