Bug? - Mouse Wheel Inverting

[MadCat]

Hi,

I seem to be experiencing a bug causing the mouse wheel to invert occasionally for certain guest VMs. The behaviour appears periodically and the guest needs rebooting (or save/resume) before the wheel returns to normal operation.

I'm using the latest public release (3.1.6r59338) with the latest additions installed on the guest.
Host OS is Win7 x64, guest in this instance is Windows 2008 Server x86.

Anyone else experiencing this / know if it is a known issue?

Cheers,
Ben

[MadCat]

No-one else experiencing this at all?

[jairomacon]

Hey I am newbie in the virtual machine world.Recently i have updated the release Virtual Box 3.1.6 . I am unaware If this bug happens in the system.but it is a critical condition of inverting mouse wheel while using it.I can only imagine the tech support pain,as people when about the scroll wheel not working in Virtual-machine.Wheel mice have been around for a couple of days now and to not have this support really damages the host.

[JoeMuc2010]

Hi there,

I've been experiencing the inverted mouse wheel issue, too. Here is some info on the environment I'm using:

---Configuration---

• Host machine: Lenovo W500 Notebook, 8GB RAM, Intel Core2Duo T9400 @ 2.53 GHz, using the standard docking station where the mouse is connected
• Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical (USB-connected, not PS2)
• VirtualBox version: 3.1.4
• Host OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (German), latest hotfixes applied
• Guest OS: Windows Server 2003 SP2 (German), latest hotfixes applied
• VirtualBox VT-x/AMD-V: neither
• VirtualBox 2D/3D video acceleration: off
• VirtualBox USB filters: none

---Symptoms---
At some time, the mouse wheel appears to be inverted, i.e. scrolling the wheel UP will scroll text in editor windows DOWN and vice versa. Instead of moving the scroll bar the same direction as the scroll wheel, scrolling is just the other way round.
The bug only applies to the guest OS. Mouse wheel functionality in the host OS is normal all the time.


---Resolution---
The only way to resolve it safely is to shut down the VM and VirtualBox and restart it (no host OS reboot required though).
While writing this post, I noticed for the very first time that the VM healed itself! It seemed to refresh its network connection while I wrote this post and did not use the VM. Windows 2003 popped up a yellow info message about the network connection having been established at 100 MBit/s. The mouse wheel inversion bug happened before (making me write this answer), now it's all right again without a restart of the guest OS. Funny...

---Frequency---
about once a day

Recent updates to VirtualBox have not solved the problem either. I will update to 3.1.6 soon but probably it won't solve my problem as MadCat experienced the issue with 3.1.6, too. I also wonder why there are so few people complaining about the scroll wheel madness.
@MadCat: maybe there is something similar in the hardware config of our machines?

I have tried some of this stuff which did not help:

• disconnect and reconnect the mouse
• disable and re-enable the mouse driver in the device manager of the guest OS
• installing Microsoft IntelliPoint in the guest OS
• playing around with USB filters which crashed the guest OS most of the time

I guess something is fishy in the default mouse drivers, maybe some counter that does not increment in time when the host or guest OS is too busy, and then interpreting wheel movements wrong. Pleeeeeease guys, do something about this...

Thanks!
Greetings,
Joe

[JoeMuc2010]

Oh, let me add that this issue persists as long as I am using VirtualBox (that is, for a year or so). There was no previous version that did NOT produce the bug at some time.

[danf84]

I can confirm the problem. Happens quite often and is frustrating. Unlike the stuck keys problem (usually shift or ctrl keys) whereby tapping on each key would fix the problem, the mouse wheel problem requires a reboot.

[MadCat]

Glad to see I'm not alone with this - well sort of anyway

Don't think it's a hardware specific issue, but for reference I'm running the following:
- Host: Dell Precision M6500, Intel i7 Q820@1.73 GHz, 8GB RAM
- Mouse: Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000, connected via Bluetooth
- Host OS: Win7 x64 (English) - fully patched
- Guest OS: Occurs on Win7 x64, Windows Server 2008 R2 x64, Windows Server 2008 x86

My VMs have various different config options (hardware virtualisations, video acceleration etc), these don't appear to affect the issue.

I experience this normally 2/3 times a day at the moment. In terms of a reliable fix, restarting the guest OS appears to be the only way. However, the issue does often resolve itself in a few (maybe 10) minutes. I'm usually running the guest in seamless mode and interacting with the host / other sessions regularly during this time so maybe there is something happening in the context switch from host->guest->host?

Cheers,
Ben

[Martin]

Do you use a special device driver for the Presenter Mouse or the default windows driver?

[MadCat]

I use the Microsoft mouse drivers on the host. The guest is just using the default drivers.

[Corvin]

Ran into the same issue.

Host - WindowsXP, SP3
guest - Windows XP SP3.
Mouse - Logitech USB
CPU - Intel Core2Duo

[Dest]

I have ran across this from time to time myself. No idea what causes it and it's so far and in between for me I have a hard time reproducing it.

Usually for me it only happens if I have multiple (3 or more) virtual machines open and I'm jumping between them frequently.

[JoeMuc2010]

Hi all,

something new here: the bug just appeared again, but this time the keyboard input was erratic in the VM, too. I guessed right that one of the modifier keys was "sticky" once again, and quickly pressed each modifier key once (right shift, right ctrl, right context menu key, right win, alt gr, left alt, left win, left ctrl, left shift) - this resolved the wrong scroll wheel direction!
I should add that the right ctrl key is the one assigned for being the "host" key.

If any of you run across this problem again, please try this modifier keys workaround and let everybody know if this may be a general workaround until the bug is eventually fixed. I could imagine that the sticky modifier keys and the inverted mouse wheel are somehow linked.

Greets,
Joe

[009]

The definite solution I found is (on windows),
My Computer -> VirtualBox Guest additions -> Install Additions.

009

[jedie]

same problem here: The mouse wheel axis flip sometimes. host: win7 64, guest: ubuntu 10.04 64bit

[danf84]

Update: not had the problem for a while with the mouse, but keys still get stuck from time to time - you know keys are stuck when Start Menu suddenly doesn't come up when pressing the WIN button, or when you try to do WIN+R (the Run window). A quick way to rectify stuck keys is to press each shift key once, i.e. press once left ctrl, right ctrl, left shift, right shift, let alt, right alt. I wrote a a nasty little utility that sets all keyboard buttons to UP state (also it would identify any keys that were stuck in the process), but I found bashing the shift keys once is quicker.