How do I delete a virtualbox machine in the GURU_MEDITATION error state?

Question

How do I delete a VirtualBox machine in the GURU_MEDITATION error state? Is it enough just to delete the directory while VirtualBox is not running?

EDIT: After posting, I deleted the entire directory that "Show in File Manager" navigates to.

It looks like:

Screenshot of Virtualbox Guru Meditation

Note that there is no power off, and even remove is greyed out. I believe this is the exact same as it looked even before I deleted the directory.

EDIT 2: I tried the command line poweroff after deleting the files. It hangs:

vboxmanage controlvm wmf-vagrant_1354733432 poweroff 0%...10%...20%...

EDIT 3: It also fails to unregister it from the command-line:

VBoxManage unregistervm wmf-vagrant_1354733432 --delete VBoxManage: error: Cannot unregister the machine 'wmf-vagrant_1354733432' while it is locked VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_INVALID_OBJECT_STATE (0x80bb0007), component Machine, interface IMachine, callee nsISupports Context: "Unregister(fDelete ? (CleanupMode_T)CleanupMode_DetachAllReturnHardDisksOnly : (CleanupMode_T)CleanupMode_DetachAllReturnNone, ComSafeArrayAsOutParam(aMedia))" at line 160 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp

However, I think this is programming-related, since I'm using it with vagrant, a tool specifically for developers. — Matthew Flaschen, Dec 07 '12 at 21:04
Ok, it seems that I was badly mistaken. Do you have access to command line? Can you try `VBoxManage controlvm poweroff`? `VBoxManage list vms` gives you list of existing virtual machines. — Edu, Dec 07 '12 at 21:20
Please reopen. if you want to migrate, migrate to Superuser. — Matthew Flaschen, Dec 08 '12 at 00:42
By killing the `VBoxHeadless` process (on OSX) I was able to run `vagrant destroy` successfully and get out of this lock. I used `ps aux | grep -i virtualbox` to find it. — Stephen Emslie, Jan 31 '13 at 00:30

score 145 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 30 '15 at 21:32

145

Kill the VBoxHeadless process and run "vagrant destroy"

Destroying vagrant and sending the kill signal with the "killall" command looks like:

killall -9 VBoxHeadless && vagrant destroy

edited Mar 30 '15 at 21:32

electblake

2,027
18
25

answered Mar 02 '13 at 14:36

jonathan

2,513
2
17
13

1

+1 Using the API or VBoxManage will often fail with lock exceptions etc. This is (unfortunately) the only 100% reliable way that I've found of terminating VBox VMs. – steve cook Jan 08 '14 at 02:55
4

If you're running multiple machines, you only need to kill the one process associated with the machine you wish to destroy. – Andrew Miner Apr 02 '14 at 16:31
how to kill it? Which port is it running? – andilabs Apr 22 '14 at 09:48
10

To kill it on OS X: `ps aux | grep -i virtualbox` then `kill -9 ` and after that run `vagrant destroy` – andilabs Apr 22 '14 at 09:56
2

on osx `killall -9 VBoxHeadless` then `vagrant destroy` worked nicely for me – electblake Sep 24 '14 at 15:03
As @electblake pointed out. killall worked fine for me as well! – roosevelt Mar 30 '15 at 18:41
you are the best – Quentin Merlin Jan 28 '22 at 07:51

kenorb · Answer 2 · 2016-06-11T19:37:36.963

17

If you can't power off the machine from VirtualBox GUI, then try from the command line using vboxmanage command (VBoxManage on OS X), e.g.:

vboxmanage controlvm NAMEOFVM poweroff

_{Change NAMEOFVM with the name from vboxmanage list vms command.}

then unregister and delete the VM:

vboxmanage unregistervm NAMEOFVM --delete

Or delete it manually:

rm -fr ~/"VirtualBox VMs/NAMEOFVM"

edited Jun 11 '16 at 19:37

answered Mar 17 '16 at 15:24

kenorb

155,785
88
678
743

2

(+1) on linux you have also `vboxmanage` (lowercase) so, I use: `vboxmanage unregistervm --delete ` (a little bit of cosmetics) – azbarcea Jun 11 '16 at 18:18

score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 26 '14 at 00:48

I hit this problem. Eveything I read recommend that you should always manage the boxes via Virtual Box, not directly access files. But when I had an invalid box, the unregistervm command refused to delete it and vagrant destroy did not work. In the end the following process worked.

Kill all running VBox* processes
Delete the folder "boxname" from the folder "VirtualBox VMs"
Edit the file "VirtualBox.xml" and remove the tag corresponding to the invalid box.

I then ran this command the verify the box was gone.

VBoxManage list vms

After that I was able to create a new vm with the same name.

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 16 '15 at 16:38

I had a VM that got in a similar state

$ vagrant up

Bringing machine 'tempu' up with 'virtualbox' provider...
==> mms: Checking if box 'hashicorp/precise64' is up to date...
==> mms: Resuming suspended VM...
==> mms: Booting VM...
There was an error while executing `VBoxManage`, a CLI used by Vagrant
for controlling VirtualBox. The command and stderr is shown below.

Command: ["startvm", "9fcf2203-d4b3-47a1-a307-61bfa580bd28", "--type", "headless"]

Stderr: VBoxManage: error: The machine 'temp-ubuntu' is already locked by a session (or being locked or unlocked)
VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_INVALID_OBJECT_STATE (0x80bb0007), component Machine, interface IMachine, callee nsISupports
VBoxManage: error: Context: "LaunchVMProcess(a->session, sessionType.raw(), env.raw(), progress.asOutParam())" at line 592 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp

I looked for a process called VBoxHeadless, but it wasn't running.

I then ran ps and found this process with the same vm id:

$ ps aux | grep -i virtualbox
user      63466   0.0  0.1  2523608   8396   ??  S     9:36am   0:02.67 /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxManage showvminfo 9fcf2203-d4b3-47a1-a307-61bfa580bd28 --machinereadable

Killing that process fixed the problem and VM started correctly after running vagrant up

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 01 '16 at 08:38

This is a script I use when I get desperate. It wipes as much trace of any VM from the machine as I can find:

VBoxManage list runningvms | awk '{print $2}'  | xargs --no-run-if-empty -t -n1 -IXXX VBoxManage controlvm XXX poweroff                                                           
VBoxManage list vms | awk '{print $2}'  | xargs --no-run-if-empty -t -n1 VBoxManage unregistervm                                                                                  
killall -9 VBoxHeadless                                                                                                                                                           
rm -rf ~/Virtualbox\ VMs/*

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 08 '12 at 23:04

I am using Debian Wheezy on a 64-bit multiple-processor host. I was able to solve it eventually by removing all VirtualBox data (though you did not need to delete the Vagrant base box):

Close Virtualbox if running
sudo apt-get remove --purge virtualbox
Move or delete ~/.VirtualBox and ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/. If you're not sure, back them up to a safe place.
Restart.
Reinstall virtualbox.
Use virtualbox/vagrant as normal.

There may be a less disruptive way (e.g. removing only parts of these directories). In my case, fortunately I was using only one VM at the time.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 23 '18 at 11:52

In my case, I wanted to delete ALL Vagrant boxes I currently have on my system by a command line, I did that by:

$ vagrant box list | cut -f 1 -d ' ' | xargs -L 1 vagrant box remove -f --all

Of course, after making sure no further process is attached any more:

killall -9 VBoxHeadless && vagrant destroy
No matching processes belonging to you were found

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 16 '16 at 23:45

0

On windows 10, i solved this problem setting Default firewall configurations back.

Hope it helps...

answered Feb 16 '16 at 23:45

oviniciusfeitosa

915
1
11
12

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 13 '20 at 09:34

I've been struggling with frozen Virtual Box instances created earlier using Vagrant. Luckily found a solution mentioned in similar ticket

so, to recap, if your getting Timeout error or Vagrant complaining it can't provision or any other kind of related issue with Virtual Box try:

List virtual box instances first: VmboxManage list vms
Stop the virtual box instances using id|names of previous command: VBoxManage startvm VMNAME/id --type emergencystop
List vagrant boxes with vagrant box list
Remove one or more causing issues vagrant boxes: vagrant remove box ${box-name}
Afterwards, try vagrant up again and hopefully you will be back to business.

Good luck!

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Oct 22 '20 at 13:02

0

Open the task manager or system monitor and hover with the mouse over the VBoxHeadless to see the name of the VM and kill the process. Now you can remove the VM with the VirtualBox Manager GUI.

answered Oct 22 '20 at 13:02

Yoruba

2,572
22
26

score 0 · Answer 11 · edited Dec 18 '22 at 11:50

0

Run vagrant global-status
Identify the vm id
Run vagrant destroy [vm id]

edited Dec 18 '22 at 11:50

Tyler2P

2,324
26
22
31

answered Dec 13 '22 at 16:39

alela

1
1

score -1 · Answer 12 · answered Jan 20 '16 at 18:33

-1

You can use below command to delete VM from vritual box-

vagrant destroy

And use below command to create VM and start again-

vagrant up

answered Jan 20 '16 at 18:33

Azam Khan

85
4
11

How do I delete a virtualbox machine in the GURU_MEDITATION error state?

12 Answers12

Linked