5.2.6 Seamless issue Debian Host (Windows 7 32bit guest) (#17498)

[markd89]

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[ModEdit; related ticket: #17498: 5.2.6 Seamless issue Debian Host (Windows 7 32bit guest)]

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Hi,

I'm evaluating VirtualBox to possibly replace VMWare Workstation Player for my live environment.

On my live system, I run primarily Debian 8/Kernel 3.15/Gnome, but I also have a couple of Windows 7 apps that I use. Right now I use VMWare Player 7.1 and Unity mode and it works great. Unfortunately, VMWare discontinued Unity in later revisions and so if I want to run a newer Kernel I am SOL. That's why I am looking at VirtualBox.

On my test machine I have Debian 9.3, Kernel 4.9, Virtualbox 5.2.6. The Windows 7 virtual machine is working nicely, BUT when I enter Seamless mode, the video inside the VM window is not updated. I click and type and don't see things happening. When I try to move the VM window, I'm mostly unsuccessful. I thought that this might be the video driver in use on the host so I replaced the open one with the Nvidia driver, but it had no effect.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to resolve or workaround the issue.

Thanks!
Mark

[te36]

I encountered the same issue with 5.2.4 and worked around it by reverting to 5.2.0 and blocking further Virtualbox upgrades on the debian side *sigh*.

One of us should probably figure out how to open an official bug issue, but i am new to Virtualbox, so have not done that.

[markd89]

Thanks for your reply.

I went ahead and logged it as a bug https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/17498

If you have more details for the developers, might be good to add those in the comments.

I'll play with 5.2.0 too, but do want this fixed. My purposed in moving off VMWare is to get to something that's going to maintained going forward.

[socratis]

You should have first searched for similar issues. Your ticket is a duplicate of #17304.

As you can see, they're working on a fix...

[markd89]

Thanks for pointing that out. I did search, but evidently, not effectively. Great to hear a fix is in the works.

Thanks!

Mark

[socratis]

No problem Mark, I've had several duplicates myself...

Just for the future searchers, ticket #17498 has been closed as a duplicate of #17304.

[te36]

Problem still persists in 5.2.8 on my debian system, and i can't figure out anymore how to install an older version - 5.2.0. "dpkg -i <5.2.0-deb> gives all types of crazy errors *sigh

Any suggestions how to install 5.2.0 on debian ?

Thanks

[markd89]

My notes say "sudo apt-get install ./package.deb"

the ./ of course meaning that the .deb file is in the current directory. Try doing that and if it doesn't work, post the crazy errors

[te36]

Thanks. That did the trick.

Unfortunately, now its not working correctly anymore even with 5.2.0
with 5.2.8/5.2.8 virtualbox vm display completely vanishes when i go seamless
5.2.0 now is a bit better in that it just looks like fullscreen when i go seamless.

seamless was the main reason for virtualbox *sob*.

[markd89]

Glad you got the install done. I don't have a specific suggestion, but I know 5.2.0 is working for me (Debian 9, Kernel 4.14) and that 5.2.8 is working for others. Since neither is happy on your system, I'd suspect there's something in your system. The good news is that it WILL work if you work through the issue.

You could try to isolate variables: Completely remove it and reinstall. Try another VM. Try another video driver. Look at logs and post them up here. We're now at the limit of my VirtualBox-fu but others more knowledgeable than me can probably decode those and find you a clue.

Good luck!

Mark

[te36]

Isn't there a more directed way to troubleshoot the issue ? Eg: some logging to enable to see where stuff starts to fail ? All these randomn experiments you mention can take a long time each and i dought their success.

The way i understand how this works is that the virtualbox drivers in windows must somehow try to track the outline of all active windows on the windows desktop and pass that outline over to the host side, where it becomes some form of 'stencil-mask' ?
are there no debugs/logs to look at that type of outline information being passed from windows to the host and from there i guess to the XWindows server ?