USB device reported working, but no communication

[Elod]

I would like to report a USB device that appears as working in the guest OS, but programs cannot communicate with it. I am using Vista 64-bit with XP 32-bit in VirtualBox. The main reason for using virtualization is the unavailability of a 64-bit driver for a reprogrammable USB FPGA board. This little board can be programmed using a utility (Adept Suite) of the manufacturer (Digilent). I added a USB filter for this device in VirtualBox and it got detected in the guest OS and installed the correct driver for it. It appears as enabled and working in Device Manager. The utility can also detect the board and its ID. However, when it tries to communicate with it (Initialize Chain) it fails. I can confirm that this same setup with another virtualization software works and the utility can communicate to the board. I would gladly provide any kind of dump, log or other debug data for investigation.

[Richard]

Same deal I have. Bug #1051. I talked to the devs on irc and they said don't hold your breath on usb working on my device any time soon.

[Sander van Leeuwen]

Try again with 1.6.0 and report back if it's still relevant. Thanks.

[Elod]

I set up a new 32-bit XP SP3 VM in 1.6.0 and I got the same result, it appears working, but communication fails. Activating USB devices in the VM also fails sometimes with no error message ie. clicking on a device on the USB list does nothing. Other times I get a crash on the host: Product Sun xVM VirtualBox Interface

Problem Stopped working

Date 2008.05.03. 4:03

Status Not Reported

Problem signature Problem Event Name: APPCRASH Application Name: VBoxSVC.exe Application Version: 1.0.0.1 Application Timestamp: 4818d40b Fault Module Name: VBoxDDU.dll Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0 Fault Module Timestamp: 4818d31d Exception Code: c0000005 Exception Offset: 00000000000196e4 OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.6 Locale ID: 1038 Additional Information 1: 80ad Additional Information 2: 922c9c6d5745beeb98fd45a7b83b0223 Additional Information 3: 5cb6 Additional Information 4: 57cd1eed70ec2a428d77631cff6b5e38

The problem seems not limited to my FPGA board, but also a "Mass storage device" (USB external hard drive). Let me know, if you need other debug data.

[Elod]

Just confirming that the the same issue is experienced in VirtualBox 2.0.2 and it is consistent with other user reports of not all USB working.

[ZhekaS]

Same issue in VirtualBox 3.0.4 (and older). No progress since 2.0.1 .

[Michael Thayer]

Unfortunately, there will probably always be a number of unsupported USB devices in VirtualBox, since every device has a few quirks of its own, to which VirtualBox has to be adjusted. That said, VirtualBox USB support is being worked on continuously, and it is always worth checking whether new versions make unsupported devices work.

[xoby]

The problem is still present with VirtualBox v3.1.8 (tested with Digilent Adept, Basys 2 board, a linux 64 bits host and a Windows XP guest).

[Carl Greco]

Communication problem persists with VirtualBox 3.2.0, Digilent Adept 2-3-0, Basys2 board, Debian linux 64 bit (lenny) host and Window 7 Enterprise guest. Board recognized but cannot initialize. Apparently, reading from device is functional but cannot write to the device.

[JWC]

Issue still exists with 3.2.8. Same behavior as above. Arch Linux, Kernel 2.6.35.3, Digilent Adept 2.4 with Nexys2 board on a Windows XP guest.

[erhardm]

The same problem exist in version 4.0.4 r70112

[Andrew]

This problem persists in version 4.0.10 with Arch Linux kernel 2.6.39 as the host and windows 7 32 bit as the guest.

[Frank Mehnert]

andreweff, which package did you use? The official package from our website or an Arch Linux package?

[Andrew]

I used this package: ​http://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/virtualbox/ I could try the package from the website but I'd imagine that the arch package is based on it.

[Frank Mehnert]

That's easy to find out if you attach a VBox.log file from such a VM session to this ticket.

[Andrew]

Several Logs in which this problem occurs.

[Frank Mehnert]

In that case the case is clear. The Arch Linux guys use the official source code for compiling their own package. For proper USB 2.0 support, the extension pack is required but due to a bug this does not help for VBox 4.0.10. I'm quite sure that your problems result from this bug. That bug will be fixed in the next maintenance release.

[Andrew]

I think I have the extension pack installed as well. Does this bug mean that this issue will occur even with the extension pack? If I am somehow able to rollback to a version that doesn't have this bug should it work? What is the latest version that doesn't have this bug?

arch extension package: ​http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=44761

[Frank Mehnert]

The Arch extension pack is just the official extension pack from the VirtualBox download site. Yes, even if the extension pack is installed you wouldn't be able to enable USB 2.0 devices. Either install the official package (the universal.run package in your case) or install any 3.2.x package.

[vollkorn]

Same problem with 4.1.4. I'm using Max OS X 10.7.2 as host and Windows XP SP3 as guest. Digilents Adept is able to identify the device (Basys 2) but when I try to connect it reports "Initialization failed. Check connection and try again". Would be great if the bug gets fixed in near future :)

[rafoakwa]

Same problem persists using MAC OS 10.9.1 as host and Windows 7 as guest on VB 4.3.2. A fix would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

[kulp]

There is a workaround. I had this problem with Mac OS X 10.9.4 as the host and Debian with kernel 2.6.32-5-amd64 as the guest. I found that uninstalling the Oracle Extension pack (EHCI host) and using the default VirtualBox USB 1.1 support causes my flashing of my Digilent Nexys3 board to work properly.

This is not an option for many people, but it does demonstrate that there is the possibility of getting it to work, so perhaps someone sufficiently motivated would like to explore the reason it works with USB 1.1 and not USB 2.0 (but since the Oracle extension pack is binary-only, that means it would have to be Oracle ... somehow this seems unlikely.)

[Guy Taylor]

Same with 5.0.14 with extensions:

Host:

• Ubuntu 15.10 x64
• Kernels 4.2 and 4.5
• Asus UX305FA - USB3

Guest:

• Windows 10 x64
• Ubuntu 15.10 x64

Device:

• Canon DR-F120 scanner

[Guy Taylor]

I have tested the same setup but with 4.3.36 and have the same result. I also tested with and without EHCI on 4.3.36. Without EHCI the scanner was not healthy due to "IO Errors" in windows device manager.

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release (please also try the latest 5.1 or 5.2 testbuild from here as it includes a fix for the USB controller emulations which might solve some I/O issues).

[mrjimenez]

Still relevant for Virtualbox 5.2.12 on opensuse Tumbleweed. Adept 2.17.1 inside windows 10 does recognize the board plugged in the USB connector, but the program fails with the message "Initialization failure. Check connections and try again."

[mrjimenez]

I have the following debug information, maybe it helps the developers. Seems to be related to a failure in the FTDI driver?

C:\Program Files (x86)\Digilent\AdeptUtilities>djtgcfg.exe enum
Found 1 device(s)

Device: Nexys3
    Product Name:   Nexys3
    User Name:      Nexys3
    Serial Number:  210182477273

C:\Program Files (x86)\Digilent\AdeptUtilities>djtgcfg.exe -d Nexys3 init
ERROR: unable to open device "Nexys3"

C:\Program Files (x86)\Digilent\AdeptUtilities>type c:\adept_log.txt
System Time     Process     Thread        ERC     ERC String                  Message
4096781         4924        3712          3080    ercInternalError            FTDIC::FEnumAndUpdateCache call to ListDevices failed
4096796         4924        3712          3080    ercInternalError            FTDIC::FEnum FEnumAndUpdateCache() failed
4115937         5828        1324          3080    ercInternalError            FTDIC::FEnumAndUpdateCache call to ListDevices failed
4115937         5828        1324          3080    ercInternalError            FTDIC::FEnum FEnumAndUpdateCache() failed
4130328         7820        5156          3072    ercConnectionFailed         DVTP1::FTransReset FTransWait endpCmd failed
4130328         7820        5156          3080    ercInternalError            USBC::HifOpenEx DVT::FConnect failed
4130328         7820        5156          3080    ercInternalError            DVT::Disconnect pdvtopn->PnmtxFromIdvto
4130343         7820        5156          3080    ercInternalError            FTDIC::FEnumAndUpdateCache call to ListDevices failed
4130343         7820        5156          3080    ercInternalError            FTDIC::HifOpenEx FEnumAndUpdateCache() failed
4130343         7820        5156          3072    ercConnectionFailed         DpcOpen - device not found

[Mikael Strom]

There seem to be some issues with USB support in VirtualBox (5.2.12). I run Arch Linux 64bit (4.16.11-1) as guest under MacOS, and find that only OHCI (USB 1.1) works with digilent drivers for ISE 14.7. If I select EHCI or xHCI impact fails to initialize jtag/chain.

The exact same VM (except guest drivers) works flawless in Parallells Desktop.

I hope Oracle sort this out.