Misleading error message if media exists on protected drive

[mschams]

A misleading error message appears (see attached screenshot) if VirtualBox was launched and tries to access a media that exists on a drive with authentication.

In example: host is a Windows based system and uses a network storage device in LAN. In Virtual Media Manager an ISO image is mounted for a guest. This file exists on the network storage and is accessed by SMB and protected by username/password authentication. If the host system was rebootet, did not accessed the network storage and VirtualBox is started, the error message appears that the media is unaccessible. Similar behaviour in Virtual Media Manager (see screenshot).

The message is not wrong (the media is not readable at this time) but it is the same message as the media does not longer exist. And this is misleading. If the operating system explictly ask for authentification during the file access attempt, VirtualBox should forward this dialogue to the user.

In VirtualBox version 2.1.0 (not tested with other versions) the work around is to access the protected directory (e.g. with Windows Explorer), provide username/password there and afterwards "REFRESH" Virtual Media Manager's screen. Another solution is to store/remember the authentication details in Windows (but forcing the user doing so is a security issue).

In other words: VirtualBox does not forward the authentication dialogue to the user.

[Frank Mehnert]

Sorry for the late response but actually I fear that VBox cannot forward this authentication dialog to the user. VBox just tries to access the medium which is nothing more than a file and the result of that access is some error code. I guess it is not possible to determine the real reason why the medium is not accessible.