virtualbox - Trying to open a VM config which has the same UUID as an existing virtual machine

When trying to add two VirtualBox virtual machines which have been originally copied (via simple file copy) from the same source, on adding the second one I get the message

Failed to open virtual machine [...]
Trying to open a VM config [...] which has the same UUID as an existing virtual machine.

(Yes, the machines should have been cloned instead of simple file copy, but it is too late at this point.)

Answer

You can use VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid (Run from the VBox install directory) to change the HD UUID, but this has two shortcomings: it does not update the .vbox file, and it does not change the machine UUID (I did not find any way to do this with VBoxManage), just the HD UUID.

The following worked for me (Win 7, most recent VirtualBox version):

1. run VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid twice (the first time is just to conveniently generate an UUID, you could use any other UUID generation method instead)


2. open the .vbox file in a text editor


3. replace the UUID found in with the UUID you got when you ran sethduuid the first time


4. replace the UUID found in and in (towards the end) with the UUID you got when you ran sethduuid the second time



You can add the virtual machine after that. Not a very clean solution, but does not seem to cause any problem.