On Virtualbox start/stop/reboot are not reliable

[aspiwack]

The most common case in which such a problem manifests is that stop aborts the machine instead of cleanly turning it off, and then start (the same can happen within one reboot) cannot start the machine. This can be worked around by using Virtualbox to start the machine while start is looking for an ssh connexion, which will eventually succeed.

A trickier case has happened to me, usually after a suspend with a machine still up, then stop itself doesn't work, and sometimes I couldn't find any better solution than destroying the machine and re-create it.

[aborsu]

+1