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Ever used VirtualBox? I depend on it. I run an all linux desktop, but i require a virtual machine hosted by VirtualBox for Visual Studio (ASP.NET Developer by trade). However, for the last few months, my VirtualBox has had all my USB Devices greyed out, which is a pain in the arse.

You can normally solve this simply by executing VirtualBox as the root user… i.e.

sudo VirtualBox

And voila, all your USB Devices will appear and be selectable in VirtualBox. However it’s a bit of a pain doing this every time, and why should I? It’s my PC, they are my devices. I’ll decide when i will and wont use them!

The problem will most likely be, that your user account won’t be in the vboxusers group since you installed the VirtualBox application. Which again, is a pain. Small problem… small fix! Add your user to the group.

sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers

Reboot (logout will probably suffice…) and voila, your USB devices will no longer be greyed out in VirtualBox.