VirtualBox: Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)
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I'm running CachyOS with a Windows 11 VirtualBox setup on it and it was working perfectly fine for months until today after I updated my CachyOS via the Welcome Hello App and now my VM doesn't work at all.
This is the exact error I get when starting the VM:
But even creating new VMs doesn't seem to work.
And this is the VirtualBox Version that I have: 7.1.10 r169112
A step by step guide on how to fix it would be great, but any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks.
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I have tried to uninstall VirtualBox and install it again. I ran:
Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)
The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver is either not loaded or not set up correctly. Please try setting it up again by executing
'/sbin/vboxconfig'
as root.
If your system has EFI Secure Boot enabled you may also need to sign the kernel modules (vboxdrv, vboxnetflt, vboxnetadp, vboxpci) before you can load them. Please see your Linux system's documentation for more information.
where: suplibOsInit what: 3 VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED (-1908) - The support driver is not installed. On linux, open returned ENOENT.
How do I
> execute '/sbin/vboxconfig' as root
as mentioned in the error?
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I'm not super skilled at Linux and not sure what to do. I've google this a bit and have found other people with the same issue on Ubuntu. I haven't tried too much to fix it yet besides tweaking settings because I'm afraid I permanently break and/or lose my Windows VM with all of my data on it.
This is my current VM info:

sudo pacman -R virtualbox virtualbox-host-modules virtualbox-guest-iso
sudo systemctl stop vboxservice
sudo modprobe -r vboxpci vboxnetflt vboxnetadp vboxdrv
There were some errors, but it did successfully remove VirtualBox. I then restarted my computer and installed VirtualBox again, but via the CachyOS Hello App instead from the apps screen. The installation was successful, but I still get the same errors.
Asked by Shaun Roselt
(237 rep)
Jun 2, 2025, 09:32 AM
Last activity: Jun 8, 2025, 03:34 PM
Last activity: Jun 8, 2025, 03:34 PM