Hi everybody,

I get an issue on my VM today , so that I can’t open it anymore.
When trying a  system restore I get the same state.
I was really embarrassed to fail to restore my VM (as a huge work was done on it)
Below we will see how to fix this issue

Issue description

Investigations
I have checked the VM folders , still got the snapshots but can’t even load them :/
Below you can also see that VBOX machine definition file is now empty…(I tried to adapt this file from a working VM but too many different parameters as the snapshot name/numbers and some specific info related to each VM)
By the way, issue’s log says that a document is empty.

Solution
Using a file text editor, I have copied the contain of the file with -prev suffix and added it to the VirtualBox Machine Definition , then I clicked on refresh button and that’s it my VM is again available.You can also use a CMD prompt to perform that.

Command to use
copy "C:\...\yourvmdirectory\YOURVBOXMACHINENAME.vbox-prev" "C:\...\yourvmdirectory\YOURVBOXMACHINENAME"
Example
C:\Users\nso>copy "C:\Users\nso\VirtualBox VMs\CTMSRVCENTOS-------- CENTOS ISO 7 10 Clone\CTMSRVCENTOS-------- CENTOS ISO 7 10 Clone.vbox-prev" "C:\Users\nso\VirtualBox VMs\CTMSRVCENTOS-------- CENTOS ISO 7 10 Clone\CTMSRVCENTOS-------- CENTOS ISO 7 10 Clone"
Remplacer C:\Users\nso\VirtualBox VMs\CTMSRVCENTOS-------- CENTOS ISO 7 10 Clone\CTMSRVCENTOS-------- CENTOS ISO 7 10 Clone (Oui/Non/Tous) :
1 fichier(s) copié(s).
C:\Users\nso>

Refresh your VM

Hope it will be helpful as it was for me! Feel free to check more contains on dbi’s blogs especially Control-M part 😉