VBoxManage: LockMachine(a->session, LockType_Write): E_FAIL (0x80004005) - Unspecified error

[SahuMohit]

The exact command to reproduce the issue:
choco uninstall minikube
remove ./User/.minikube folder
install minikube
choco minikube install
minikube start

The full output of the command that failed:

The output of the minikube logs command:

• minikube v1.3.1 on Microsoft Windows 10 Home Single Language 10.0.17134 Build 17134
• Tip: Use 'minikube start -p ' to create a new cluster, or 'minikube delete' to delete this one.
• Starting existing virtualbox VM for "minikube" ...
  E0828 18:15:15.171277 9432 start.go:723] StartHost: start: Error setting up host only network on machine start: C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe modifyvm minikube --nic2 hostonly --nictype2 virtio --nicpromisc2 deny --hostonlyadapter2 VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter Support kubernetes dashboard. #3 --cableconnected2 on failed:
  VBoxManage.exe: error: Code E_FAIL (0x80004005) - Unspecified error (extended info not available)
  VBoxManage.exe: error: Context: "LockMachine(a->session, LockType_Write)" at line 529 of file VBoxManageModifyVM.cpp

X Unable to start VM: start: Error setting up host only network on machine start: C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe modifyvm minikube --nic2 hostonly --nictype2 virtio --nicpromisc2 deny --hostonlyadapter2 VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter #3 --cableconnected2 on failed:
VBoxManage.exe: error: Code E_FAIL (0x80004005) - Unspecified error (extended info not available)
VBoxManage.exe: error: Context: "LockMachine(a->session, LockType_Write)" at line 529 of file VBoxManageModifyVM.cpp

• Sorry that minikube crashed. If this was unexpected, we would love to hear from you:
  • https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/issues/new/choose

The operating system version:
Windows 10 Home Single Language
Ram - 8 GB
64-bit

[tstromberg]

This error is probably caused because you removed the .minikube folder, but had an active VM running from there. This causes the VM state to be desynchronized. Please do not remove this directory before running minikube delete. In the future, it is rarely helpful to delete this folder.

I believe this situation can be fixed by running minikube delete

Do you mind confirming so that I can update the text to contain this suggestion?

[tstromberg]

@markcaudill ran into this same issue. I'm baffled by it: in both cases, minikube knows there is a VM that exists. VirtualBox agrees, because there is a locking issue.

However, the VirtualBox driver appears to feel that it is necessary to create a network for the VM. Can either of you share the output of

minikube start --alsologtostderr -v=8

That will include the VirtualBox driver log messages.

I still suspect that minikube delete may fix this issue, but would like to get some confirmation.

[markcaudill]

I uninstalled and re-installed VirtualBox and removed ~/.minikube (and ~/.minishift as well but probably not related). I believe deleting that directory was the fix because after reinstalling VirtualBox, I re-ran minikube start and saw this error which is what led me to delete the ~/.minikube directory:

C:\Users\mark>minikube start
* minikube v1.3.1 on Microsoft Windows 10 Home 10.0.18362 Build 18362
X Unable to load config: open C:\Users\mark\.minikube\profiles\minikube\config.json: Access is denied.

After deleting the .minikube directory, minikube start worked perfectly.

[tstromberg]

@author: I believe this issue is now addressed by minikube v1.4, as it now forcibly resets existing VM's on failure. If you still see this issue with minikube v1.4 or higher, please reopen this issue by commenting with /reopen

Thank you for reporting this issue!