Ubuntu 15.04 Desktop - vboxautostart does not work on boot (no output)

[Michael Yoo]

Hello,

While trying to get vboxautostart working on Ubuntu (GNOME) Desktop 15.04, I've encountered a problem where vboxautostart does not function correctly on boot. It does nothing upon system boot, however restarting it manually "systemctl restart vboxautostart-service" after logging in makes it start VMs correctly.

Since the default init.d file provided does not log anything to journald(syslog), I've had to modify it to remove the "--background" flags.

After doing that, this is what I get:

On system boot:

Sep 03 23:56:01 workstation1 systemd[1]: Starting LSB: VirtualBox autostart service...
Sep 03 23:56:01 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[1154]: Starting VirtualBox VMs configured for autostartOracle VM Vir
Sep 03 23:56:01 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[1154]: (C) 2015 Oracle Corporation
Sep 03 23:56:01 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[1154]: All rights reserved.
Sep 03 23:56:01 workstation1 systemd[1]: Started LSB: VirtualBox autostart service.

If I restart the service manually after logging in:

Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 systemd[1]: Starting LSB: VirtualBox autostart service...
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: Starting VirtualBox VMs configured for autostartOracle VM Vir
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: (C) 2015 Oracle Corporation
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: All rights reserved.
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: VirtualBox Autostart 5.0.2 r102096 linux.amd64 (Aug 13 2015 1
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000347 main     Log opened 2015-09-03T...
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000348 main     Build Type: release
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000349 main     OS Product: Linux
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000350 main     OS Release: 3.19.0-26-generic
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000350 main     OS Version: #28-Ubuntu SMP Tue Aug 11 14:16:32 UTC 2015
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000363 main     DMI Product Name: All Series
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000366 main     DMI Product Version: System Version
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000416 main     Host RAM: 15957MB total, 14919MB available
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000417 main     Executable: /usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxAutostart
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000418 main     Process ID: 3640
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000418 main     Package type: LINUX_64BITS_UBUNTU_14_04
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.000426 main     Setting up ...
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.004796 main     Waiting for VM "..." to power on...
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.189850 main     VM "..." has been successfully started.
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.190933 main     Waiting for VM "..." to power on...
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.336516 main     VM "..." has been successfully started.
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 vboxautostart-service[3633]: 00:00:00.336995 main     Shutting down ...
Sep 03 23:56:57 workstation1 systemd[1]: Started LSB: VirtualBox autostart service.

As you can see, the VBoxAutoStart executable outputs and does nothing during the boot sequence, however restarting the service manually works as expected.

Has anyone else encountered the problem and how would I be able to further debug this issue?

[oldhat]

Seeing same thing in 5.0.20