Pitfalls Using USB Devices in Virtual Machines

Not all hypervisor, USB controller, USB device are created the same….

For VirtualBox Users

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• Virtual USB 2.0 (EHCI) and USB 3.0 (xHCI) support are acquired by installing VirtualBox extension pack.
• On Linux hosts, any system user who is going to use USB devices from VirtualBox guests must be a member of group vboxusers.

For VMware Product Users

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• Problems using some USB devices in a virtual machine

For All

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If you see error message similar to device descriptor read/64, error -110 in dmesg, try a different

1. Physical port (USB 2.0 <=> USB 3.0) to plug on host machine, if it has both.
2. Virtual USB controller (USB 2.0 <=> USB 3.0) to emulate on guest machine.

You might need to try through the combinations, reconnect USB device multiple times, to see which of them work in your use case.

None of them works? Consider multi-boot or live-boot into your OS of interest, as bare-metal should be the most trouble-free setup driving USB devices.