Genymotion, "Unable to load VirtualBox engine." on Mavericks. VBox is setup correctly

Question

I keep getting the following error:

I have reinstalled, deleted and tried about EVERYTHING to get Genymotion to work again.

I do not have the device I need, but Genymotion was PERFECT for the job, until Mavericks update I have been fighting to get it to work again.

MacBook Pro, Retina 13-inch, Early 2013. i5, 8gb.

I'm running version 1.3.1 for os x. I do have Virtualbox 4.3 installed with Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.0-89960.vbox-extpack too.

My Virtualbox starts up normally without ANY errors. I tried Environment variables putting vbox on my $PATH, all sorts of things. Nothing works!

I have no idea what to do anymore, anyone out there had similar problems and fixed it ?

EDIT: LOG:

Oct 28 09:49:36 [Genymotion] [Warning] ****  STARTING GENYMOTION  **** 
Oct 28 09:49:36 [Genymotion] [Warning] Genymotion Version: Genymotion 1.3.1 
Oct 28 09:49:36 [Genymotion] [Debug] Network request to URL:  "/launchpad/last_version/mac/x64/" 
Oct 28 09:49:39 [Genymotion] [Debug] Genymotion server informs that version  "1.3.0"  is available from  "https://ssl-files.genymotion.com/genymotion/genymotion-1.3.0/genymotion-1.3.0.dmg" 
Oct 28 09:49:39 [Genymotion] [Debug] Version: "1" 
Oct 28 09:49:39 [Genymotion] [Error] Genymotion is newer than the database... how is possible? 
Oct 28 09:49:39 [Genymotion] [Debug] Getting currently authenticated user from  local cache 
Oct 28 09:49:39 [Genymotion] [Debug] Loading "vboxmanage" plugin 
Oct 28 09:49:39 [Genymotion] [Debug] Library loaded with success 
Oct 28 09:49:39 [Genymotion] [Debug] Chipset: "GenuineIntel" 
Oct 28 09:49:39 [Genymotion] [Debug] CPUID 0x1 (Intel): ECX= "7fbae3bf" 
Oct 28 09:49:39 [Genymotion] [Debug] VBoxManage path (default value): "VBoxManage" 
Oct 28 09:50:09 [Genymotion] [Debug] Can't run VBoxManage ("list", "hostonlyifs") 
Oct 28 09:50:09 [Genymotion] [Warning] QProcess: Destroyed while process is still running.
Oct 28 09:50:09 [Genymotion] [Error] "Fail to load vboxmanage plugin from /Applications/Genymotion.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins/" 
Oct 28 09:50:09 [Genymotion] [Error] Unable to find VM Engine. Plugin loading aborted. 

EDIT 2:

VBoxManage list hostonlyifs

Prints the following:

VBoxManage: error: Failed to create the VirtualBox object!
VBoxManage: error: Code NS_BASE_STREAM_WOULD_BLOCK (0x80470007) - Stream operation would block (extended info not available)
VBoxManage: error: Most likely, the VirtualBox COM server is not running or failed to start.

Solution 1

I had the same problem and solved it by running the following command:

sudo /Library/StartupItems/VirtualBox/VirtualBox restart

In later versions, the command is

sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VirtualBox/LaunchDaemons/VirtualBoxStartup.sh restart

Make sure you've unblocked VirtualBox's kernel extensions in System Preferences->Security and Privacy->General (You'll get a popup when you install VirtualBox).

Solution 2

Eventually, you might not have anything in your /Library/StartupItems.

Using the following command helps :

sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VirtualBox/LaunchDaemons/VirtualBoxStartup.sh restart

It worked for me on two different Mavericks installs.

Solution 3

Update: Genymotion's 2.5.1 release (https://www.genymotion.com/#!/release-notes/251#251) seems to have fixed this issue. (thanks for the heads up @Roger!)

---

For those that may be stumbling upon this a bit later, I resolved this by installing VirtualBox 4.3.28 (https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Download_Old_Builds_4_3). The new 5.0.0 and 4.3.30 versions didn't work for me with Genymotion 2.5. None of the above solutions worked :(

It's also worth noting that at the time of writing, Genymotion's FAQ states the following:

However, for performance reasons, we recommend using version 4.3.12

Solution 4

You need to restart VirtualBox service you can do it with this:

sudo /Library/StartupItems/VirtualBox/VirtualBox restart

If in this path is empty you can use:

sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VirtualBox/LaunchDaemons/VirtualBoxStartup.sh restart

After I use Parallels I always need to do it.

Solution 5

On Ubuntu GNU/Linux:

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

View more solutions

Comments

[madCdan]

Could you please share with us your log files (cloud.genymotion.com/page/faq/#collapse-logs) ?

[Tegnatiek]

I assure you I do have VBox installed and it's working 100%

[madCdan]

If you open a "terminal" and just type "VBoxManage list hostonlyifs", what's the output ?

[madCdan]

I assume you already tried to reinstall VirtualBox ?

[Tegnatiek]

Yes, I cleaned all VBox files out. Restarted, reinstalled and tried older versions of VBox too.

[ohcibi]

I have the same. I guess this is worth a bug report

[madCdan]

According to me, the bug report should go to VirtualBox, as this is the "VBoxManage list hostonlyifs" which doesn't work, apparently because the vbox COM server doesn't start.

[IgorGanapolsky]

Were you running Genymotion as the admin user on your machine?

[Ferdinand Fatal]

Just if anyone is having the same Problem on a Windows Computer. An easy restart of my System just solved the Problem.

[Dumoko]

where is the /Library/StartupItems/ on mavericks? Can't find anything like that.

[Ratata Tata]

I have this problem, and upside down buttons on mavericks stackoverflow.com/questions/19561669/…

[dnszero]

I had the same issue as the OP and this fix worked for me also.

[Chris.Zou]

This could solve the problem once, but need to run the command every time i restart the computer. Is there an once-and-for-all way?

[Ken]

I had to restart VirtualBox and Genymotion after running this for it to work as well.

[Joshua W]

This worked for me after upgrading to Mavericks. Previously I was able to use Amit's answer.

[Mr. Concolato]

This was very helpful, but i agree with Chris.Zou. I am running virtual box 4.02 and about to upgrade to a newer version. That might address the issue long term. Not sure yet, but thanks for the tip.

[lenhhoxung]

Thanks, great solution

[phil]

restarted and had to run this command again....is there some way to make this fix permanent?

[Matz]

Thanks a lot! Works like a charm with OSX 10.9.4

[Maulik]

I experienced this more than one time and I think this may be permanent solution, You can upgrade virtualbox .exe(For windows) or .dmg(For Mac) or .deb(For Linux) file and install newer version of virtual box will solve your problem and If you are already have latest vesion then you can simply re-install it. Download Newer version link: oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/virtualbox/downloads/…

[jwBurnside]

I migrated over a slightly older version of VirtualBox when swapping macs and got this error. Reinstalling to the latest version fixed.

[Roger]

thanks! small correction - that url is virtualbox.org/wiki/Download_Old_Builds_4_3

[zwebie]

This needs to be pushed to the top of the list!

[Roger]

I think the Genymotion 2.5.1 release fixed this actually: genymotion.com/#!/release-notes/251#251

[muhasturk]

Genymotion 1.0.5 released and works well VirtualBox 5.x on OSX genymotion.com/#!/release-notes/253_p105

[Stephen Senkomago Musoke]

Just verified with a newer version 4.3.30 while the newer versions do not seem to work

[Sveinung Kval Bakken]

2.5.2 works with 4.3.30, but still no 5.0.n support.

[Sufian]

Updating VirtualBox helped. I got kernel panic with v4.3.12 but as advised by Genymotion's FAQs, I installed 4.3.26. it works fine now!

[whoKnows]

I get sudo: /Library/StartupItems/VirtualBox/VirtualBox: command not found.

[eliasbagley]

This doesn't fix it for me

[ghoti]

Closest thing I can find on El Capitan with VBox 4.3.20 is sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VirtualBox/LaunchDaemons/VirtualBoxStartup.sh restart, which returns among other things the error: /Library/Application Support/VirtualBox/VBoxDrv.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) not loadable (reason unspecified); check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8). The system console also shows a plethora of interesting though obtuse error messages. Not entirely sure, but it looks to me like the VBox kext (kernel extension) may be incompatible with newer versions of OSX.

[Azmat Karim Khan]

additionaly you can restart using sudo service virtualbox restart

[Apfelsaft]

Installing VirtualBox 4.3.26 worked for me. More recent versions didn't work. You can get it from here: virtualbox.org/wiki/Download_Old_Builds_4_3

[dsdsdsdsd]

I downloaded the "without VirtualBox" option (genymotion.com/download), and still I get this error ...

[Jahmic]

Be cautioned. When I deleted the file, my machine immediately shutdown. Save your work! Started up fine, and I uninstalled both and reinstalled, and it started working again.