Saturday, November 17, 2012

VirtualBox "Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)" on Mac OSX

I have a Windows virtual machine that I use, and I tried to start it today and received the following error:


After a bit of searching I found a pastebin with the answer, to load the kernel driver run:

sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/VBoxDrv.kext/

Attempting to start the virtual machine progressed a little further, but I was now greeted with:

Not sure what the issue here is… When I try to edit settings I'm greeted with:

Clicking OK allowed me enter the settings, but I couldn't change anything. The solution for me was to discard the saved state for the VM, go into the settings and disable the host-only adapter (not sure if this step was necessary), then boot the VM.

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25 comments:

  1. ferNovember 19, 2012 at 3:50 AM

    hi Bradley, I had the same problem and updating virtualbox to the newest version (VirtualBox-4.2.4-81684-OSX) made the trick for me

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bradley AyersNovember 19, 2012 at 3:52 AM

    That's the version I'm running too, and it did indeed fix this problem initially, but for some reason it's reoccurred. It seems like it didn't install properly and after some event (a reboot perhaps?) the kernel module isn't reloaded.

    ReplyDelete
  3. HenryFebruary 24, 2013 at 5:54 PM

    Thanks you very much, saved me major headaches.

    ReplyDelete
  4. makDecember 24, 2013 at 2:18 AM

    Thank you very much for sharing this!

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownMarch 1, 2014 at 9:24 AM

    In my case see the foll error:
    MacBook-Pro:$ sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/VBoxDrv.kext/
    /Library/Extensions/VBoxDrv.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) not found; check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8).

    I recently upgraded from OS 10.7 to Mavericks. Help ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousMarch 3, 2014 at 8:16 AM

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  6. UnknownMarch 18, 2014 at 6:38 AM

    if you have updated to mac os mavericks 10.9 use this:
    sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VirtualBox/LaunchDaemons/VirtualBoxStartup.sh restart

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownMarch 28, 2014 at 2:31 AM

      This worked perfectly, thanks Urvashi, you've saved my day! :)

      Delete
    2. karvakamutApril 2, 2014 at 12:38 AM

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. El AutorApril 21, 2014 at 11:37 AM

      Thanks Urvashi, you`ve saved my work day!!!!!!

      ;)

      Regards from Chile

      Delete
    4. Nick MerrillMay 4, 2014 at 7:31 PM

      Thanks, Urvashi!

      Delete
    5. Alexandre UbaldoJuly 1, 2014 at 6:15 PM

      Thanks for sharing Urvashi and Bradley.

      All the best.

      Delete
    6. UnknownJanuary 19, 2015 at 3:03 AM

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    7. UnknownJanuary 19, 2015 at 3:05 AM

      Worked for me. Using OS X Yosemite and CS50 Appliance.

      Delete
    8. UnknownApril 25, 2015 at 1:24 AM

      nice, worked for me too

      Delete
    9. marquinhoMay 26, 2017 at 9:05 PM

      Man you're god!! thanks a lot

      Delete
    10. Jacko1394September 26, 2017 at 6:50 AM

      u seriourly are a god man, thank you so much

      Delete
    11. UnknownFebruary 3, 2018 at 9:47 PM

      Thank you for the solution.you saved lot of time

      Delete
  7. UnknownJune 19, 2014 at 12:39 AM

    Urvashi..it worked for me as well..Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownFebruary 6, 2015 at 5:12 AM

    Hey, I have the same problem, but nothing of the commands are working. The command of Urvashi does not exists on my Mac. I have Yosemite.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jon McCawMay 13, 2015 at 9:18 AM

    I noticed that you posted a lot of what I'm experiencing too, however I am also getting a different error.

    Current VBox version: 4.3.26 r98988
    Current OSX ver: 10.10.3

    but when I tried what was suggested in this thread - it gave an error with the same error as before (VERR_GENERAL_FAILURE)

    UPDATE: 30 mins later after reinstalling the current oracle version (I previously installed the Sun version with no success). I decided to run the VM to see what error code it would provide. However this time the VM spun up with no issues.

    ReplyDelete
  10. UnknownOctober 6, 2015 at 9:33 PM

    Upgrade to EI Capitan and using command sudo kextload "/Library/Application support/VirtualBox/VBoxDrv.kext" and received the below error.

    ''''The system extension "VBoxDrv.kext" is not compatible with this version of OS X and can’t be used.
    Please contact the developer for updated software.''''

    Suggest someone right command for using in EI Capitan. Is this really not supported in latest OS or am using incorrect commands?

    ReplyDelete
  11. UnknownOctober 11, 2015 at 10:12 PM

    For EI Capitan uninstalled previous version of virtual box and installed latest version fixed this issue.

    ReplyDelete
  12. UnknownJuly 27, 2016 at 3:55 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  13. UnknownOctober 25, 2017 at 9:34 AM

    i have the same error in mac sierra..how can i resolve???

    ReplyDelete

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