Due to problems affecting the computers of Mint users who have installed or updated to the latest VirtualBox release in the Ubuntu repos, 5.1.34, I highly recommend that you do not install this update until the problem has been resolved.

See here for information from folk affected by the problem:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ds-4175626369/

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtop...?f=47&t=266431

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...pc-4175626377/

I will update this thread with any further news.

As posted just now on the Linux Mint forums:

We believe the following updates prevent the issue from happening for people who didn't get it yet:

- Linux Mint 18 sarah: mintupdate 5.1.0.5
- Linux Mint 18.1 serena: mintupdate 5.2.1.2
- Linux Mint 18.2 sonya: mintupdate 5.2.9.1
- Linux Mint 18.3 sylvia: mintupdate 5.3.2.1

These mintupdate updates trigger the removal of virtualbox-guest-utils, virtualbox-guest-x11 and virtualbox-guest-dkms.

These packages are not needed if you're running Linux Mint on a computer.

If you are running Linux Mint as a guest OS within Virtualbox, proceed with the removal of these packages and then install the Virtualbox Guest Additions (In the guest virtual machine, choose Devices -> Install Guest Additions from the menubar).

If you already applied the virtualbox-guest* updates and you're unable to log in:

- Drop to console by pressing CTRL+ALT+F1
- Login in text mode
- Remove the virtualbox guest packages with the command below:

- Reboot the computer

Good! I wondered about that the last few years whenever I noticed those packages being updated with other updates for Mint on real machines. Whenever I thought about it, and had time to spare (and was annoyed enough ;-} ) I would uninstall those packages with no ill effects. Thanks for the tidying up.

FYI, I also see other pending updates after running mintupdate, which is what I was expecting as usual.

Yup, I wasn't affected as well, because one of the first things I do with a fresh installation is to purge all the various virtualbox packages from it and then install the latest version from Oracle's site. A slightly OCD mind sometimes has its advantages.