USB passthrough doesn't work in VirtualBox

Question

I can't get USB passtrough to work in VirtualBox. Help would be appreciated.

Host system is Ubuntu 23.04. Guest VM is Windows XP SP3. VirtualBox is version 7.10 ( newest ATM ), extension pack is also installed, and for version 7.10. Guest additions are installed on guest VM, and VB icon appears on the app bar ( right bottom corner ).

User appears to be added to vboxusers group already. Command sudo adduser $USER vboxusers results in

User "root" is already a member of "vboxusers" group

VBoxManage list usbhost

prints the list of all USB devices like a charm. Despite that, when I try to select any USB device in filters ( regardless of 2.0, 3.0, 1.0 controller ) it displays

no devices available

. I tried manually typing in device info into filters, which didn't work. And left the empty filter to attempt choosing device from the list, later, after guest os boots ( but no devices on the list ). When different controllers are selected, different USB controllers appear in guest os device manager. Unplugging and plugging in device after the guest OS boots doesn't change anything.

Thank you.

Answer 1

SOLVED.

There is some quackery afoot with virtualbox, and users/user account(s?).

Solution is this:

sudo adduser $USER vboxusers

won't work for some reason ( but do it, in case it's needed for something to work ).

You need to type

sudo usermod -aG vboxusers XXXXXXXX

in the command line, and restart the system. ( Where XXXXXXXX you type in your username "mike", "john", "mary" for example ). After this, I was able to passthrough a USB modem connected to ubuntu host, install drivers in windows VM, and it works. Yay!

Answer 2

ANOTHER WAY -> SOLVED

Virtualbox is weird because I did all of this as well.

I am running:

( Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS )

OS: Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS x86_64
Host: VirtualBox 1.2
Kernel: 5.15.0-84-generic
Packages: 1649 (dpkg), 11 (snap)
Shell: bash 5.0.17
DE: GNOME
WM: Mutter
WM Theme: Adwaita
Theme: Yaru-dark [GTK2/3]
Icons: Yaru [GTK2/3]
Terminal: gnome-terminal
CPU: 13th Gen Intel i7-13700HX (8) 2.284GHz
GPU: 00:02.0 VMware SVGA II Adapter
Memory: 2395MiB / 3910MiB

&&

( Fedora Workstation 38 )

OS: Fedora Linux 38 (Workstation Edition) x86_64
Host: VirtualBox 1.2
Kernel: 6.2.9-300.fc38.x86_64
Packages: 1872 (rpm)
Shell: bash 5.2.15
DE: GNOME 44.0
WM: Mutter
WM Theme: Adwaita
Theme: Adwaita [GTK2/3]
Icons: Adwaita [GTK2/3]
Terminal: gnome-terminal
CPU: 13th Gen Intel i7-13700HX (8) 2.284GHz
GPU: 00:02.0 VMware SVGA II Adapter
Memory: 1423MiB / 7926MiB

--- FIX ---

What fixed the issue for me on both machines was to:

1. Un-mount USB from Host Device, but leave it plugged in.

- You can do this by going to your File Manager and clicking ( Unmount ) next to the USB device you want to use on the VM OS.

- Or if go to the ( Disks ) application and click  ( Eject this disk )

2. Take the OS VM out of ( Scaled Mode ).

- You can do this a few different ways.

- Shutdown the VM OS and then restart. 

- Click ( Cancel ) when it says:

The virtual machine window will be now switched to Scale mode. You can go back to windowed mode at any time by pressing Host+C. Note that the Host key is currently defined as Right Ctrl.

Note that the main menu bar is hidden in scaled mode. You can access it by pressing Host+Home.

That also gives you the other methods of doing so.

If you have two machines running at once you have to choose one. Also, you will have to unplug and plug back in the USB if your switching from one VM to the other.

Hope this helps.