Software⏱️ 2 min read📅 2026-06-11

How to Fix: USB passthrough for QEMU gets error "qemu: could not add USB device"

Error in running QEMU with USB passthrough on MacBook Pro Retina 2015 with OS X Yosemite.

Quick Answer: Check if the USB device is properly recognized by the system and ensure that the vendor ID and product ID are correct.

The error 'qemu: could not add USB device' affects users who are trying to run virtual machines with USB passthrough using QEMU on macOS. This issue can be frustrating as it prevents the user from accessing certain devices or peripherals within the virtual machine.

This problem is caused by a discrepancy between the expected and actual USB device IDs, which can lead to incorrect identification of the device during the emulation process.

⚠️ Common Causes

  • The primary reason for this error is that QEMU uses a different method to identify and manage USB devices compared to the host system. This difference in approach can cause issues when trying to passthrough a specific USB device.
  • Another possible cause of this issue is that the USB device ID provided by the user may not match the actual ID of the device on the host system.

🚀 How to Resolve This Issue

Correcting the USB Device ID

  1. Step 1: To fix this issue, you need to check the correct USB device ID for the specific device you want to passthrough. You can use the `system_profiler` command to get the actual device IDs.
  2. Step 2: Run the following command in the Terminal: `system_profiler SPUSBDataType | awk '/Product ID:{p=$3}/Vendor ID:{v=$3}/Manufacturer:{sub(/.*: /,

Alternative Advanced Fix

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