VirtualBox Live VM Problems

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Also I am not sure it’s really optiomal to change back to lsilogicsas. In the past, Whonix deliberately moved from lsilogicsas to AHCI.

Quote Failed to open a session for the virtual machine

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine[edit]

If you see the following error message:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Whonix-Gateway-XFCE

If Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005) is shown, then this chapter applies.

This occurs with all Whonix ™ VirtualBox versions up to version 15.0.1.7.2 when using VirtualBox version 6.1.20. VirtualBox version 6.1.20 solution:

  • VirtualBox → Settings → Storage → Type: AHCI → OK [6]
  • Other settings remain unchanged.

This setting is the default in Whonix ™ version 15.0.1.7.3 and above (Point Release).

Note this setting might cause High Disk Usage Causing Filesystem Corruption on some (slower) hardware configurations due to a VirtualBox host software bug, High I/O causing filesystem corruption. This is speculation and unavoidable because there is no other solution at present. The High Disk Usage Causing Filesystem Corruption chapter has approaches which might fix this issue if it manifests.

To avoid issues like Failed to open a session for the virtual machine in the future, use the the recommended version of the VirtualBox host software and Stay Tuned.

Forum discussion: Whonix ™ VirtualBox - failed to start - NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005) - The VM session was aborted.

VirtualBox upstream bug report: VM Machine wont to start after upgrade to 6.1.20

Chapter https://www.whonix.org/wiki/VM_Live_Mode/ro-mode-init#Read-only_disk_on_VirtualBox is probably still from the time when Whonix was using lsilogicsas by default.

The real solution would be figuring out how to set read-only mode for VirtualBox harddrives with AHCI disk controller.

In other words…

lsilogicsas version:

VBoxManage setextradata vmname "VBoxInternal/Devices/lsilogicsas/0/LUN#0/AttachedDriver/Config/ReadOnly" 1

AHCI version:

?

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