Edit of shared folder has no effect in guest

[simon marshall]

(I was trying to replicate my entry for HGCM error in ​http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/6314 on a different host but without success. However, I can replicate the shared folder issue so I'm reporting it as a new ticket.)

I installed a Solaris-x86 (s10u8) guest under VB-3.2.4 on my Win7 host.

• updated the vm (5 updates) and rebooted guest
  
• installed the ga and rebooted guest
  
• created a shared folder called marshals to a particular host folder "1"
  
• mount -F vboxfs marshals /export/home/marshals and rebooted guest
  
• remounted and verified shared folder visible with contents of "1"
  
• edited shared folder to point to a different host folder "2"
  
• unmounted marshals and remounted marshals
  

BUG: the mounted directory is still pointing to the original host folder "1"

• rebooted guest and verified the bug
  

[Gilles]

Same problem here with VirtualBox 3.2.6 with Guest and Host OS Windows XP VM created with a shared Folder (VirtualShared) Deleted shared folder entry recreate shared folder entry pointing to a new folder. result : New folder is not accessible, only old one.

I confirm, there is a relation with problem #6314

[pjotr1977]

WORKAROUND: Failed to load unit 'HGCM' (VERR_INVALID_PARAMETER):

You need to fix up your virtual box xml. There is a SharedFolders node for the snapshot, that probably contains the configured Shared Folders, but the SharedFolders node underneath the Hardware node is empty. If you copy the SharedFolders node content to the SharedFolders empty node and save the XML your machine will start again. You will also notice that the user interface will display the Shared Folders again.

In my case the virtual box xml contained the following bad config that produced the error Failed to load unit 'HGCM' (VERR_INVALID_PARAMETER):

<Snapshot uuid="{350bf11e-2100-437a-b01f-b2b7b2053a1e}" name="Test machine" timeStamp="2010-09-22T22:16:50Z" stateFile="Snapshots/{350bf11e-2100-437a-b01f-b2b7b2053a1e}.sav">
     <Hardware version="2">
     <....>
     <SharedFolders>
        <SharedFolder name="Downloads" hostPath="/Users/pjotr/Downloads" writable="true"/>
        <SharedFolder name="VMSharedFolders" hostPath="/Users/pjotr/VMSharedFolders" writable="true"/>
     </SharedFolders>
     <...>
<Hardware version="2">
<...>
   <SharedFolders />
<...>

Then I changed the XML file to:

<Snapshot uuid="{350bf11e-2100-437a-b01f-b2b7b2053a1e}" name="Test machine" timeStamp="2010-09-22T22:16:50Z" stateFile="Snapshots/{350bf11e-2100-437a-b01f-b2b7b2053a1e}.sav">
     <Hardware version="2">
     <....>
     <SharedFolders>
        <SharedFolder name="Downloads" hostPath="/Users/pjotr/Downloads" writable="true"/>
        <SharedFolder name="VMSharedFolders" hostPath="/Users/pjotr/VMSharedFolders" writable="true"/>
     </SharedFolders>
     <...>
<Hardware version="2">
        <...>
        <SharedFolders>
            <SharedFolder name="Downloads" hostPath="/Users/pjotr/Downloads" writable="true"/>
            <SharedFolder name="VMSharedFolders" hostPath="/Users/pjotr/VMSharedFolders" writable="true"/>
     </SharedFolders>
     <...>

[hackerNovitiate]

I just encountered this on VBox 4.0.8, Win7 Pro 32-bit host, Ubuntu 10.10 32-bit guest.

I had auto-mount enabled before, but decided to disable it and restart my VM. After the restart, attempting a manual mount produced an "Invalid parameter" message in the Console; editing the Shared Folders settings gave me a "Broken Shared Folder" error from the VBox GUI (note that I had not touched the folder on the host).

I read somewhere that prepending '/' to the shared folder name helps, so I tried that for all my shared folders. Despite another round of "Broken Shared Folder" messages, they all mounted fine, and I was able to read+write to the host folder.

Then, I saved state, and am now unable to restore my machine.

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.