debugging – VirtualBox error “VT-x is being used by another hypervisor (VERR_VMX_IN_VMX_ROOT_MODE)” on Ubuntu 24.04

I’m running Ubuntu 24.04 (LTS) with VirtualBox installed.

When I try to start any VM, I get the following error:

VT-x is being used by another hypervisor (VERR_VMX_IN_VMX_ROOT_MODE)

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)

System Specs:

Host: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Kernel: 6.14.0-33-generic

CPU: Intel

VirtualBox Version: 7.1

Previously used virtualization: QEMU

What i Observed

On Ubuntu 24.04, the KVM modules are still loaded even though i do not currently use QEMU

lsmod | grep kvm

shows

kvm

kvm_intel

So i tried to remove them

But sudo rmmod kvm_intel kvm

removes those kernel modules but i still got the same error during running my virtual machine