How to restart Guest Additions?

[-JK-]

I have VirtualBox 5.2.42, host and clients are running Ubuntu Mate 18.04 although the same problem occurred earlier also with Ubuntu Mate 16.04.

My clients are long running, usually couple of weeks between boots. Quite often Guest Additions/shared clipboard stop working after running the client several days. Sometimes they stop working both directions, but e.g. today from host to client works but I cannot copy anything from client to host. This problem occurs with several clients.

They so far have started working again if I reinstall GA and boot the client. Sometimes they have started working also with just reinstalling GA, so without booting client. Sometimes with just booting the client, so without reinstalling GA.

I have also tried to disable shared clipboard (GUI command: Devices/Shared clipboard/disabled) and enable it back to bidirectional without any success.

My question is: Is it possible to restart GA in client without reinstalling the GA or rebooting the client? In most cases the GA version in client is uptodate, so it is most likely no use to first remove GA version X from client and then reinstall same version X into client. Maybe just stopping and restarting the GA would be enough.

[scottgus1]

I don't know of a certain way to restart GAs. But a possibility is to try logging out of the logged-in account on the guest OS. Or see if there is a GAs service running and try to restart it.

On an XP guest there was a GAs service running in Services. I stopped it and restarted it, and found a complete apparent restart of the service in the log.

On the same guest I tried logging out and back in. I saw a re-list of GAs capabilities in the log.

Either of these might help?

[fth0]

You could try something like

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sudo pkill -fx "/usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard" && /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard

[-JK-]

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sudo pkill -fx "/usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard" && /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard

Thanks! I try this next time the problem occurs.

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 VBoxClient --help
Usage: VBoxClient --clipboard|--draganddrop|--display|--checkhostversion|--seamless|check3d|--vmsvga|--vmsvga-x11[-d|--nodaemon]
Starts the VirtualBox DRM/X Window System guest services.

Options:
  --clipboard        starts the shared clipboard service
  --draganddrop      starts the drag and drop service
  --display          starts the display management service
  --checkhostversion starts the host version notifier service
  --check3d          tests whether 3D pass-through is enabled
  --seamless         starts the seamless windows service
  --vmsvga           starts VMSVGA dynamic resizing for DRM
  --vmsvga-x11       starts VMSVGA dynamic resizing for X11
  -f, --foreground   run in the foreground (no daemonizing)
  -d, --nodaemon     continues running as a system service
  -h, --help         shows this help text
  -V, --version      shows version information

[-JK-]

I can now confirm that this really works!

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sudo pkill -fx "/usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard" && /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard

No need to reinstall GA or logout or boot VM client or disable / enable clipboard etc.