In Ubuntu, the official Oracle VirtualBox packages (downloaded from the VirtualBox website/repository) often fail to recompile the host Kernel modules after a VirtualBox or Linux Kernel update, so the user must do this manually.





Until VirtualBox 5.0.8, the command to do this was "sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup" but with the latest version, this command has been replaced and now the application error dialog mentions running "sudo /sbin/vboxconfig" instead.

However, this command does not currently work, or at least that was the case for me (running Ubuntu 15.10) as well as quite a few other users. Update: VirtualBox now recommends using "sudo /sbin/rcvboxdrv setup", but this doesn't work either.



The workaround is pretty simple though - run the following command instead:

sudo /usr/lib/virtualbox/vboxdrv.sh setup

The command above should recompile the VirtualBox host Kernel modules and get the application to work again.





I'm not sure why dkms fails to rebuild the host Virtualbox (official packages only) kernel module automatically for many users - if you find a fix for this, let us know in the comments!