vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

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norm.h
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by norm.h »

norm.h wrote:I thought I had found the answer, but sadly not.

I looked in Update Manager history and found 3 VM files.
I then did a search in Synaptic for VM, and found the same files, as one would expect.
As they were the only VM files I removed them, did a restart [not a cold reboot] but the message still appears.
What is the correct command to purge, please?
I tried rm [in terminal] and got "No such file or directory", so I went back to Synaptic, reinstalled what I removed last night, and tried rm again with the same result.
DarinB

Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by DarinB »

I apologize to the forum but I don't seem to see a fix.

Do I remove the packages from synaptic?
guest addition module source for dkms
non-X11 guest utilities
X11 guest utilities

those seem to be the only virtualbox things installed.
I don't want to ruin my setup. HELP!
Habitual

Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by Habitual »

If it's not fatal to the OS, why not just leave it alone?
All this fuss over a silly bubble notice that has apparently zero affect on the system?

Does Virtualbox and its guests not work?
I don't understand why this is a "thing".
DarinB

Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by DarinB »

I purged those three applications from synaptic but the error still remains.
krow7
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by krow7 »

This is the solution that worked for me:
WharfRat wrote:I just purged virtualbox-guest-x11 virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-dkms and that solved the pop-up message.
Do this only if you're running mint natively i.e., not in a virtual box.
The command to do this is -

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get --purge autoremove virtualbox-guest-*
It should remove the 3 packages responsible for this problem. Don't forget to reboot.
Last edited by krow7 on Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:43 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Flemur
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by Flemur »

Dunno if this matters or helps, but virtualbox-5.0.8
(virtualbox-5.0_5.0.8-103449~Ubuntu~trusty_amd64.deb)
from Oracle works fine running Win7 guest, Mint 17.2 host, kernel 4.2, 64 bit. (No virtualbox-guest* installed).
Synaptic shows 4.3.34 as current.
Please edit your original post title to include [SOLVED] if/when it is solved!
Your data and OS are backed up....right?
norm.h
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by norm.h »

krow7 wrote:This is the solution that worked for me:
WharfRat wrote:I just purged virtualbox-guest-x11 virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-dkms and that solved the pop-up message.
Do this only if you're running mint natively i.e., not in a virtual box.
The command to do this is -

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get --purge autoremove virtualbox-guest-*
It should remove the 3 packages responsible for this problem. Don't forget to reboot.
Worked for me - many thanks
norm.h
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by norm.h »

Habitual wrote:If it's not fatal to the OS, why not just leave it alone?
All this fuss over a silly bubble notice that has apparently zero affect on the system?
I don't understand why this is a "thing".
Not a "thing" for me - just a minor irritation!
Gannet

Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by Gannet »

I had this problem with LM 17.2 with xfce. The standard mint updates upgraded part of VirtualBox to version 5 and I started to get the message about the "vboxclient kernel not running". I noticed that there will some bits of VirtualBox still on version 4.3. My Windows XP VM wouldn't run any more. To fix it I opened a terminal and ....

Code: Select all

$ sudo virtualbox
This opened the application and I went to File | Check for Updates. I accepted the download and installation of the updates offered. I then (following advice in the forums) entered the following in the terminal:

Code: Select all

$ sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
So far (touch wood), my Windows XP VM is running fine. Think that the problem in the LM updater only offering some of the upgrades.

UPDATE 05-01-2016: THIS DIDN'T CURE THE MESSAGE "virtualbox kernel service is not running" THAT KEPT APPEARING ON LOGGING IN. To cure this I tried the following in another post:

Code: Select all

$ sudo apt-get purge virtualbox-guest-x11 virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-dkms
Apparently, these bits are only required for Linux clients. If, like me, you're using VBox to run Windows, everything still works.
Last edited by Gannet on Tue Jan 05, 2016 6:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
krow7
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by krow7 »

Gannet wrote:I had this problem with LM 17.2 with xfce. The standard mint updates upgraded part of VirtualBox to version 5 and I started to get the message about the "vboxclient kernel not running". I noticed that there will some bits of VirtualBox still on version 4.3. My Windows XP VM wouldn't run any more. To fix it I opened a terminal and ....
The files that were updated are -
  • virtualbox-guest-dkms
  • virtualbox-guest-utils
  • virtualbox-guest-x11
And not to version 5 but 4.3.34.
The better solution is to remove those packages altogether.

VirtualBox 5 (5.0.8 to be exact) is available in the repositories and can be installed from there if needed. It does not update automatically and has to be done manually through the package manager (it is safer to update this way).
Paladin2019

Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by Paladin2019 »

krow7 wrote:This is the solution that worked for me:
The command to do this is -

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get --purge autoremove virtualbox-guest-*
It should remove the 3 packages responsible for this problem. Don't forget to reboot.
Running 17.2 XFCE natively, this solution worked for me too.
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karlchen
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by karlchen »

Hi, folks.

As I had explained in my previous post above, I get the popup about vboxclient as well. And this happens on Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela.

Now for the good news:
Users of Mint 13 will not be hit by the same problem.
Users of Mint 17.1 Rebecca will not be hit by the problem, either, though both, Mint 17.1 and Mint 17.2, are based on Ubuntu 14.04, and though the offending update of 3 virtualbox-guest-* software packages is offered by trusty-updates.
Mint 17.1 users will not see the popup, because for Mint 17.1 the Linux Mint repos offer the virtualbox-guest-* software packages 4.3.18-dfsg-1~ubuntu1~trusty1, thus overriding any newer version offered by the Ubuntu repos. As a result users of Mint 17.1 will not be offered the upgrade to verson 4.3.34-dfsg-1+deb8u1ubuntu1.14.04.1 at this point in time.

Why this is only true for Mint 17.1, but not for Mint 17 and Mint 17.2, I do not know.

Yet, for all those Mint 17 and Mint 17.2 users who are annoyed by the popup and who do not wish to uninstall the virtualbox-guest-* software packages, forcing their packages down to version 4.3.18-dfsg-1~ubuntu1~trusty1 and then locking them may be the right approach.

Cheers,
Karl
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chrisonmint

Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by chrisonmint »

krow7 wrote: The command to do this is -

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get --purge autoremove virtualbox-guest-*
It should remove the 3 packages responsible for this problem. Don't forget to reboot.
That command wants to remove more than just the 3 virtual box packages on my system:

Code: Select all

The following packages will be REMOVED
  libchamplain-0.12-0* libchamplain-gtk-0.12-0* libgoffice-0.10-10*
  libgoffice-0.10-10-common* libgsf-1-114* libgsf-1-common* libloudmouth1-0*
  libots0* libwv-1.2-4* virtualbox-guest-dkms* virtualbox-guest-utils*
  virtualbox-guest-x11*
That sounded like over-kill to me, so instead I was able to just remove the three by using Synaptic - i chose each of the following and "Mark for complete removal" (right click on each) and then apply.

Code: Select all

virtualbox-guest-dkms
 virtualbox-guest-utils
  virtualbox-guest-x11
chrisonmint

Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by chrisonmint »

chrisonmint wrote: using Synaptic - i chose each of the following and "Mark for complete removal" (right click on each) and then apply.

Code: Select all

virtualbox-guest-dkms
 virtualbox-guest-utils
  virtualbox-guest-x11
Whoops! No, that didnt work (even after restart). Back to the terminal, it seems that virtualbox-guest-x11 wasnt completely removed for some reason.

I am going to try the original suggestion of "sudo apt-get --purge autoremove virtualbox-guest-*"
chrisonmint

Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by chrisonmint »

krow7 wrote:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get --purge autoremove virtualbox-guest-*
It should remove the 3 packages responsible for this problem. Don't forget to reboot.
yes, this worked for me - as mentioned above, it removed more than just 3 packages, but is now fixed.
krow7
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by krow7 »

chrisonmint wrote:
krow7 wrote:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get --purge autoremove virtualbox-guest-*
It should remove the 3 packages responsible for this problem. Don't forget to reboot.
yes, this worked for me - as mentioned above, it removed more than just 3 packages, but is now fixed.
Glad it worked for you!

From what I gather, you might have had Abiword and or Gnumeric installed before. And these seem to be the packages that were installed with them but not removed when you uninstalled them.
If this is the case - it happened because of the autoremove option in the command, which removes leftover packages that were installed automatically but not removed when the software that installed them was uninstalled.
Cosmo.
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by Cosmo. »

karlchen wrote:Mint 17.1 users will not see the popup, because for Mint 17.1 the Linux Mint repos offer the virtualbox-guest-* software packages 4.3.18-dfsg-1~ubuntu1~trusty1, thus overriding any newer version offered by the Ubuntu repos. As a result users of Mint 17.1 will not be offered the upgrade to verson 4.3.34-dfsg-1+deb8u1ubuntu1.14.04.1 at this point in time.

Why this is only true for Mint 17.1, but not for Mint 17 and Mint 17.2, I do not know.
Confirmed - and really strange.

Some additions: The maintainers of those packages are different in the 17.x branch.
In LM 17 and LM 17.1 they are: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
In LM 17.1 and also in LM 17.3 Beta they are Debian Virtualbox Team <pkg-virtualbox-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Also: In LM 17.3 Beta a newer version (5.0.4) gets offered. (Only as a side-note for completeness.)
So I add the question: Why different maintainers, although the base Ubuntu 14.04 is the same? No PPA is used in the named systems, all running in VMs.
Obviously one part of the answer is the fact, that for Rebecca and Rosa those packages are in the Mint repos, in Qiana and Rafaela they are not. But why: Intentionally (in this case again: why?) or (at least in case of Rafaela) forgotten?
At least the verdict is there, that there is a possible bug in the packages from Ubuntu Developers (affecting only Mint, not Ubuntu?). At least doing some search in the web does not seem to indicate, that there are problems for Ubuntu users, so I tent to believe, that the problem does only affect Mint (probably also other Ubuntu-based distros).
At now every investigation to find answers produces new questions.

So most likely users of Rosa will possibly also not be affected (probably depending, how 5.0.4 behaves). I have 17.3 installed in a virtual machine, so I cannot test it.

If the relating with the Maintainers should really be the culprit, I would expect, that also LMDE is not affected. I don't use it, but I would expect, that the maintainers are here also Debian Virtualbox Team.
Last edited by Cosmo. on Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:50 am, edited 2 times in total.
foersu
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by foersu »

@WharfRat:

sorry, I do not understand the sentence "
Those apps are meant to be run inside a virtual machine so they are not needed if you're running natively
".
Do you mean the files are relevant when you run VirtualBox inside another virtual machine, e.g. VirtualBox inside VirtualBox?

Thanx!
krow7
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by krow7 »

foersu wrote:@WharfRat:
sorry, I do not understand the sentence "
Those apps are meant to be run inside a virtual machine so they are not needed if you're running natively
".
Do you mean the files are relevant when you run VirtualBox inside another virtual machine, e.g. VirtualBox inside VirtualBox?
Thanx!
No, I am not even sure if you can run VirtualBox within VirtualBox! (sounds pretty cool though, like VBox inception! :D)

What he means is - you need VirtualBox "drivers" to run Linux Mint inside it properly. And those are the packages that provide those "drivers".
So if you want to use Linux Mint inside a VirtualBox machine, then you need them. If you have installed Linux Mint directly on your computer, then they are not needed.
foersu
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Re: vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running

Post by foersu »

Hi krow7,

thank you for the explanation.

This is exactly my use of VirtualBox: I use it to try new things in the virtual environment before I install it in my real installation.
In both, host and guest environment I have installed the same distribution: Mint xfce 17.2, 64 bit.
Btw: I have installed VirtualBox Version 5.... (I do not remember exacty the following numbers) out of the repository by means of Synaptic.

That means, that I need the mentioned drivers :( ... even if they are intended for a version 4.?.?...

If I delete them, then Mint in the VM will not work properky, right? What can I then do?
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