Seamless resolution not working

Discussions about using Linux guests in VirtualBox.
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dfresh
Posts: 8
Joined: 5. Oct 2016, 18:32

Seamless resolution not working

Post by dfresh »

I have Searched for this issue for hours on multiple occasions only to finally find a post with the same issue and no resolution to the issue. The topic was closed and any fix that I have found including the multiple forcing resolutions answer have in fact not worked for me.

The Virtual seamless screen stops short of the bottom of the physical screen. I have tried many times to force the resolution and it always reverts to 1680x1002 rather then 1680x1050 and never actually has filled up the entire screen at any period of time.

What can I do to fix this? Is this a bug that I cant fix? Any help would be highly appreciated. Thank you
socratis
Site Moderator
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Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by socratis »

Have you tried actually going full screen, either from the Menu, or by pressing the HostKey-F combination (that's the default)?

If that doesn't work, please make sure you read the Minimum information needed for assistance. Because you didn't mention any details and it's kind of difficult for us to guess, being so far away from your computer...
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
dfresh
Posts: 8
Joined: 5. Oct 2016, 18:32

Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by dfresh »

I'm very sorry, Im using Vbox version 5.1.6 as of today and was on 5.0.24 this morning with the same issue. My host is Ubuntu 16.04 64bit, my guest is windows 7 64bit with 16 GB available to both machines using 8 on each. The minimum video memory I have ever given to my guest is 64 and I'm using dual monitors at 1680x1050x60 each.

So the issue isn't with full screen, I want to use seamless mode without losing the bottom sliver of the screen to resolution. I have used Host+L to toggle it on and off. Full screen works but still loses the resolution although full screen wont make it obvious that you're missing that 48 pixels. I hope this helps
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VBox.log
(84.89 KiB) Downloaded 16 times
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by socratis »

OK, my mistake, I don't even know why I read Full screen instead of Seamless mode. Oops... :oops:
dfresh wrote:I want to use seamless mode without losing the bottom sliver of the screen to resolution.
I'm not quite sure I understand this part. Could you post a screenshot? Scaled, PNG. A solid color in the background would help it get compressed more efficiently, so consider this. Max upload is 128 KB (I think).
dfresh wrote:Full screen works but still loses the resolution although full screen wont make it obvious that you're missing that 48 pixels.
Again, I'm not sure what that means as well. Hopefully the screenshot will clarify things. Maybe those 48 missing pixels are your host's "taskbar" (or equivalent)?


PS. For future reference, you should completely shut down the VM before grabbing the VBox.log. Then ZIP it and attach it in your response.
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
dfresh
Posts: 8
Joined: 5. Oct 2016, 18:32

Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by dfresh »

I've attached the images as I'm not old enough member to place a link in my post. There are two images too help show the issue in a better visual description. As for the full screen comment, full screen does work but it makes full screen use of 1680x1002x60 rather than 1680x1050x60. Again, it fills the screen correctly but doesn't use max resolution even when trying to force max resolution.

You will see at the bottom of the images that the guest seamless virtual display hovers slightly above the bottom of the physical display, It is like this for both displays.
socratis wrote:PS. For future reference, you should completely shut down the VM before grabbing the VBox.log. Then ZIP it and attach it in your response.
Noted

Edit: Added a third image with both screens showing where they cut off so that you can see it associated with the host taskbar. It's an awful image I know but it should get the point across.
Attachments
Selection_005.png
Selection_005.png (19.96 KiB) Viewed 5641 times
Selection_004.png
Selection_004.png (107.73 KiB) Viewed 5642 times
Selection_003.png
Selection_003.png (118.41 KiB) Viewed 5642 times
Dsen
Oracle Corporation
Posts: 165
Joined: 10. Sep 2007, 10:42

Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by Dsen »

Hello dfresh,

I need some additional information to determine the reason of issue you have.
1. First of all, if I understood correctly, you do have two host-screens, horizontally aligned, right?
2. And you are trying to use just one of the host-screens (first?) for seamless VM view, not both of them, right?
> Hmm, no, probably both host-screens (edited by Dsen)
3. Besides that I should note that seamless working area (available geometry) being determined at our GUI startup, and this area being calculated on the basis of region which any abstract maximized window (of any abstract application) could have on particular host-screen. Does your host-screen (where you try to map seamless VM to) have some task-bar at the moment you are starting GUI? If so, when why I do not see host task-bar at your 2nd/3rd screenshots? Is it auto-hidden?
4. I should note that in theory our GUI should also adjust full-screen/seamless view (let's talk about seamless for now) when the host-screen resolution or available geometry being changed. So I am curious what happened with the host task-bar which I see at your first screenshot?

Thanks in advance!
dfresh
Posts: 8
Joined: 5. Oct 2016, 18:32

Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by dfresh »

First of all, thank you for taking time to help with this issue, I appreciate this more than you know.
Dsen wrote:1. First of all, if I understood correctly, you do have two host-screens, horizontally aligned, right?
I have two host screens horizontally aligned, and as of an hour ago I now have two 1920x1080 monitors, and the original issue remains just with better resolution displays. I am using both of the monitors in seamless mode and both of the monitors have the issue of seamless not using the 'available' resolution. With these new monitors, the windows guest system now sees in the display settings 1920x1080 and yet the still looks like there is an invisible taskbar at the bottom of the screen in both virtual monitors.
Dsen wrote:2. And you are trying to use just one of the host-screens (first?) for seamless VM view, not both of them, right?
VBox automatically uses both screens in seamless for me, am I supposed to only use one?
Dsen wrote:3. Besides that I should note that seamless working area (available geometry) being determined at our GUI startup, and this area being calculated on the basis of region which any abstract maximized window (of any abstract application) could have on particular host-screen. Does your host-screen (where you try to map seamless VM to) have some task-bar at the moment you are starting GUI? If so, when why I do not see host task-bar at your 2nd/3rd screenshots? Is it auto-hidden?
Okay, I see how the screenshots may be confusing without correct labeling, the top image is a screenshot of both displays together(left and right). The host task bar and menu bar are both at the bottom of the left display. The 2nd and 3rd screenshots are of the right display where my guest machine's task bar resides even though I use both displays for seamless. There is no task bar, host or guest, that is hidden.

Dsen wrote:4. I should note that in theory our GUI should also adjust full-screen/seamless view (let's talk about seamless for now) when the host-screen resolution or available geometry being changed. So I am curious what happened with the host task-bar which I see at your first screenshot?
Host task bar resides in left display, guest task bar resides in the right display. There are no hidden task bars.

I hope I have answered these questions to the fullest, please let me know if you need anymore information. I'm readily and quickly available for the majority of the next 7 hours.
michael
Oracle Corporation
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Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by michael »

Might I ask what distribution, desktop environment and window manager you are using on your host system? Thanks.
dfresh
Posts: 8
Joined: 5. Oct 2016, 18:32

Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by dfresh »

michael wrote:Might I ask what distribution, desktop environment and window manager you are using on your host system? Thanks.
Im not sure I understand what you mean by window manager.
Host: Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS (Xenial Xerus), gnome-flashback-compiz, is that what you are looking for?
michael
Oracle Corporation
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Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by michael »

It is thank you.
Dsen
Oracle Corporation
Posts: 165
Joined: 10. Sep 2007, 10:42

Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by Dsen »

dfresh wrote:
Dsen wrote:2. And you are trying to use just one of the host-screens (first?) for seamless VM view, not both of them, right?
VBox automatically uses both screens in seamless for me, am I supposed to only use one?
You are free to use both, of course if that particular VM is preconfigured to have two guest-screens.
dfresh wrote:
Dsen wrote:3. Besides that I should note that seamless working area (available geometry) being determined at our GUI startup, and this area being calculated on the basis of region which any abstract maximized window (of any abstract application) could have on particular host-screen. Does your host-screen (where you try to map seamless VM to) have some task-bar at the moment you are starting GUI? If so, when why I do not see host task-bar at your 2nd/3rd screenshots? Is it auto-hidden?
Okay, I see how the screenshots may be confusing without correct labeling, the top image is a screenshot of both displays together(left and right). The host task bar and menu bar are both at the bottom of the left display. The 2nd and 3rd screenshots are of the right display where my guest machine's task bar resides even though I use both displays for seamless. There is no task bar, host or guest, that is hidden.
Just curious why does the 2nd and 3rd screenshots are of different size if they are both screenshots of 2nd screen?
Also, how does any other host application (some text editor for example) window behaves on 2nd host-screen, i.e. can it be maximized to fill whole 2nd screen?
dfresh
Posts: 8
Joined: 5. Oct 2016, 18:32

Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by dfresh »

Dsen wrote:Just curious why does the 2nd and 3rd screenshots are of different size if they are both screenshots of 2nd screen?
Also, how does any other host application (some text editor for example) window behaves on 2nd host-screen, i.e. can it be maximized to fill whole 2nd screen?
The 2nd and 3rd screen shots were cropped just to show a specific area of resolution issues. The host performs as it should, the only issues I have are with the VM. Yes, host windows maximize to fill correctly.
dfresh
Posts: 8
Joined: 5. Oct 2016, 18:32

Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by dfresh »

Update - Only one monitor is having the issue now. I'm not sure what happened but when my computer went to sleep, upon awaking I only had one active display. After changing display settings in the VM to extend the display the main VM display utilizes the entire display.
dfresh
Posts: 8
Joined: 5. Oct 2016, 18:32

Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by dfresh »

I have switched over to Ubuntu MATE desktop manager and have no resolution issues, my left monitor recognizes 1920x1032 as it is accounting for what is available and is all working as designed, thank you for helping with the issue. It seems it has more specifically something to do with Gnome Flashback Compiz and my graphics card has also since then been swapped for one that uses Nvidia drivers which may have also done something.
Urhixidur
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Re: Seamless resolution not working

Post by Urhixidur »

I have a somewhat related problem. Windows 7 host, Ubuntu 12 guest. If the latter runs Gnome classic, the windows are seamless indeed (not quite, because the guest has a smaller screen footprint, but that works out well, allowing me to see the guest's desktop menu and status bar). However, if I switch to Unity, going "seamless" merely centers the guest desktop window and removes the host decoration (title bar, VirtualBox menu, resizing edges): the desktop background image does not become transparent.
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