Mouse pointer disappearing on screen recording/sharing

[hannes]

On my XP guest under Ubuntu 8.10, the mouse pointer disappears within the guest when running the screen recording software "CamStudio" (http://camstudio.org/) or the screen sharing software "Unyte" (http://www.unyte.net/). The pointer is not complete gone, i.e. when moved around, it will briefly show up sometimes, and it can be used even if not visible (tool tips appear, clicking works). But most of the time you just can't see it.
Wrt. screen sharing: the remote computer that the XP guest is sharing the view with *does* see the pointer.

I've filed a bug report (http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/2603), yet would like to know whether someone else experiences the same behaviour.


Hannes

[Sasquatch]

Isn't it something that is caused by the software your are using to share/capture your screen? Just like with VNC you only get to see a dot as mouse cursor.

[hannes]

Thanks for the reply, but:

no, actually. On "my" screen which is the Windows guest, there should be no difference. The screen sharing just shows my screen to another computer. I do not given then mouse/keyboard access.
Besides, I do not even get a dot or something to indicate the mouse position.

And regarding the screen recorder CamStudio, here's a tutorial in which you can see that the mouse pointer should not change when recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INBID-3UiP0

[cvig]

You can solve this problem by disabling/lowering hardware acceleration of the video. I am doing this on Windows Server 2003 R2 with the virtualbox guest additions. If I turn off hardware acceleration completely (Display Properties, Settings (tab), Advanced, Troubleshoot (tab) and then drag slider all the way to left on "Hardware acelleration").

I just tested it with one click down from "Full" acelleration and the mouse pointer still shows up so it is worth testing to see what value works for you.

I suspect this will also make Jing work -- it did the same thing (disappearing mouse) although it seemed to lock up too. Seems like Camstudio is probably nicer anyway but just adding the note for Google.

[hannes]

Thanks cvig!

When playing with the acceleration settings, it turned out that moving the slider one step to the left was enough to make the mouse pointer visible when using the screen recorder (CamStudio).

Could not yet test it with Unyte, yet.


Hannes

[NicoleMusic88]

This happened to me too when I disabled mouse capture. The mouse cursor outside of virtualbox became stuck in one place (because I disabled it) and the new mouse pointer in virtual box becomes invisible. The best thing to fix this problem is to actually use an external device, such as a pc contoller with analog sticks. So, plug in your pc controller of whatever external device you want first, then download a free program called JoyToKey or something similar ( I would suggest JoyToKey, it works perfectly). Now, open JoyToKey and map your keyboard keys, like w,a,s,d or up, down, left, right and left and right mouse clicks, including middle mouse roll, and mouse movement axis (what you use to move a mouse, I mapped mine on my controller analog sticks to move pointer around) onto your pc controller. Next, open virtualbox (disable capture). This way, at least now you can move the pointer that was stuck initially in one place with your pc controller. So, if you want to use in Unity3d, open Unity3d now. Move your pointer using your external device, try to preview a game you made, and now you can look around using the mouse! Alternatively, disable hardware acceleration in Display options (however this doesn't work if you want to use Unity3d, because the pointer still disappears when hovering over program) It's not letting me paste my tutorial link here, so type 'Fix Invisible / Disappearing Mouse Pointer on VirtualBox Solution, WorkAround' in Youtube.