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VirtualBox in Ubuntu is failing to start because of a kernel module problem. At least this is the impression I am getting from reading the journal logs. If I try to run terminal commands I am greeted with /usr/lib/VirtualBox/VirtualBox: error while loading shared libraries: libssl.so.1.0.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory The error message suggests the solution is to recompile the kernel module and install it with sudo /sbin/vboxconfig but entering this into the terminal only results in the same libssl.so.1.0.0 error as before as well as vboxdrv.sh: failed: Cannot detect VirtualBox version number.

This looks to be all the fault of vdfuse which I attempted to install and it apparently damaged VirtualBox and may have nearly rendered my system unbootable when initramfs failed to update. I removed the offending files added by vdfuse so initramfs could update properly but VirtualBox, which was running before, nolonger starts. I suspect this is because vdfuse hasn't been updated in years and is thus not properly maintained.

So is there a simple way to get the kernel modules working again or must I go to the trouble of fully re-installing and re-configuring VirtualBox?

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  • The problem seems in libssl.so.1.0.0. Is libssl installed? If so, try a find /usr -name 'libssl*' to see what might be the problem.
    – Ljm Dullaart
    Commented Jan 2, 2023 at 11:36
  • I poked around my system for all mentions of libssl and came across names with libssl1.1 and libssl3 but not libssl1.0.0 The /usr folder contains: /usr/share/doc/libssl1.1 /usr/lib/thunderbird/libssl3.so /usr/lib/firefox/libssl3.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl3.so Also openssl version gave me OpenSSL 1.1.1f 31 Mar 2020 I don't know what the vdfuse install script could've done to remove a version since it only added files nor why VBox is requesting an older version now.
    – Bumblelord
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 9:16
  • So, your Virtualbox is a lot older than your libssl. The best course of action is to upgrade Virtualbox. If you, for some reason, do not want to do that, you might try ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0. Chances are, that it will just complain about the next out-of-date library or tha Virtualbox will just crash. But sometimes, with a few links like this, you actually can get old software to work.
    – Ljm Dullaart
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 14:00
  • Okay, sorry for the delay in responding to this. My VirtualBox is not out of date, it is just recently installed and updated, so that is not the problem. My best guess is that it is being caused by the files /usr/virtualbox/VBoxDDU.so and /usr/virtualbox/VBoxRT.so. To remove vdfuse I located all the files that the vdprepare.sh install script had added and deleted them, this included the aforementioned files. But when I did this VBox failed with errors indicating they were required (were already part of VBox?) so I added them back in.
    – Bumblelord
    Commented Jan 14, 2023 at 22:47
  • Unfortunately I had to use the VBoxDDU.so and VBoxRT.so files included in the vdfuse installer since I didn't have the originals saved...and this is where I am at now. If these files are different from the originals because they are out of date, could this be the cause of my libssl problems? Where then can I get up-to-date versions of these files?
    – Bumblelord
    Commented Jan 14, 2023 at 23:00

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Problem solved, I located the .deb package for VirtualBox and extracted the correct files from that. VirtualBox is up and running again now. The lesson for this is, do not install anything called vdfuse or if you do, make sure it is from a repo that is kept up to date.

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