Screen resolution for guest is stuck

[DrMartinus]

Hi,

until a few weeks ago I could always open my guest installation in a freely adjustable screen resolution, i.e. I could drag the window in order to resize it any way I wanted. The screen adjusted itself (not scaling, but more or less pixels available). Then, suddenly, I got only a fixed screen resolution: it's always 1024x768. When I drag the window edges now, I only increase the border around that screen, but there are no more pixels available for the guest's desktop.
I tried changing the "View/virtual monitor" menu item of the guest's window, where I see a lot of available screen resolutions, including 1680x1050, which I would like to use. But whatever resolution I choose, it just doesn't get set. It always turns back to 1024x768. When I try to change the screen resolution within the guest system, for a short moment the screen expands, but then falls back to 1024x768.
I tried several virtual screen drivers, actually all that are available:

VMSVGA, VBOXVGA, VBOXSVGA, none.

Recommended is VMSVGA, I don't know why. To me VGA or SVGA seems restriced to the size 1024x768, but then: why isn't there any other option in VirtualBox?

I am really frustrated, because I never had such a problem before and have no idea how it came up. I need a higher resolutiion in order to being able to do the job I want to do within that guest system.
I didn't do any changes within the guest before this happened, and after that only what I mentioned above. I run Linux (Manjaro) on the host, and another Linux with TDE as guest. The VirtualBox version is 6.1.2r135662.

I searched for a solution here and elsewhere on the Internet, but the problems listed may be similar, but do not match mine and the offered solutions don't work accordingly (e.g. installing the GuestAdditions, which are installed, or changing the virtual screen's resolution, which doesn't work with me).

Thanks for any help!

[mpack]

You've been a member here for longer than I have, so you should know by now to provide a zipped VM log when asking that kind of question.

[DrMartinus]

I never needed to ask such a question yet, so I wasn't aware. Here it is.

[mpack]

You have an updated graphics controller, with 3D acceleration enabled. Unforunately you also have Guest Additions from the Triassic (4.3.26). Probably not a good combo.

00:00:01.313208 VMSVGA3dEnabled <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:01.313209 VMSVGAEnabled <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:01.313209 VMSVGAPciBarLayout <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:01.313210 VMSVGAPciId <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)
00:00:01.313210 VRamSize <integer> = 0x0000000008000000 (134 217 728, 128 MB)
...
00:01:43.150487 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 4.3.26 r98988 '4.3.26'
00:01:43.150545 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Interface = 0x00010004 osType = 0x00053100 (Linux >= 2.6, 64-bit)
00:01:43.150642 VMMDev: Guest Additions capability report: (0x0 -> 0x0) seamless: no, hostWindowMapping: no, graphics: no

It looks like you mounted the GAs CD but didn't actually run the installer. I'm going to guess that autorun is disabled in the guest OS.

[DrMartinus]

You have an updated graphics controller, with 3D acceleration enabled. Unforunately you also have Guest Additions from the Triassic (4.3.26). Probably not a good combo.

What would be a good solution? I'm not sure what you mean with "Guest Additions from Triassic", but looking at the version number, it's probably an old GA, right? I use to install VirtualBox from the package manager (Manjaro, Arch Linux), and it worked fine for a long time. According to the package manager, I have version 6.1.2. But obviously at some point this didn't get to be hooked up with the VirtualBox installation. I can't find the current GA anywhere...

It looks like you mounted the GAs CD but didn't actually run the installer. I'm going to guess that autorun is disabled in the guest OS.

Sorry, but: how to enable autorun? When I click on

Code: Select all

Insert GA

(I'm not sure if that's the right menu option's wording, I use it in German) in the guest's window, nothing happens. When I hover over the CD-symbol at the bottom of the guest's screen, it says:

Code: Select all

secondary master: .../VBoxGuestAdditions.iso

(the three dots are the path).

thanks for your help!

[mpack]

A good solution would be Guest Additions that are compatible with the hardware recipe you created, i.e. not v6 hardware with v4 GAs.

"Triassic" was a joke, it means that your GAs are ancient.

You don't need to enable autorun. You do need to run the GAs installer by navigating to it inside the guest OS.

[DrMartinus]

Thanks for your reply. I don't know why this didn't get installed automatically, I always thought it did that. Now I tried starting it, it didn't work according to the description I found on Oracle's webpage, so I had to enter the path to GAs autorun.sh manually. That worked. But the screen doesn't change its resolution, it's still stuck at 1024x768. I can change the resolution now from the settings menu of the guest OS, but not by using the "View/Virtual Monitor" resolutions. Within the guest OS's system settings, resolution has a maximum of 13??x768. It's better, but not optimal.

[DrMartinus]

Yesterday it was too late to do any more tests. Now I tried the following:

1. Changed the video driver in VBox to VBoxSVGA (from VMSVGA) and disabled 3D support.
Result: I have more options within the guest system's settings for screen sizes, but none is really useful. In terms of height of the window, it either is too large so I have to scroll the screen up and down, or it's too small to do any work efficiently. All options within the VBox-System to change screen resolutions are grayed out, also the option (which I enabled) to automatically adjust to the guest system.

2. Changed the video driver in VBox to VMVGA - 3D-support still disabled
Result: Changing resolutions in the VBox Menu has no effect at all. Changing it within the guest system's settings is possible, but offers only limited options:
640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x768, 1360x768

Observations: What I'm setting within the guest system, is gone at the next restart. I.e. it starts at the 1024x768 resolution.
Also, the guest system is very slow when using VBoxSVGA driver, it works fastest with the VMVGA driver.

I'll work now with the 1360x768 resolution, but I would really like to have it as it was before: the screen resolution filled the window of the VBox guest, i.e. I could drag it to any resolution. If it has to be fixed now, I would prefer something like 1800x900.

[DrMartinus]

One more input - maybe that helps finding the cause of the problem:

The choice "Adjust guest display automatically" (which I want) in the guest window's menu is ticked, but greyed out, so I can't change it. It's the correct setting, though.
With the driver VMSVGA I have no choices of different screen resolutions (all greyed out), all settings must be done within the guest, which has very few choices (the "best" is just good enough to do some work). See the last post.

I add a fresh log file.

[DrMartinus]

Ok, one more try, even though I guess, nobody is willing to help any more and I can trash Virtualbox.
One more thing isn't working: the bidirectional exchange of the clipboard contents. I had that always enabled, and it worked for a long, long time just fine. It doesn't now. Does this info give a clue where to look? Also drag & drop doesn't work, even though the cursor symbol changes to the appropriate design.

[mpack]

One issue per topic please.

As to willingness to help, you seem to have wandered off on your own, ignoring the user manual and making random changes at random, not specifically addressing suggestions, so I find at that point that it's best to move on. These are user self help forums btw - I don't work for Oracle: none of us has a stake in what software you choose.

[DrMartinus]

Thanks for your reply and sorry if you felt offended. That wasn't intended. I'm pretty sure I followed the suggestions (updated the guest addition), but it didn't have any effect. With regard to manual: You're right, I haven't read it all, and I have the problem that my Linux distro (host) isn't mentioned there anyway. But usually the community of that distribution takes good care of it (even though I wonder why I had that old GA). I've not done much except installing the package, and that worked for 10 years or so (I used VIrtualbox already before it was taken over by Oracle). I don't know where to start in the manual, or what to look for. I don't find anything that may be related to my problems, or rather, that might help solve the problems. And regarding the other topic: I thought this observation might help someone who knows more about the inner working of VirtualBox to solve the issue mentioned in the topic, it wasn't meant as another support request.
Anyway, I'll move on, too, as there seems to be no solution to the problem.