Weird Display problems

[drvi]

hi,
i'm using virtualBox 2.2.2 , in ubuntu 9.04
i'v been having problems with display in the virtual machines, i get the display as below. i dont understand what the problem is.
the background is semi-transparent and the fonts/windows are all weird looking and missing .

but when i restart X , the first time i use virtual box , display works fine , when i restart the virtualbox i get such display problems,

when the virtual box manager starts itself , i can see the start of problems, the manager becomes transparent within metacity window borders for a fraction of a sec, and when the virtual machine starts it looks like the screenshot.[it happens even for the XP install]

i also tried with an alternate vmdk hard disk file which i use with VMware , but the problem is the same,
while when i use the same vmdk file in VMware the display works fine.

i'm using the ATI mobility radeon X1400 graphics card , with the open source ati driver, might that be the problem?
but this problem only started after i upgraded to virtualbox 2.2.2 , didnt have this problem in 2.1.

i also tried switching off/on the 3D acceleration. , VT-x enabled/disabled . but no change, the problem constantly arises after the first use of the virtualbox.

how do i solve this?

[Perryg]

Try turning the the hardware acceleration down on the Windows guest. See if this helps.

[drvi]

Try turning the the hardware acceleration down on the Windows guest. See if this helps.

which option do u mean? the enable 3D acceleration? because i tried with that , didnt work

or turning down the video memory size mb? but the previous version of virtualbox worked fine with these settings.

i think the problem lies inherently with virtualbox manager rather than guest host rendering...
ok i got screenshots of the virtualbox manager... so that u could understand better the problem [but getting a shot of split sec prob was tough ]

[drvi]

ok i'v partially solved this...
i turned off the 3D acceleration in all the VMs and the restarted X. once this was done , it worked fine.

the mistake i did previously was disabling 3D without restarting X.

but still 3D acceleration seems to cause problems for me...

[i do understand that 3D is still buggy but could someone add a ticket regarding this? or send/report this behaviour to the devs?]

[drvi]

After upgrade to version3 , this problem arises always! Even if i restart X after disabling 3D acceleration, these artifacts remain! the only way i can get rid of this is , Reboot ,and not start Virtual box. Every time i start Virtualbox I'm having this problem no matter if 3D acceleration is active or not.

Also this is arises for all my Virtual installs [Ubuntu/XP/Win7]

To further complicate this. I cant play video once this problem starts , vlc crashes or i get no output at all! ,
Only way i can play video again , is by doing reboot and not starting virtualbox.

[sforces]

Glad I'm not the only one seeing this. I'm also in Ubuntu 9.04. Another forum post suggested to create a script:

Code: Select all

!/bin/bash
export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1
VirtualBox

And use that to start VB. The strange part is that it works on my desktop running Ubuntu 9.04 but no longer works on my laptop running Ubuntu 9.04. In both cases I'm using VB 3.0 and can't seem to get rid of the transparent issue on the laptop.

This originally started happening for me after I went with 2.2. Hopefully someone has a workaround?

After upgrade to version3 , this problem arises always! Even if i restart X after disabling 3D acceleration, these artifacts remain! the only way i can get rid of this is , Reboot ,and not start Virtual box. Every time i start Virtualbox I'm having this problem no matter if 3D acceleration is active or not.

Also this is arises for all my Virtual installs [Ubuntu/XP/Win7]

To further complicate this. I cant play video once this problem starts , vlc crashes or i get no output at all! ,
Only way i can play video again , is by doing reboot and not starting virtualbox.

[drvi]

Glad I'm not the only one seeing this. I'm also in Ubuntu 9.04. Another forum post suggested to create a script:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1
VirtualBox

And use that to start VB. The strange part is that it works on my desktop running Ubuntu 9.04 but no longer works on my laptop running Ubuntu 9.04. In both cases I'm using VB 3.0 and can't seem to get rid of the transparent issue on the laptop.

This originally started happening for me after I went with 2.2. Hopefully someone has a workaround?

Wohoo! That script works for me, thanx
Could you provide me the link for the thread you mention? So that i could keep track of it also?

[legoalsfaol]

With that script I can see my working machine, but it disables accelleration 3D. Bug not yet fixed.

[drvi]

With that script I can see my working machine, but it disables accelleration 3D. Bug not yet fixed.

Yup , Bug not yet fixed.

BTW way , where is the thread which is tracking this issue?

I'm just not able to find it

[robatino]

I'm seeing what may be the same bug. I'm running a Fedora Rawhide guest in a Fedora 11 host. If I try to run X in the guest, the screen goes black. The problem has existed for several weeks and I'm still seeing it with VB 3.0.2.

Edit: Never mind, the problem is that VB doesn't support the current Rawhide version of Xorg. When installing the guest additions, I get the message

Warning: unsupported pre-release version of X.Org Server installed. Not installing the X.Org drivers.

If I change the video driver in xorg.conf from vboxvideo to vesa, it works again.