Discuss the 6.1.8 release

[arudnev]

Discuss the VirtualBox 6.1.8 release here.
You can download the release here.
VirtualBox 6.1.8 is a maintenance release.

Changelog is here.

[tweenietomatoes]

I have several questions.

1) What is the most recent and supported graphics controller? Using VMSVGA currently.
2) What type of disk controller will increase performance on NVM host? I am using SATA - AHCI currently.
3) Is there any way to increase graphics memory upper than 128 Mb?

Using latest Fedora and Ubuntu on Windows 10 host.

[scottgus1]

1. The manual will answer what the various video cards are for, see https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03. ... gs-display

2. IDE is supposed to be slower than SATA. Aside from that, the guest disk controller does not have to match the host PC's disk controller. The guest disk controller is the virtual 'hardware' that the guest OS thinks it's using. All guest disk activity goes to the virtual drive file written on the host drive, and data goes back and forth as fast as the host disk can read or write.

3. Once you turn on 3D acceleration using VboxSVGA or VMSVGA, you can use up to 256MB video memory. That is the maximum upper limit.

[Etepetete]

...
3. Once you turn on 3D acceleration using VboxSVGA or VMSVGA, you can use up to 256MB video memory. That is the maximum upper limit.

I have 3D acceleration turned on and am using VMSVGA, yet my upper limit for video memory remains at 128MB

[PeterE]

I am using Windows 10 as host system and Arch Linux with xfce as guest. I have just updated to VirtualBox 6.1.8 and updated the guest Linux on one of my VMs.
I started with 3D enabled and the xfce desktop did NOT work. I could only stop it with Strg + Alt + F2 and login as root and then poweroff.
Then I disabled 3D. The graphic controller is set to VMSVGA. Now I could start the xfce desktop, but the desktop is not working as normal. I use 1280 x 960 on this VM, but the bar 1 was not fully visible. I changed the resolution to 1440 x 900 and it is working, but Firefox is looking differently.
I just started the VM again and could see this message on the top right corner: "VBoxClient: The parent session seems to be non-X11 ..." The rest was not visible and when I right clicked on it it disappeared.

The 6.1.8 release has still some serious issues.

[fth0]

3. Once you turn on 3D acceleration using VboxSVGA or VMSVGA, you can use up to 256MB video memory. That is the maximum upper limit.

In VirtualBox 6.1.8, the VirtualBox Manager only allows 256 MB of Video Memory with the combination of VBoxSVGA and 3D Acceleration, and VBoxSVGA is only allowed for Windows guests.

AFAICS, VirtualBox 6.1.8 (or earlier?) has closed some loopholes. In some earlier version, it was possible to 'persuade' the VirtualBox Manager to get 256 MB of Video Memory with VMSVGA by doing some switching back and forth. But there is no valid reason for having that much Video Memory, because of the way it is used by VirtualBox.

[PeterE]

I just noticed that seamless mode is not working

[tweenietomatoes]

Installation of Fedora 32 is much faster on vmware than virtualbox.

I don't know if it's my mistake.

[scottgus1]

@fth0, thanks for the info. ''Tis that way in 6.1.6, too.

@tweenietomatoes, there could be a reason for that. Start a new topic and after attempting an installation, maybe about a minute after you start the guest, power it off. Right-click the guest in the main Virtualbox window's guest list, choose Show Log. Save the far left tab's log, zip it, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab. In a new topic please.

[PeterE]

This is how a screenshot looks like if I pause (Host Key + P) the VM:

[arudnev]

I just noticed that seamless mode is not working

What's the host and guest OSes?

[PeterE]

I am using Windows 10 as host system and Arch Linux with xfce as guest.

What does PUEL mean?

[PeterE]

Another Bug:
the Preview in the VirtualBox Manager does not show the real guest (at least with my Linux system).

[bc3au]

Not sure if this is the correct forum for this, please let me know if not.

Upgraded to 6.1.8 today
Win10 host, Debian 9 guest
Linux bruce-debian 3.16.0-10-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.81-1 (2020-01-17) x86_64 GNU/Linux

copy/paste + shared folders has started working again, however I am still not able to get window resizing working.
I have tried a number of iterations of the video drivers.
set the XDG_SESSION_TYPE session variable, which has fix the non-x11 message I was getting on startup, however
I am getting the "Vbox Client could not find symbol address". message at login.

6.0 has been problematic for me, I had 6.1.2 working for me for a while, but when I upgrade back now, resizing is still not functioning.

I have just installed VBoxGuestAdditions_6.1.9-138064.iso and get the same result when starting the x11 resizing from VBoxClient

What do I need to do to debug this ?

[arQon]

After using Host-F to examine the list of screen resolutions out of curiosity, simply mousing over them without even choosing one ?caused? the guest to hard lock.
This guest only ever runs fullscreen, so I have no idea if the problem is new to 6.1.8 or has been around for a while. And simply mousing over the list seems impossibly-unlikely to cause total guest death. But, it is what it is, so I might as well mention it, since we know there's been some changes in that area with 6.1.8 because of the resize problems some people ran into with recent versions.

Nothing interesting in the logs: the "hint" messages you'd expect from a Host-F, and that's it until I had to kill the process from the host.
Ubuntu 16.04 guest, W10 host, VMSVGA with 3D disabled.

I'm reluctant to see how reproducible it is for obvious reasons, but I'll try to remember to do so when I'm ready to shut down the VM and have already sync'd anything important. I do know I'm not alone in encountering this bug: either #19496 or #19590 has a comment from another user who also experienced a hard lockup when attempting to change the guest resolution, so it's clearly lurking in there somewhere.