VM window shows up "dim" if I do anything else during start

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Linux hosts.
Post Reply
dkarr
Posts: 19
Joined: 2. Oct 2011, 20:13
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Ubuntu

VM window shows up "dim" if I do anything else during start

Post by dkarr »

Using v4.3.35 on CentOS7.2.

I primarily run an Ubuntu 14.04 VM on my CentOS7.2 laptop. Most of the time, I stop the VM by saving its state, and restoring that state when it starts up again.

I've noticed that sometimes when I restore the VM, it shows up "dim", as if there's a modal dialog in front of it, although functionally it's working fine.

I believe I've only seen this happen when I start the operation to restore the VM, and then move to another workspace to do something else while the VM is restoring. It usually takes on the order of 10-20 seconds to restore.

If I force myself to be patient and just sit there and watch it restore, I don't think I've ever seen it show up "dim".

When it gets into this state, if I immediately shut it down in the same way (saving state) and then restoring (and being patient), it doesn't display "dim".

I have no idea if this is a VirtualBox problem, or something with CentOS or Ubuntu.

Has anyone else seen this problem?
cmdrwalrus
Posts: 2
Joined: 14. Oct 2009, 18:38
Primary OS: Debian other
VBox Version: OSE Debian
Guest OSses: WinXP, Win2K

Re: VM window shows up "dim" if I do anything else during start

Post by cmdrwalrus »

I have exactly the same thing happening here. I'm on Debian Jessie. VirtualBox version 4.3.36-dfsg-1+deb8u1 running Windows 2000.

I hadn't noticed before that it only does it if I'm focused elsewhere while it's starting, but when you mentioned it, I realized that's just what I did. So then I closed the guest window, saving the state, and then restarted it and waited for it to start, and bingo! full brightness!

It's probably doing that because while the VM is being started, the window is dimmed. And perhaps if it's not focused when the startup is complete, the undimming doesn't take effect.
Post Reply