LPT, Cannot attach to host driver (VERR_INTERNAL_ERROR_3)

[Electron-John]

Summary: I am setting up a virtual box (ver. 5.1.4r110228 (Qt5.5.1) ) to run older, expensive software on a virtual Windows 2000 machine. There is a physical parallel port dongle that is needed. I have found and followed the tutorial on setting up the port (Enabling and Configuring Parallel (LPTx) Ports). I get an error that looks internal to Virtual Box. The virtual machine will not even continue past the error.

What I have done after the error:

1) Researched the forums:

A) Found several posts about parallel ports but none addressed the internal error I was getting. Nevertheless I tried some of the suggestions to no avail. Ultimately, my most reliable forum post was the tutorial.

B) Found a stale ticket (4279 - now obsolete) that ultimately was no use.

2) Posted in VitualBox on Windows Hosts, titled "parallel device 0 cannot attach to host driver" by Electron-John, 27, Aug 2016, 23:26.

A) That post has all the details, and both the log file and hardening log file. (Copies attached to this ticket.)

3) I have found the following on Microsoft's developer pages:

A) ​https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff543952(v=vs.85).aspx[[BR]]

B) If the link doesn't work or is blocked, try web searching "features of system-supplied drivers" and look for a microsoft link that has "ff543952" in it. This is current as of 31, Aug. 2016)

C) I am not experienced enough to figure out, on 64 bit Windows hosts, if VirtualBox needs to supply a vendor-supplied parallel port driver. I do not fully comprehend what the workaround is for 64 bit Windows hosts.

At this point I do not know how to resolve the internal error.

I have attached the log files and a copy of the original post.

Thank you in advance.

Electron John

[Electron-John]

Original Post in Forum

[Electron-John]

Hardenign log file zipped wiht 7-zip

[Electron-John]

Log file

[Frank Mehnert]

You use the wrong path! Use

\\.\PIPE\LPT1

instead of

LPT1:

[Electron-John]

I will try it by typing:

>VBoxManage modifyvm "Windows 2000" --lptmode1 "\\.\PIPE\LPT1"

[Electron-John]

Doesn't work for me. Now I get
Parallel#0 could not open '\\.\PIPE\LPT1' (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND).

Re-opening ticket.

[Frank Mehnert]

"File not found" means the device is not present. Perhaps wrong device name?

[Frank Mehnert]

My mistake. 'lpt1' would be correct. Check with 'dir lpt1' if this device exists.

[Electron-John]

C:>dir lpt1

Directory of \\.

File not found

Hardware manager shows LPT1 as normal operation with driver running properly. The driver is indicated to be from Microsoft Windows (see note below) version 6.1.7600.16385. It is installed in C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\paraport.sys. The base address of 0x378. The port came with the motherboard (purchased new 3 years ago).

I see that the driver is in the System32 folder. This seems to be in keeping with the note on MS website about the 64 bit systems not having a parallel port driver.

Does VirtualBox have a driver for 64 bit MS hosts? In the meantime, I am going to check for a 32 version of VirtualBox. Maybe I can get that version to pick up the 32 bit driver.

I will be off-line for the long weekend (in the US). I will have time to work more on this after that.

Thanks for looking into this frank. It is much appreciated.

EJ

[ItUsedToWork]

Same issue here. The logs are basicly the same:
"HostParallel#0: Could not get direct access to the host parallel port!! (rc=VERR_INTERNAL_ERROR_3)"
After the Win10 Anniversary update && VirtualBox update from 5.0.? to 5.1.6, this error now occurs.

[Klaus Espenlaub]

This is a semi-duplicate of #16127 (due to initial user error by using the incorrect "LPT1:" instead of "LPT1", but would trigger the other issue after correcting the user error), and should be fixed with the latest Windows test build: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Testbuilds

[Frank Mehnert]

Fix is part of VBox 5.1.12.