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No keyboard or mouse after installing desktop in Solaris 11.4GA

Posted: 3. Sep 2020, 17:06
by spbarrett
Short Story:
Solaris client VM fails to register keyboard or mouse inputs after installing Solaris desktop
Solaris 11.4GA
VirtualBox 6.1.12

I have searched the forum and mail finder.

Long Story:
My team hosts a Solaris workshop using VirtualBox on training laptops. We provide the participants with a flash drive containing the VM and supporting documents, which means we must use Solaris 11.4 GA ISO to create the VM. A bash script defines all parameters, and with minor edits have used it since v5.2. After updating the workshop to some new features on 11.4 I attempted to create a fresh VM. Everything progresses until performing 'pkg install solaris-desktop'. After installation there is no mouse or keyboard recognition in the VM. It does not matter if the extension pack is installed before the desktop. An existing VM created months ago works and has been updated to SRU24 on VBox 6.1.12.

I have tried:
Host HW: Home built servers (Solaris nvidia graphics & Linux Intel graphics), Toshiba laptop (Linux)
Host OSs: OLinux v7.9, Solaris 11.4SRU24
VirtualBox: v6.1.12 (Worked using v6.1.6-10)
I/O Devices: USB wired and wireless K&M, laptop keyboard & touchpad.
Re-installing extension packs. Tried using different hardware and OS.
Boot command line only; works, related to GUI.
Checked for mouse & keyboard integration.
Activated USB3.
Tried building with SRU24, required increasing VM to 8GB due to Python error and then reducing to 4GB. Also required mounting locally ISO repo to install the desktop. Worked after reboot, appears to be related to SRU update.

So, how can I provide a Solaris 11.4GA VM to a customer that will run in the latest VirtualBox release?
Or, stay within corporate software guidelines.

Re: No keyboard or mouse after installing desktop in Solaris 11.4GA

Posted: 4. Sep 2020, 01:39
by scottgus1
I know nothing about Solaris, but no keyboard or mouse sounds like an errant Virtualbox USB filter might be in place. Check that there are no USB filters enabled in the guest's USB settings.

Re: No keyboard or mouse after installing desktop in Solaris 11.4GA

Posted: 5. Sep 2020, 01:10
by spbarrett
Well, after spending several more hours troubleshooting I still do not know the cause, but have a work around.
The problems seems to be with the attachment of the keyboard and mouse to the VM.

With the VM powered down, in "Input Settings", de-select the keyboard and mouse. When they are turned off it works.
I successfully tested this on both Windows 10 and OLinux.

Is this a bug in the VirtualBox Extension Pack setting for Solaris?

On the positive side, troubleshooting this problem I was forced to create matching Windows batch scripts to create, compact, and export the VM. Time to learn Python, batch scripting sucks!

Re: No keyboard or mouse after installing desktop in Solaris 11.4GA

Posted: 5. Sep 2020, 20:20
by scottgus1
spbarrett wrote:With the VM powered down, in "Input Settings", de-select the keyboard and mouse.
Where is this located? I don't recognize it.

Re: No keyboard or mouse after installing desktop in Solaris 11.4GA

Posted: 8. Sep 2020, 17:50
by spbarrett
Select the VM in question.
Settings->User Interface
Click on "Input".
Deselect Keyboard and mouse.

Re: No keyboard or mouse after installing desktop in Solaris 11.4GA

Posted: 8. Sep 2020, 18:40
by scottgus1
OK, I see it. That "Input Settings" is really "User Interface".

Regrettably those settings do nothing to influence the guest. All those settings do is show what commands are available in the menu bar of the guest. The actual settings are still available and active.

Glad you're up and running, but the workaround didn't do what you think it did. In the process you might have accidentally turned off other settings.

Re: No keyboard or mouse after installing desktop in Solaris 11.4GA

Posted: 8. Sep 2020, 23:45
by spbarrett
Thanks for the reply. I plan to recreate the VM on Linux again to verify the steps. When I turned the setting back on I lost keyboard and mouse.
Like I indicated in the original post, using Solaris 11.4SRU24 did not present the same problem.
Ironically a later SRU is required to demonstrate several advanced features on Solaris 11.4 so I have two VM: GA and SRU24. SInce the gola it to move the training to a cloud-base environment it may no longer be an issue.
If anyone has time I'd appreciate someone else replicating Solaris 11.4GA on VirtualBox 6.1.12.
Sean

Re: No keyboard or mouse after installing desktop in Solaris 11.4GA

Posted: 1. Feb 2021, 07:45
by YadinF
Confirmed, so contrary to what scottgus says these settings do what we say they do. But, pretty sure this is a bug when it comes to Solaris compatibility (see below).
Also this issue seems to have started in a newer version of VirtualBox. I had a Solaris 11.4 VM running previously, but in trying to use it again it appeared to have corrupted as it was unresponsive after boot. Turns out, it must have been this issue. Fresh install, same problem. After disabling the Keyboard and Mouse integrations per above, it's working fine (though not as smooth with the mouse movement obviously). Seems to be a compatibility issue. Keyboard worked before graphic desktop was installed (solaris is console only on initial install).
Installing the guest additions inverts this. You must turn the keyboard and mouse integration options back on or you have no input. So petty clear there is a compatibility and integration issue. Also, the screen just goes black a minute after startup, so it seems like once the graphics addition kicks in the display is dead. Changing the controller to VBoxVGA from the default VMSVGA fixed that issue. So yeah, compatibility problems. Mind you Solaris is awful so not surprising there are problems.

Re: No keyboard or mouse after installing desktop in Solaris 11.4GA

Posted: 1. Feb 2021, 11:44
by mpack
Nothing is ever confirmed when nobody posts a log. However the first reply IMO clearly got the correct answer.