You state:
I pulled it from the apt repository just this morning. It is very unlikely to be a software issue, as I reinstalled the host OS this morning.
So you are running VirtualBox 5.0.40 from the default Ubuntu apt repo, correct? The problem is some software packages in repos are out of date and are not regularly updated. It seems to me you have been bitten by the error reported here titled “Host with kernel 4.13 freezes when starting a VM with VirtualBox”:
This is a spin-off of bug 1729568. With Kernel 4.13 (from linux-generic-hwe-16.04-edge), the host system freezes completely when starting a VM using VirtualBox. A black boot window pops up right before the freeze.
Deeper in the bug report you can see issues connected directly to VirtualBox 5.0.40 with the recommended solution being to use VirtualBox 5.2.x.
I would recommend that you follow the steps here on Oracle’s official site to setup a PPA—a custom “Personal Package Archive”—that will allow your system to get the latest VirtualBox releases and patches.
First add this line to your sources.list file located at /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian xenial contrib
Now add the Oracle public keys to your system by running these Wget commands:
wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
With that done, make sure you have the dkms package installed:
sudo apt-get install dkms
The run sudo apt-get update like this:
And install VirtualBox 5.2 like this:
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-5.2
Best Answer
Are you also on the Kernel Version
4.13.0-26-generic? Apparently there is a problem with that Version and VirtualBox. You could try to install a older Version, but please be aware that it will not contain the most recent Security patches, i.E. for Meltdown.https://askubuntu.com/a/995308/684252