'Capture' kills keyboard and mouse for host and guest

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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timfrost
Posts: 3
Joined: 28. Mar 2023, 18:31

'Capture' kills keyboard and mouse for host and guest

Post by timfrost »

New install Windows 11 Pro Host and Windows 11 Pro Guest 7.0.6 r155176 win.amd64

The mouse cursor was initially tiny, but useable. After Windows 11 install and boot, the mouse cursor disappears when over the guest window.

If I click in the Guest, the Capture info dialog and if I click 'capture' the mouse cursor disappears in host and guest and the keyboard is dead with the exception of the right-control host key and its configured combinations.

This means that Windows 11 is completely unusable in the guest - I can see the home screen but can do nothing with it. My newly-purchased Windows 11 in the guest (luckily not full-price) is a chocolate teapot. All I can do is power off or reset the guest, and the problem appears again on power up. Host keyboard and mouse are both USB, and I found nothing in the USB filters dialog
mpack
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Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: 'Capture' kills keyboard and mouse for host and guest

Post by mpack »

I see no mention that you installed the Guest Additions. Until you do so you don't have an integrated mouse cursor, so you must click on the VM window with the host cursor in order to reveal or control the guest cursor.

"Capture" applies solely to the mouse cursor. The host OS takes care of sharing the keyboard between host apps, which includes VirtualBox, there is no additional need to share anything. The mouse cursor needs it because host and guest separately track the current position of the mouse.

To avoid confusion, for now I would disable USB support in the VM settings entirely.
timfrost
Posts: 3
Joined: 28. Mar 2023, 18:31

Re: 'Capture' kills keyboard and mouse for host and guest

Post by timfrost »

Thanks for the reply. I have the guest additions ISO in the virtual drive but I do not recall it auto-running. On start-up. the mouse was this time operational and I could navigate to the drive and install guest additions manually which appeared to complete. After the requested reboot, I am able to use the mouse and keyboard in the guest apparently normally, but after a minute or two the guest hangs, with no keyboard or mouse-button response (the mouse pointer changes over the guest window, and moves within it) and the taskbar clock no longer updates each minute. This hang happens each time a few minutes after I restart the guest, and is not affected by pressing the host key. Finally, I did try disabling USB support, but the dialog immediately reports detection of an invalid setting, and enables the checkbox again on saving.
scottgus1
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Re: 'Capture' kills keyboard and mouse for host and guest

Post by scottgus1 »

timfrost wrote:I did try disabling USB support, but the dialog immediately reports detection of an invalid setting, and enables the checkbox again on saving.
What was the "invalid setting" message? You have to report such messages to us so we can help you.

Was the VM shut down completely, not saved state, when you tried to disable USB support? Turning off the USB controllers is like pulling a card out of the computer's motherboard. There are very few computers and OS's that survive your doing that while the computer is on or hibernated. Virtualbox needs the VM fully shut down to change the VM's hardware.
timfrost wrote:I could navigate to the drive and install guest additions manually ... after a minute or two the guest hangs,
This is different than the mouse and keyboard really disappearing. I'm assuming you're using Virtualbox 7.0, which is still in bug-hunt phase, and graphics had a code change. Some folks' VMs seize up under 7.0.

Please upgrade to the latest 7.0 Virtualbox, Extension Pack if used, and Guest Additions.

If this does not get a stable VM, try switching the 3D acceleration setting (off > on or on > off). If that stabilizes the VM, please note that this happened.

Please create a ticket in the Bugtracker with the problem description, the manufacturer and model of the host PC's graphics card, the graphics driver version (on the host OS), and a (zipped) VBox.log file.

Then you could downgrade Virtualbox, Extension Pack and Guest Additions to 6.1.something, or at least the Guest Additions. 3D acceleration won't be possible if you only downgrade the GAs. For full 3D acceleration using the old stable code, downgrade all three.
fth0
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Re: 'Capture' kills keyboard and mouse for host and guest

Post by fth0 »

timfrost wrote:Finally, I did try disabling USB support, but the dialog immediately reports detection of an invalid setting, and enables the checkbox again on saving.
If you hover over the warning triangle icon in the bottom of the dialog, a message will probably hint you that Sytem > Motherboard > Pointing Device is set to USB Tablet. Set it to PS/2 Mouse first, then you should be able to disable USB support.
timfrost
Posts: 3
Joined: 28. Mar 2023, 18:31

Re: 'Capture' kills keyboard and mouse for host and guest

Post by timfrost »

Thanks again, to both.

On unchecking the USB checkbox, the message only said that an invalid setting had been detected, nothing more. The VM was shut down at the time. However I have now unchecked it successfully after changing the mouse setting to PS/2, thanks to "fth0".

The downloads on the website have not changed since I downloaded them last week, so I must assume that I have the latest versions.

3D acceleration was off; I have turned it on. The guest stays on now and has not hung yet. Startup and shutdown are painfully slow, but I see that reported in other threads here.
mpack
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Re: 'Capture' kills keyboard and mouse for host and guest

Post by mpack »

timfrost wrote:Startup and shutdown are painfully slow, but I see that reported in other threads here.
Poor performance is not inevitable - unless you fail to provide details.

Guessing: on Windows hosts very poor performance usually means that you have Hyper-v running, and that conflicts with VirtualBox.
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