Solved : Error Upgrading VirtualBox 2.0.6 into 2.1.0

I found an error “Inaccessible VirtualBox Image” after upgrading VirtualBox Virtual Machine on my friend’s PC with openSUSE 11.1 installed. The install process went successfully after removing previous version but I accidentally found this message while running old virtual machine created with VirtualBox 2.0.6 on new VirtualBox 2.1.0 :

Assertion failed: [!name.isNull()] at ‘/home/vbox/vbox-2.1.0/src/

VBox/Main/NetworkAdapterImpl.cpp’ (1068) in nsresult NetworkAdapter::loadSettings(const settings::Key&). Please contact the product vendor!. Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0×80004005) Component: NetworkAdapter Interface: INetworkAdapter {a876d9b1-68d9-43b1-9c68-ddea0a473663}

After short investigation, it seems that the error occurred regarding Network Setup on virtual machine. Old virtual machine created with VirtualBox 2.0.6 using Host Network and with big modification on new version, the old Host Network setting was not fully compatible with new changes on VirtualBox 2.1.0.

The solution is quite simple :

Navigate to your virtual machine folder. In my case, the location is /home/vavai/.VirtualBox/Machines/WinXP
Backup the xml configuration file. In my case : WinXP.xml
Edit WinXP.xml

Remove the portion of configuration contains host network setup. If you confused which one should be deleted, simply remove network configuration. Below is my old VirtualBox configuration :

 <Network>
        <Adapter slot="0" enabled="true" MACAddress="080027D4F0CA" cable="true" speed="0" type="Am79C973">
          <HostInterface/>
        </Adapter>
        <Adapter slot="1" enabled="false" MACAddress="080027F94465" cable="true" speed="0" type="Am79C973"/>
        <Adapter slot="2" enabled="false" MACAddress="0800276589A9" cable="true" speed="0" type="Am79C973"/>
        <Adapter slot="3" enabled="false" MACAddress="08002705BA8D" cable="true" speed="0" type="Am79C973"/>
      </Network>

Run VirtualBox. If it’s still inaccessible, refresh it and then run the virtual machine. VirtualBox will be clever enough to re-create the network setting. NOTE : If you remove all of network configuration on step 4, re-activating the network on virtual machine setting. `