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Windows - Unable to start the Virtual Device

  • Updated

Warning

If you upgraded Genymotion Desktop, make sure to upgrade VirtualBox if necessary. See VirtualBox recommended versions.

Note

If you get many User Account Control (UAC) pop-ups prompting for Administrator permission, you may also consider turning them off. For instructions, please refer to this article: Enable or Disable User Account Control (UAC) in Windows

Every time Genymotion Desktop is run, it calls VirtualBox to verify the availability of at least one VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter. If none is available or compatible, it tries to create a new one.

Unfortunately, this operation sometimes fail on Windows. To solve this, try the following solutions.

1. Reboot your PC

Rebooting your PC after having launched Genymotion Desktop for the first time often fixes this error.

2. Reinstall VirtualBox and/or Genymotion Desktop

You can first try to re-install VirtualBox:

  1. Remove VirtualBox from Windows.
  2. Download VirtualBox installer for the recommended version (see VirtualBox recommended versions).
  3. Install VirtualBox.
  4. Launch Genymotion Desktop. Do not launch a device or you will get an error!
  5. Reboot your PC.
  6. Launch Genymotion and start a device.

If this does not work, try removing both Genymotion Desktop and VirtualBox - see How to uninstall Genymotion Desktop completely (purge)? for instructions - and re-install them.

3. Upgrade VirtualBox to 7.0.22

If re-installing VirtualBox and Genymotion does not help, you can try upgrading VirtualBox to 7.0.22:

  1. Download VirtualBox 7.0.22 from this link.
  2. Install VirtualBox 7.0.22.
  3. Launch Genymotion Desktop. Do not launch a device yet, or you will get an error!
  4. Reboot your PC.
  5. Launch Genymotion and start a device.

Warning

Do not upgrade to VirtualBox 7.1! This version is not fully compatible with Genymotion Desktop yet. For more details, see VirtualBox 7.1 and Genymotion Desktop

4. Fix the VirtualBox host-only network interface

If none of the above worked, try the following:

  1. Open Windows Device Manager and go to Network adapters
  2. You may see 3 VirtualBox Host-only Ethernet Adapters and one is disabled:
    Device_manager.png
  3. Left-click on the disabled host-only interface and select Uninstall device. You should now have only 2 VirtualBox Host-only adapters:
    Capture d'écran 2023-08-23 144818.png
  4. Left-click on the second VirtualBox host-only adapter (usually called VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter #2) and select Update driver:
    Device_manager_update_driver.png
  5. Select Browse my computer for drivers
    Device_manager_3.png
  6. Select Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer
    Device_manager_4.png
  7. Select the driver called VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter and click Next
    Device_manager_5.png
  8. Close the Device Manager and start Genymotion Desktop.

If this still does not help, please refer to Windows/VirtualBox - An error has occurred while trying to create a virtualbox host-only network interface for other possible solutions.

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