Posted inInformation Technology

Oracle Virtualbox 6.1.38 export bug

seasoned_geek by seasoned_geek

If you upgrade from Virtualbox 6.1.34 to 6.1.38 because oracle nags you about it, get ready for export to stop working when the destination is a TNAS or possibly any network drive. Yep! They’ve gone and screwed the pooch there.

Really sucked man. Lost the day. I was spending the holiday applying updates, building latest CopperSpice, then exporting each of my development VMs that I use to build RedDiamond packages. Version 3.2 has two features left to add. Changing keyboard shortcuts for Scintilla shortcuts is over half way done. Macro record/play shouldn’t take too long, might even drop from this release. Version 3.2 has a lot of changes and improvements. Really want to get it into the hands of users.

So, this morning I finished with the Ubuntu 18.04 VM and Virtualbox nagged me about updating.

Always, always, always ignore that!

Well, I didn’t take my own advice. Getting a version of Oracle Virtualbox stable enough to use with all of the features you need is so (&)(*&)ing difficult. How about all of you still needing to build for 32-bit targets? Gotta love that 6.x upgrade where 32-bit support has been dropped!

The Target

I’ve written about my Terra-Master TNAS before.

Terra-Master F4-210-1

It’s a reasonably priced, reasonably fast NAS for the ordinary consultant. I packed mine with four 4TB Western Digital RED drives and set the thing to RAID 10. If you’ve upgraded your local network to CAT 8 cables where it matters this is a really fast NAS. I have been having file servers in my office since the days of Netware for the 386/SX. It’s a very effective way of moving files between machines. You can read more about the f4-210 here.

The Virtualbox Bug

Failed to check files.

Result Code: VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR (0x80BB0004)

That actually appears in a dialog, but I didn’t bother to get a screenshot. Version 6.1.34 exports just fine to that drive and directory, but once you install version 6.1.38 you are hosed. Virtualbox will export “fine” to a local drive . . . maybe. I used to get 2 files, this time I only got one when I chose version 2 of OVA.

Am I going to report this? Hell No! Oracle demands far too much identity theft information to create an account to report a bug.

I’m just telling my blog readers to avoid the mistake I made. Stay locked at version 6.1.34.

Roland Hughes started his IT career in the early 1980s. He quickly became a consultant and president of Logikal Solutions, a software consulting firm specializing in OpenVMS application and C++/Qt touchscreen/embedded Linux development. Early in his career he became involved in what is now called cross platform development. Given the dearth of useful books on the subject he ventured into the world of professional author in 1995 writing the first of the "Zinc It!" book series for John Gordon Burke Publisher, Inc.

A decade later he released a massive (nearly 800 pages) tome "The Minimum You Need to Know to Be an OpenVMS Application Developer" which tried to encapsulate the essential skills gained over what was nearly a 20 year career at that point. From there "The Minimum You Need to Know" book series was born.

Three years later he wrote his first novel "Infinite Exposure" which got much notice from people involved in the banking and financial security worlds. Some of the attacks predicted in that book have since come to pass. While it was not originally intended to be a trilogy, it became the first book of "The Earth That Was" trilogy:
Infinite Exposure
Lesedi - The Greatest Lie Ever Told
John Smith - Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars

When he is not consulting Roland Hughes posts about technology and sometimes politics on his blog. He also has regularly scheduled Sunday posts appearing on the Interesting Authors blog.