Comment 1 for bug 1769453

> On May 6, 2018 at 7:52 AM Hank Grabowski <email address hidden> wrote:
>
>
> Public bug reported:
>
> I first ran across this in one of my main VMs when I tried the update.
> Everything went great, I re-applied the guest additions and voilà my
> shared folder drives mounted and I was in business. The next day when I
> fired up the VM they were missing. It was a hectic day, so I thought
> perhaps I had remembered it working so I applied the guest additions
> again. The drives reappeared. This time I rebooted to confirm it stuck
> but sadly they did not. I’ve continued to do some experimenting and
> have come to discover that while they are there the systemd process
> doesn’t seem to want to start on reboot even though it is set to. So to
> fix it I just need to do the following command to get them to show up:
>
> sudo systemctl restart vboxadd-service.service
>
> I wasn’t having this problem on Ubuntu 18.04 or Ubuntu MATE 18.04 virgin
> machines so this was either a problem with the general Ubuntu 16.04 to
> 18.04 upgrade process or specific to Ubuntu MATE 16.04 to 18.04 upgrade.
> I therefore went about creating two brand new VMs, one each for mainline
> Ubuntu 16.04 and one for Ubuntu MATE 16.04 and then went through the
> upgrade process directly. Those steps are:
>
> Fresh install OS with 3rd party and upgrades turned on
> Follow https://virtualboxes.org/doc/installing-guest-additions-on-ubuntu/ for installing guest additions
> Shutdown/Power on
> Add user to the vboxsf group (sudo usermod -a -G vboxsf <username>)
> Restart
> Confirm Read/write access to shared folder drive
> Bring up System graphical updater, do any additional updates
> Invoke Upgrade to 18.04 through graphical system:
> sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade
> update-manager -d
> Perform upgrade and reboot
> See if shared folder drive there
> After Update re-apply kernel extensions
> Restart
> Confirm shared drive read/write access
>
> I can repeatably show that mainline Ubuntu 16.04 goes through these
> updates without this artifact but the MATE version does not. Again, a
> fresh Ubuntu MATE 18.04 install doesn’t have this behavior at all.
>
> ** Affects: ubuntu-mate
> Importance: Undecided
> Status: New
>
>
> ** Tags: additions box guest ugrade virtual
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to ubuntu-
> mate.
> Matching subscriptions: oldrocker99
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1769453
>
> Title:
> Virtual Box Shared Folder Drives Don't Automount in 16.04 to 18.04
> upgraded Ubuntu MATE
>
> Status in ubuntu-mate:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> I first ran across this in one of my main VMs when I tried the update.
> Everything went great, I re-applied the guest additions and voilà my
> shared folder drives mounted and I was in business. The next day when
> I fired up the VM they were missing. It was a hectic day, so I
> thought perhaps I had remembered it working so I applied the guest
> additions again. The drives reappeared. This time I rebooted to
> confirm it stuck but sadly they did not. I’ve continued to do some
> experimenting and have come to discover that while they are there the
> systemd process doesn’t seem to want to start on reboot even though it
> is set to. So to fix it I just need to do the following command to get
> them to show up:
>
> sudo systemctl restart vboxadd-service.service
>
> I wasn’t having this problem on Ubuntu 18.04 or Ubuntu MATE 18.04
> virgin machines so this was either a problem with the general Ubuntu
> 16.04 to 18.04 upgrade process or specific to Ubuntu MATE 16.04 to
> 18.04 upgrade. I therefore went about creating two brand new VMs, one
> each for mainline Ubuntu 16.04 and one for Ubuntu MATE 16.04 and then
> went through the upgrade process directly. Those steps are:
>
> Fresh install OS with 3rd party and upgrades turned on
> Follow https://virtualboxes.org/doc/installing-guest-additions-on-ubuntu/ for installing guest additions
> Shutdown/Power on
> Add user to the vboxsf group (sudo usermod -a -G vboxsf <username>)
> Restart
> Confirm Read/write access to shared folder drive
> Bring up System graphical updater, do any additional updates
> Invoke Upgrade to 18.04 through graphical system:
> sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade
> update-manager -d
> Perform upgrade and reboot
> See if shared folder drive there
> After Update re-apply kernel extensions
> Restart
> Confirm shared drive read/write access
>
> I can repeatably show that mainline Ubuntu 16.04 goes through these
> updates without this artifact but the MATE version does not. Again, a
> fresh Ubuntu MATE 18.04 install doesn’t have this behavior at all.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate/+bug/1769453/+subscriptions

Sometimes, the upgrade-in-place process doesn't work well, and it would appear that this might be the problem. Do a fresh install, and make sure that you create a separate /home partition, unless you already have, to avoid restoring /home from a backup. The system partition needn't be very large; 64GB is more than enough. The second partition is what you assign to /home. You'll need to select "Something Else" from the options screen.

Let me know if there are problems or other questions.