HISTORY
I was running Vbox on Ubuntu host, XP guest very happily using two Canon printers. Then upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10, re-installed Guest Additions, enabled both printers and two other USB devices

PROBLEM
Both printers are shown greyed out and unavailable on XP, but are enabled in Vbox. The other devices are fine. I remember having this sort of trouble at first when I started on Vbox, but can't remember what sort of incantation/dance/spell was necessary to get the thing working!

What version of Vbox? I had a similar issue with an older version. Version 3.0.10 is current.

It's 3.0.10.
Originally I was using 3.0.8, where I had the same problems until it (magically) started working.

H E L P!

Have you gone to Devices --> USB Devices ? and is there an 'x' for each device you want windoze using?

Close your virtual machine. Now on the Virtual Box, click settings, and USB, Enable the controller, and select click USB 2.0 if your system is USB 2.0. If it is older, I think 1.2, do not select this option. This is hardware dependent. Create a filter for each device you may want to use on the guest system.

BTW, this is the version I'm running on Mandriva linux host.

Hi Cliff,

Thanks but I've tried all of that. I've tried selecting USB 2, and not selecting it, but it makes no difference.

Both printers, an external hard drive and Spyder3 are enabled. The external hard drive and Spyder work perfectly without being re-installed; the printers just sit there greyed out with 'unavailable' showing on mouse-over in XP. One of the printers is wide format and can't be used outside XP - there's no alternative driver. The other printer is A3, but I need the wide one at present, and time isn't on my side here.

As far as I can see I'm doing exactly the same as before, but either Ubuntu or Vbox is having a tantrum.

Cheers
Girts

If you run a command of 'lsusb' in linux, can you see the devices that don't show up in windoze?

Last thought, have a look in the Vbox log file to see if there is anything there that may point us in the right direction...

Hi Cliff,

Sorry about the delay - but I had to work around the problem to get an urgent job printed out and delivered to the client.

Meanwhile, back at the box...

It's not that they don't show up in XP... they show up but they're greyed out and instead of the tick-box being clear it's grey and inactive. So I can see that XP can see there's a printer there, but it's not talking to it. Very standoffish, these XPs!

So I wondered if the XP firewall could be playing silly wotsits. The sneaky thing had enabled itself, dammit! But disabling it made no difference. I've rebooted VB and still no joy.

I've looked at the log ... Errm, yes, well, there's a lot of lines there... mean nothing at all to me - total gibberish.

So, still confused.

Girts

Since you seem to have filters to allow or deny the USB devices to XP, I'm wondering if the drivers for the USB hardware on XP got loaded and there are no IRQ conflicts in XP.

Have a look in Control Panel, and then System, and open the Device Manager. Click on USB, have a look at each part for any problems. I looked at mine, there is a check box in there to allow XP to power off unused devices to "save power". Have a look to see if you can turn anything up that looks strange.

I've tried all that, but no joy. Been very busy the last few days, but notice there's a new version of VBox available. 3.0.12. I'll try upgrading to that and see if it makes any difference.

Regards
Girts

Are you using the open source edition of Vbox? If so, USB is a feature that is not available, unless you get the commercial version of Vbox. See here:

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Editions

I did some reading on this topic. It seems this is a common problem. There is as a solution to the common problem.

What is wrong is the user does not get access to the usbfs. Here are the things to check.

There should be an entry in /etc/fstab like this one:

Notice the devgid=43. This is a group called 'usb' on my system. Any user needing access to the usbfs needs to be added to this group. If they do not belong, then they will not be able to use usb devices, and the icon is greyed out.

I don't think the group id number is significant. It could be some other number. Just add the user to that group.

Hope this helps.

Suggests it's a Windows problem, not a VirtualBox problem -- in which case you might be better off asking in a Windows forum.

1 members found this post helpful.

DISKOE: When I upgraded Ubuntu to 9.10, it automatically installed OSE VBox and that's when the problem began. I noticed that and replaced it with PUEL, but as I say, there are a couple of USB devices which work fine - the Spyder monitor calibration unit and an external hard drive. No problems with either.

CAMORRI: I think that because there are a couple of devices working fine on USB there can't be a problem with the files you quoted - but a good thought anyway.

CATKIN: You may have a point there, about it being a Windows problem. I read somewhere that Windows can be very funny about how you get it to recognise USBs, and you need to remove an item, put it into a different port when it's running or not running or there's a full moon, or something. But can I find the thread now I need it? See you in the Windows forum...

RESOLVED

Someone suggested I check that my name was in the lpr group. I looked in user groups and checked the box next to my user name in lpr group, re-booted VBox and Ubuntu, and both printers are now available and working!

Thanks to everyone for their help.