VirtualBox

Opened 7 years ago

Last modified 5 years ago

#16032 new defect

VirtualBox not compatible with USBPcap and similar

Reported by: berlincount Owned by:
Component: USB Version: VirtualBox 5.1.6
Keywords: Cc:
Guest type: all Host type: Windows

Description

Hello,

  • Issue:

current versions of VirtualBox are not compatible with USBPcap on Windows (e.g. Windows 8.1 or Windows 10).

  • Description

USBPcap provides USB traffic recording functionality by injecting itself into the USB stack (see http://desowin.org/usbpcap/block_diagram.html) in a way currently incompatible with the way VirtualBox does something similar.

  • Experienced behavior

Host USB device is unavailable ("busy") for attachment to Virtual Machine with USBPcap installed and active. USBPcap can be installed as (optional but default) component of WireShark.

  • Expected behavior

VirtualBox forwards the USB device in a defined manner, i.e. either with all USB traffic happening inside the VM visible to USBPcap, or with all USB traffic inside the VM circumventing USBPcap

  • Why shouldn't this be fixed by USBPcap?

There are multiple software packages providing similar or identical USB sniffing capability in a similar or near identical functionality, addressing this in all of them with special code instead of handling this properly at the virtualization layer (already deeply involving itself with the system) seems odd.

Change History (8)

comment:1 by mw|, 7 years ago

Or VirtualBox can try to detect the presence of software like USBPcap and issue a warning to the user that attaching USB will likely fail due to software XX detected

comment:2 by fenny, 7 years ago

I can confirm this bug is still present. Even just adding a notice like mentioned above would be helpful for sure. It took me a few hours of trying stuff until a google search turned up the solution in the Community Forum. Virtual box reported that the device was still busy when trying to add a Prolific USB to Serial to a linux vm host on a windows 10 box.

Last edited 7 years ago by fenny (previous) (diff)

comment:4 by Socratis, 6 years ago

A patch for a fix was submitted on 2017-07-12 in the developer's mailing list, that could potentially fix the issue, but it hasn't found its way in the trunk yet. Maybe not tested enough?

So there wouldn't be a need for a workaround in an unofficial blog post, that may not be relevant in a couple of months, which pretty much says "Uninstall Wireshark"...

comment:5 by Noha, 6 years ago

I am having the same issue although I do not have USBPcap installed, it started when my (corporate) window 10 did an update install. When I set it back to a previous restore point it worked again, but of course the updates happen automatically again and I cannot access USB devices on my virtual machine anymore. Any idea/workarounds? I can't tell exactly which application is conflicting with it. Does an older version of VB not have this issue?

comment:6 by Nekicool, 6 years ago

I had the same problem with NoMachine software installed on my host. Uninstalling NoMachine fixed the problem. See https://forums.nomachine.com/topic/nomachine-client-blocks-virtualbox-usb

comment:7 by Marcél, 5 years ago

Has there been any progress on this? I'm having the same problem with NoMachine, but uninstalling drivers by hand (as they suggest) is a very lackluster solution.

Last edited 5 years ago by Marcél (previous) (diff)

comment:8 by tai.sso, 5 years ago

I'm also hit by issue.

VirtualBox's USB passthrough does not function unless I uninstall USBPcap/Wireshark. This is simply a pain, as I need to capture USB traffic on Windows to develop its driver on Linux, running inside VirtualBox.

I see a patch that is expected to fix the issue was posted 2 years ago. It seems it didn't get in as no official agreement on copyright was sent along with it. Is there any way to either re-submit this patch or create a patch with same functionality?

Note: See TracTickets for help on using tickets.

© 2023 Oracle
ContactPrivacy policyTerms of Use