Out of disk space error can lead to loss of virtualbox.xml

[JeffWithAVbox]

I ran out of space on the partition that I have VB writing hard disk images. It did a smart thing, and paused the virtual machine I was using.

I tried to free up enough disk space, but wasn't succeeding. Something was eating space as I freed it.

I decided I needed a new, bigger, better HD, so I closed virtual machine, which went smoothly. And closed vb, which appeared to go fine. Then I shut down the physical machine to install another drive.

On restarting, I tried to open vb and got an error. My virtualbox.xml file was zero length.

I surmise from this that there is an error in the code. It's not making a copy of the existing vb before trying to save a new one, or renaming it. And it's not checking that there is some space before deleting virtualbox.xml.

This would be a better strategy in low-disk situations, and have stopped me from losing all my virtual machine setups.

Classified as minor because it only ever has an impact if you run out of space.

[Frank Mehnert]

Some years ago this was changed: The old .xml file is not removed but renamed before the new file is written.