Troubleshoot USB Device Control Issues on a Linux Host

You have problems connecting or disconnecting USB devices on a Linux host system.

Problem

You are prompted to disconnect the driver on the host system when you connect a USB device to the virtual machine or disconnecting the device fails.

Cause

On Linux host systems, guest operating systems can use devices that are not claimed by a host operating system driver. A related issue sometimes affects devices that rely on automatic connection, such as PDAs. Occasionally, even if you successfully use autoconnection to connect the device to the virtual machine, you might experience problems with the connection to the device.

Solution

1. If you have problems with autoconnection, perform these steps.
   1. Select the virtual machine and select VM > Removable Devices to disconnect and reconnect the device.
   2. If the problem persists, unplug the device and plug it in again.
   3. If a warning message indicates that the device is in use, disable the device in the hotplug configuration files in the /etc/hotplug directory.

      The documentation for the Linux distribution contains information on editing these configuration files.

2. If disconnection fails, either disable the driver or unload the driver manually.

   Option	Description
   Disable the driver	If the driver was automatically loaded by hotplug, disable it in the hotplug configuration files in the /etc/hotplug directory. See the documentation for your Linux distribution for information on editing these configuration files.
   Unload the driver manually	Become root (su -) and use the rmmod command.