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Problem When attempting to mount a shared directory from Linux Mint 16 VirtualBox guest OS, I receive the following error:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on hostshare,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       (for several filesystems (e.g. nfs, cifs) you might
       need a /sbin/mount.<type> helper program)
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

My mount command is sudo mount -t vboxsf hostshare ~/host

dmesg | tail reveals: 'sf_read_super_aux err=-22'

Environment - Host OS: Windows 7 64 bit - Guest OS: Linux Mint 64 bit (Mate) - VirtualBox 4.3.10 - VirtualBox Guest Additions 4.3.10 - Shared directory defined in VirtualBox as 'hostshare' with Make Permanent checked - ~/host is defined on the guest OS file system

What I have tried I can mount this directory from other VirtualBox guests, including Mint 15 32 bit. I reinstalled guest additions on Mint 16 and from what I can see, it is running. I have rebooted the host OS, VirtualBox and the Guest OS several times. I renamed the shared folder to various silly things to no avail. Changed VirtualBox network from NAT to Bridged Adaptor. Other Guest Additions features (Shared Clipboard, Drag'n'Drop) work properly.

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    I finally fixed it but I'm too new to post the answer :(. The symlink for mount.vboxsf was broken. Here's what I ran to correct it: cd /sbin sudo rm mount.vboxsf sudo ln /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf Hope this is of use to someone else!
    – William
    Mar 31, 2014 at 22:56
  • 1
    Thank you so much for your discovery. I was going nuts. I wonder how you guessed that the problem was a broken symlink, given that the error message is so vague. I am on Debian wheezy 7.4 32-bit. The correct link in my case was ln -s /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-4.3.10/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf. Please post it as a solution as soon as you have enough rep so I can upvote it :) Apr 18, 2014 at 19:35

4 Answers 4

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I confirm your solution. I'm using a debian 7 amd64 guest on a windows 7 64-bits. I updated virtualbox from 4.3.8 to 4.3.10. The following symlink: /sbin/mount.vboxsf points to /usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf whereas the real path to mount.vboxsf is: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf.

This issue seems to be fixed in virtualbox subversion repository. Thus, it should be fixed in next version.

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    In the meantime a workaround could be: sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf /sbin/mount.vboxsf Apr 16, 2014 at 9:11
  • Solution worked great, but I can't figure out for the life of me why this "broke" all of a sudden. I'm not doing any automatic updating.
    – Seth
    May 8, 2017 at 12:39
4

I had the same problem. and the solution of the topic starter almost worked for me, but in Lubuntu 13 instead of

ln /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf

I used

ln -s /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-4.3.10/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf
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For Debian:

There is a symbolic link in /sbin folder, file mount.vboxsf, which is linked wrong. The right link is mount.vboxsf -> /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-xxxxx/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf.

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It is possible to create a simblic link in /usr/lib64 which points to folder:

/opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-4.3.10/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/

It works in my Kubuntu 14.04 guest on a Windons 7 host

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