Grayed-Out USB Devices Require Cable Dance to Connect to Guest

[Bill Geisler]

I've been working with VirtualBox 2.2.2 and 2.2.4 with a Mac OSX (v. 10.5.7) Host and WinXP SP3 Guest. I have noticed a problem with a grayed-out USB device (a signature tablet HID in my case).

To get the grayed-out device to show up in the USB Devices list for activation I can add a filter (either device specific or empty). The problem I've got now is that each time I start the VM the device is grayed-out in the USB Devices list. With a filter applied, the only way I can activate the device is by going through the unplug/replug the USB cable dance.

I'd like to see these sort of grayed-out USB devices just shows up in the device list each time the guest is started without going through the cable dance of unplugging & replugging cables.

Observations About Installing Grayed-Out USB Device (My Experiences)

I thought some of my experiences might help you address this problem with grayed-out USB devices.

1. As far as I can tell, you need to use a filter to get a grayed-out USB device activated. There are two options -- a device specific filter or and empty filter. In my particular case I've tried both approaches and get the same results either way. However, some of the forum posts indicate that an empty filter might be needed to solve some activation problems.

2. After adding a filter I often find that for the first one or two VM shutdown/startup cycles thereafter, the USB device is listed but when you try to activate it a connection error is generated (see below). The USB cable dance (unplug/replug cable) usually gets you past this and allows the device to connect. Observation: Interestingly, after a couple of VM shutdown/start cycles the device stops showing up in the USB Devices list as an active option -- it is grayed-out. Here is the error I've been seeing:

Failed to attach the USB device "X" to the virtual machine
USB device "X" with UUID "Y" is busy with a previous request.
Please try again later.
Result Code: NS_ERROR_INVALID_ARG (0x80070057)

3. Observation: After installing a USB device filter I've noticed that when the VM is shutdown the status shows as "Aborted" rather than the usual "Powered Off". While this is puzzling, I've not noticed any performance problems other than the grayed-out USB device. If the filter is deleted the status after VM shutdown returns to "Powered Off".