5.1 installation fails on Sierra due to kext load issue

[Mike446]

Tested on Mac OS X 10.12.3, fairly recently installed with virtualbox 5.1.14.

Feb  9 16:46:22 oiketes installd[429]: PackageKit: prevent user idle system sleep
Feb  9 16:46:22 oiketes installd[429]: PackageKit: suspending backupd
Feb  9 16:46:22 oiketes installd[429]: PackageKit: Executing script "./preflight" in /private/tmp/PKInstallSandbox.BOhp2m/Scripts/org.virtualbox.pkg.virtualbox.DqpVZp
Feb  9 16:46:22 oiketes installd[429]: PackageKit: Using trashcan path /var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/T/PKInstallSandboxTrash/B4A71E15-7725-4A78-A613-652406DB7FB1.sandboxTrash for sandbox /var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/C/PKInstallSandboxManager/B4A71E15-7725-4A78-A613-652406DB7FB1.activeSandbox
Feb  9 16:46:22 oiketes install_monitor[96974]: Temporarily excluding: /Applications, /Library, /System, /bin, /private, /sbin, /usr
Feb  9 16:46:22 oiketes installd[429]: PackageKit: Shoving /var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/C/PKInstallSandboxManager/B4A71E15-7725-4A78-A613-652406DB7FB1.activeSandbox/Root (3 items) to /
Feb  9 16:46:22 oiketes installd[429]: PackageKit: Executing script "./postflight" in /private/tmp/PKInstallSandbox.BOhp2m/Scripts/org.virtualbox.pkg.vboxkexts.2lA03l
Feb  9 16:46:22 oiketes installd[429]: ./postflight: /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.virtualbox.startup.plist
Feb  9 16:46:22 oiketes installd[429]: ./postflight: /Library/Application Support/VirtualBox/VBoxDrv.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) kext (kmod) start/stop routine failed; check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8).
Feb  9 16:46:22 oiketes install_monitor[96974]: Re-included: /Applications, /Library, /System, /bin, /private, /sbin, /usr
Feb  9 16:46:23 oiketes installd[429]: PackageKit: releasing backupd
Feb  9 16:46:23 oiketes installd[429]: PackageKit: allow user idle system sleep
Feb  9 16:46:23 oiketes installd[429]: PackageKit: Install Failed: Error Domain=PKInstallErrorDomain Code=112 "An error occurred while running scripts from the package “VirtualBox.pkg”." UserInfo={NSFilePath=./postflight, NSURL=file://localhost/Volumes/VirtualBox/VirtualBox.pkg#VBoxKEXTs.pkg, PKInstallPackageIdentifier=org.virtualbox.pkg.vboxkexts, NSLocalizedDescription=An error occurred while running scripts from the package “VirtualBox.pkg”.} {
	    NSFilePath = "./postflight";
	    NSLocalizedDescription = "An error occurred while running scripts from the package \U201cVirtualBox.pkg\U201d.";
	    NSURL = "file://localhost/Volumes/VirtualBox/VirtualBox.pkg#VBoxKEXTs.pkg";
	    PKInstallPackageIdentifier = "org.virtualbox.pkg.vboxkexts";
	}

In dmesg I see:

VBoxDrv: vmx_resume=ffffff801a817fb0 vmx_suspend=ffffff801a817f60 vmx_use_count=ffffff801ae8e7c0 (0) cr4=0x1627e0
VBoxDrv: cdevsw_add failed (-1)

I'm not sure how to debug this problem further at the moment

[Mike446]

solved by reboot. sorry for the noise.

[michaln]

The key here is "VBoxDrv: cdevsw_add failed". What that means is that it's not possible to register another character device with the OS (with the BSD subsystem to be exact). And without that, VirtualBox can't work.

This is ultimately a limitation of OS X. Reboot probably helped because some other kext/device wasn't loaded/registered after the reboot and there was room for the VirtualBox driver to be loaded.

If it happens again, it would be helpful to capture and attach the output of 'ls -l /dev' as well as 'kextstat'.