Mouse Cursor not reset on virtual machine reset

[JEBjames]

If I go to the "Machine" menu and select "Reset" I can reboot the virtual machine. The reboot works fine. However, it doesn't immediately also reset virtualbox's mouse cursor back to the windows default cursor.

This is a bit of a strange one. I'd take a screen shot, but the screen shot doesn't show the cursor. So please bear with me as I try to describe how to duplicate it.

I am using Windows 10 Professional 15063 as the host. I am using Lubuntu 16.04.3 as the guest. Virtualbox 5.1.28 with the latest guest additions installed. It also happened on previous versions of VirtualBox, but I wasn't sure what the problem was until now.

I start up my Lubuntu guest. Everything is fine.

I insert a bootable ISO file into the virtual drive. In my case Lubuntu 16.04.03 install iso. It doesn't matter what iso, just so long as it boots up and will sits there waiting for input so you have a chance to notice the cursor bug later on.

In the Lubuntu guest press control-alt-t to open an LXTerminal terminal window. By default it positions the LXTerminal window at the very top left of the screen. This positioning is important. And the LXTerminal window must not be maximized. I am also running the guest VM in a window, but maximized. Position the mouse cursor over the center of the LXTerminal window. Notice the mouse cursor will change to the vertical line for entering text. Now move the mouse cursor to the very top of the LXTerminal window. The cursor will change to an up arrow with a line over it (remember this for later!), indicating that I could click and drag to resize LXTerminal. But don't resize anything. Continue moving the mouse pointer up a little more. Now the cursor will be over the VirtualBox top menu (File/Machine/View/Input/Devices/Help). Select Machine, then reset. Confirm the reset if prompted.

Move the mouse cursor back over the VM main window. Notice that the mouse cursor will still be stuck on the last known cursor, the up arrow with a line on top. Even after the vm boots up with the ISO you inserted ... it's still the wrong cursor.

Yes...eventually if you do something that resets the cursor (like reboot again with the guest additions) the cursor will fix itself.

But in the mean time it could be stuck with the wrong cursor. This can be a problem if you are running a program that hides the cursor by setting it invisible (no mouse cursor above your VM guest window after a reset?!) ... or if you were running a certain vnc program where the cursor was basically a tiny dot... Mousing over the VM window becomes a pain as us poor blind as a bat folks have to guess where the mouse cursor is.

Let me end this weird bug report with a thanks to the VirtualBox team. Despite me cursing at my cursor this is still one of the best programs on planet earth.

[JEBjames]

Forgive the image quality. I had to use my cell phone and then shrink/crop to fit the forum size limits.

Last_cursor.png:
When I move the cursor up towards the "Machine" menu it will first go over the top of the LXTerminal window. When over the top of the LXTerminal window the cursor will change to a resize icon (horizontal bar with an arrow below it). This is fine....but...

If I select Reset from the Machine menu...The cursor should return to the windows default cursor after a reset.

stuck_cursor.png:
However, you can see the cursor on the left is still the resize cursor (horizontal bar with an arrow below it).

This can range from a minor ui amusement (stuck with the resize cursor) to making the ui difficult to use (cursor stuck as a single dot or invisible).

[michaln]

This will be fixed in a maintenance release. Probably quite an old bug.

Can you please describe a scenario where this is something more than a cosmetic bug? Yes, the guest can leave the cursor in a funny (or no) shape before the VM reset, but how can you actually use the mouse in the VM again without seeing at least something? Double mouse cursor was the worst I could reproduce.

[JEBjames]

I have an invisible screen saver which hides the mouse cursor but keeps the screen visible. When I reset in this state there is no mouse cursor at all.

Most of my testing is mounting a new iso (built from another vm), resetting, and installing in text mode from this iso in a mostly automated fashion. It's not a big deal that the cursor might be wrong, or even invisible. Invisible is a bit disconcerting the first time it happens since you have to mouse over the vm window...and not panic that you have no mouse cursor, click to give it focus, and then start typing.

I'm not surprised it wasn't reported before. It's kind of an odd one.

Just the cursor is something that should be reset on a reset. If it can be fixed down the road, that would be awesome. Thank you!

[escher]

Why is this still not fixed?

It is more than a cosmetic bug and it's been more than a year since this post.

Or at the least offer a work around to clear the mouse pointer back to a correct state.

Calling this cosmetic is like saying not displaying window captions is cosmetic. The mouse pointer state conveys information. When that information is incorrect, it can cause incorrect user responses.

Note, the problem went away when I disabled 2d and 3d video acceleration.