[Solved] Desktop won't resize

[jnb]

VBox.log

VBox,log

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I have an Ubuntu 64-bit 17.04 Guest running on a Windows 2008 Server R2 64-bit Host, single monitor, nothing fancy. The desktop/window starts up at a certain size (unable to determine just what it is), and always starts at that size, i.e. it does not remember what the window size was when previously closed down.

Resizing does not work: if I make the window larger, I get white unused borders, and if I make it smaller, I get scrollbars rather than resize. It's "as though" the signal for window resize if not getting passed to/acted upon in the Guest.

This happens only on this one set up. I have tried various VB/Ext/GA versions, same behaviour. I have another Host (different hardware/OS) which runs 17.04 and resizes fine, and I have a legacy 16.04 Guest which does run in the "faulty" Host with correct resizing. It "used to" work fine in this Host, but at some point has stopped doing so. I do not use 2D/3D acceleration, my intention is that the VBoxes are same & plain.

I attach my VBox.log, from this session where I have done some resizing.

Is anyone able to suggest what I should be looking at/where I might have a setting which I should investigate?

[jnb]

May I politely bump this, as no response? Is the log telling anything as to what this behaviour is about?

Thank you.

[mpack]

The log is truncated, meaning the session wasn't over when the session log was grabbed. Please always make sure the session is over, and zip the log before attaching it.

Still, what there is of it seems to show the VM display resizing just fine, so I'd say you have a problem with the display configuration in the guest OS rather than a problem with VirtualBox. I'm not a Linux user so I can't offer any guidance on that, perhaps more serious Linux users can.

You seem to be using a display size hint: that shouldn't be necessary, I would delete it. The size hint feature allows you to add a specific size to the list offered by the virtual adapter. Your problem is not an inability of the display adapter to choose a specific size, your problem is that your guest software doesn't seem to care what the actual display size is.

[jnb]

You seem to be using a display size hint: that shouldn't be necessary, I would delete it. The size hint feature allows you to add a specific size to the list offered by the virtual adapter.

Thank you. But where are you saying I am using a display size hint?? In a VBox configuration file somewhere? Because I have not done anything intentionally, and I don't see where in the VBox GUI if you mean somewhere there?

Thnak you.

[mpack]

There are several ways you can set a display hint. You can do it on the command line, which you'd know about, and you can also set a display hint in the manager GUI, using File|Preferences|Display, with Maximum Guest Screen Size set to Hint.

You can see what I'm referring to by searching the log for the word "hint".

[Perryg]

Look in the main GUI and make sure that the file -> preference -> video is set to automatic. Then start the guest and click the view tab at the top and make sure that auto-resize is enabled.
If it still does not work properly post the following from the guest.

• /var/log/vboxadd-install.log

[jnb]

File > Preferences > Display: Maximum Guest Screen Size is set to "Automatic".

From within Guest, Auto-resize Guest Display is checked.

That's kind of why I'm stuck!!

[Moxuno]

Hi,

I had a simallary issue with a fresh install of Ubuntu 17.10.
The package x11-xserver-utils is not installed by default so the xrandr tool is not available to resize the screen.

Check if this package is installed on your VM.

[jnb]

OK, let's try again...

On the VBox View menu, once in the Guest, the Auto-resize Guest Display checkbox is about the size of a gnat's privates, and the square around it to show it's selected is about 0.001 pixels wide

So I had absolutely no idea that at some point in the past my cat must have walked over the keyboard and set to no auto-size! Now that I have exited, re-entered, reset it, and generally changed underpants, lo & behold resizing seems to work just like it always used to!

Thank you so much guys. Moral: use a magnifying glass if you want to understand whether you have accidentally disabled auto-resizing.... !

[socratis]

Great, thanks for the feedback. Marking as [Solved].