Annoying VM issues

I spent all this afternoon trying to get my VM working so I could get some work done. I got a new PC recently, and if I tried to save settings in the BIOS then it wouldn't POST. So I updated the BIOS, and it seems that by default in the new BIOS settings hardware virtualisation is off, so when I tried to start my VM it wouldn't boot. So I turned on hardware virtualisation in the BIOS (which did save properly now, though it seems the failure to POST was due to RAM settings, not BIOS version, and it's actually worse on the new BIOS version).

After doing this vagrant started creating a new machine when I ran vagrant up, rather than running my existing VM. So I thought I'd leave it for later and just run it on my laptop (since no changes had been made there). But then that had exactly the same problem, and created another VM instead of booting the existing VM.

Back on my PC I found this thread: Re-associate vagrant with vm. The main piece of advice there is:

• Ran vagrant status
• At this point the VMs where still listed as "(not created)".
• Ran VBoxManage list vms to find the ids of the VMs
• Went in to ./vagrant/machines/dev/virtualbox/id and updated the id
• Ran vagrant status

After that I got a successful result, and so ran vagrant up. But it couldn't ssh into the machine as it had generated a new private key. So I thought I could just copy across the backup of the folder where the vagrant config files for the VM were. But after doing this it went back to trying to create a new machine again, and removing all the vagrant config files.

Running VBoxManage now, I saw that the correct VM wasn't even listed. But it was listed (the only VM) in the VirtualBox GUI and the VirtualBox config file. I tried running VirtualBox GUI as admin since I was running VBoxManage as admin, but still the same.

Eventually I just restarted the PC, ran VBoxManage again, and now it showed only the correct VM. I copied the vagrant machine config files back over from the backup, ran vagrant status, and it all looked good. Ran vagrant up, and the machine started up correctly!

If the same thing happens again in the future, hopefully I'll remember this blog post so I can sort it in 5 minutes instead of 5 hours.

eBay watchlist cleaning

Seems I only ever post on here now when cleaning out my eBay watchlist of old items. Oh well...

Eh? Where's my post gone?!

eBay watchlist cleaning

So, it's that time again when I clear out completed listings from my eBay watch list and make a note of any that I think sold particularly cheaply or expensively. If you're wondering what the point of this is, it's just a reminder that good deals on expensive items on eBay do come along every so often, you just need to be patient.

• Fuji 56mm f/1.2 lens faulty sold for £300 inc P&P. It was described as SUSTAINED IMPACT AT SOME POINT, AF UNTESTED, MF UNTESTED, OPTICS GOOD, MOUNT IS COMING OFF BODY, APERTURE SCALE IS STIFF HARDLY MOVES. Seems a lot of money for a broken lens to me.
• Sigma EX 300-800 mm f/5.6 APO HSM Lens for Canon sold for £2025 + £200 P&P. A very good price, but quite risky. The seller only had 1 feedback, which was a purchase (not a sale) over a year ago. Furthermore, the seller was located in Hungary. Generally these types of deals tend to be dodgy, but the buyer left positive feedback, so it seems they lucked out on this one.
• Le Creuset Double Oven Glove (new) sold for £18 + £3 economy delivery. That's currently £2 cheaper than Amazon, but I'm pretty sure Amazon was quite a bit cheaper at the time the auction ended. (CamelCamelCamel shows the price on Amazon seems to go up and down constantly).
• Mamiya 645 Pro TL Prisim kit with 45mm and 210mm lens sold for £365 + £25 P&P, which is a pretty good deal.
• Mamiya 645 Camera, 80mm f/1.9, 2x Vivitar TC, 45mm f/2.8, 110mm f/2.8 lenses and flight case sold for £294.99 + £10 P&P, which is an excellent deal. Just the 80mm lens by itself is worth at least £200. I would have bid at least that amount myself if I hadn't just bought myself the 80mm lens for said 200 smackers.
• Leitz Canada 280mm f4.8 Telyt visoflex lens sold for £200 + £10 P&P. Not sure on this as it's not a common lens, but I think that was a pretty good deal, especially considering the as-new condition.
• Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM sold for £523 inc. P&P. A very good deal. Had a crack in the lens hood, but that doesn't really affect performance.
• Canon FD EOS Converter sold for £300 + £12 P&P. These are pretty rare (a genuine Canon model), I think this was actually quite a bit cheaper than the normal selling price but not totally sure.
• Cokin Creative Ring Flash sold for £15 + £5 P&P. Not sure how I missed bidding on that one. No box or anything, but a good price.
• Voigtlander MACRO APO LANTHAR 125mm F/2.5 SL For Nikon sold for £1,562 inc. P&P
• Voigtlander- nikon APO LANTHAR 125mm - F/2.5 SL - 90mm 3.5 SL - 180mm F4 SL sold for £2,495 inc. P&P, which is presumably a good deal given the price of just the 125mm macro lens. I think the other two lenses are even rarer than the macro.
• Xbox 360 S 250GB Development/Debug Console Boxed sold for £273 inc. P&P. This seems like an excellent deal. Not sure why it was so cheap as current development models of consoles tend to be very expensive normally.
• Canon EF 600mm f4 L sold for £1,171 + £25 P&P. A good deal, but it was missing the gelatin filter holder, which I think is needed for use. And no hood either. (Accessories / parts such as these for the superteles tend to be pretty expensive).
• Panzer Dragoon VHS sold for £2.70 + £3.35 P&P. This was one of those annoying occasions where I was intending to bid on it, but thought there was longer until the auction finished as I had forgotten to force-refresh my ebay.
• Sigma EX 300-800mm f/5.6 APO HSM DG Lens Used Excellent NIKON fit sold for £2,250 + £121.70 P&P. A very good deal, this included both the Sigma padded bag and also a large photo rucksack that fits the lens. The P&P cost is a bit weird though.
• Nikon 400mm f2.8 AF-I D lens sold for £2000 (collection in person). While not the latest version of this lens, it seems a pretty good deal for an autofocus fast super tele.
• Nikon AF-I 600mm f/4 ED lens sold for £1,700 + £41.20 P&P. Again, an old version of this lens, but still quite a good price for an autofocus fast super tele.
• Steel Battalion Line of Contact Controller Xbox Original Used Once To Test. PAL sold for £85, collection only. A very good price if you lived near the seller to collect it.