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I'm hoping that someone out here has a suggestion for resolving a VirtualBox problem that's been plaguing me.
I get the following message when starting Linux: 

VBoxClient the virtualbox kernel service is not running. exiting.

Troubleshooting that I've done--
I checked VirtualBox Ubuntu 14.04 - vboxclient the virtualbox kernel service is not running as well as https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=77363&start=15
I ran-- 

user@Lenovo-B570 ~ $ sudo /sbin/rcvboxdrv setup  
Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules ...done.
Uninstalling old VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules ...done.
Trying to register the VirtualBox kernel modules using DKMSError! echo
Your kernel headers for kernel 4.4.8-040408-generic cannot be found at
/lib/modules/4.4.8-040408-generic/build or /lib/modules/4.4.8-040408-generic/source.
 ...failed!
  (Failed, trying without DKMS)
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules ...failed!
  (Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong)  
checking the log file showed-  
DKMS: add completed.
Failed to install using DKMS, attempting to install without
Makefile:185: *** Error: unable to find the sources of your current Linux kernel. Specify KERN_DIR=<directory> and run Make again.  Stop.

The only thing that has worked is booting up in legacy Ubuntu R13. But this doesn't work consistently. I hope that this is enough info and enough troubleshooting to display incentive.
thank you in advance

Community
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Cornucopia
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2 Answers2

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How did kernel 4.4.8 appear on your 14.04 system? You have installed a mainline kernel most likely. Mainline kernels lack the linux-image-extra package. This package contains the necessary drivers and software for several devices and apps, including Virtualbox.

You have to install an officially supported kernel on your system. The latest so far is 4.4.0-53-generic but 4.8 is on the way. The package name should be linux-generic-lts-xenial. I'm not using 14.04 and I'm not 100% sure about the name.

Stormlord
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  • thank you stormlord. That sounds logical. I did apt-get install generic-lts-xenial and then restarted. – Cornucopia Dec 16 '16 at 02:29
  • the pkg did not change and the problem did no t resolve – Cornucopia Dec 16 '16 at 02:30
  • Have you installed Virtualbox from www.virtualbox.org or have you installed the repos version? – Stormlord Dec 16 '16 at 17:15
  • the software was installed a long time ago. I believe we just did sudo apt-get install virtualbox. I assume that this would have pulled it from virtualbox.org – Cornucopia Dec 17 '16 at 05:08
  • If you installed it that way, no, it did not pull it from virtualbox.org. You have to uninstall this version completely, purging all configuration data and follow the instructions on virtualbox.org on how to install the latest version correctly and add the appropriate keys to your system so that it can also be updated automatically after it's installed. – Stormlord Dec 18 '16 at 14:45
  • Some more troubleshooting that I've done is to update the OS to Linux Mint 17.2 'lsb-release -c' – Cornucopia Dec 22 '16 at 01:35
  • Some more troubleshooting that I've done is to update the OS to Linux Mint 17.2 'lsb-release -c' >> Rosa I added "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian xenial contrib" to the file sources.list I followed the advice found here -http://tecadmin.net/install-oracle-virtualbox-on-ubuntu/# But at the final step to install virtualbox-5.1 there was the error of unmet dependencies Depends: libdevmapper1.02.1 Depends: libqt5core5a Depends: libqt5gui5 Depends: libvpx3 – Cornucopia Dec 22 '16 at 01:39
  • http://askubuntu.com/questions/810573/virtualbox-5-1-2-for-ubuntu-14-04-5 according to this, it may actually not be possible – Cornucopia Dec 22 '16 at 01:56
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If the VirtualBox kernel service is not running in the guest, you should first of all install the kernel headers (in the guest) for the current kernel, if they are not already installed. Then reinstall the VirtualBox Guest Additions. At least it worked for me.

callmebilly
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