Mouse stops working after a while and window stops responding

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
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levlevinson2
Posts: 2
Joined: 16. Apr 2021, 17:30

Mouse stops working after a while and window stops responding

Post by levlevinson2 »

Hi,

I've been using a Virtualbox VM for assorted work purposes and light 2000s era games. The guest machine is Windows 10 and the host is a Macbook. Everything was working fine originally, the VM could run most programs without fail and everything was functioning correctly. I had turned automatic updates off and Virtualbox version was slightly behind the current version, but worked fine. However, in an effort to get a specific intensive program to run, I made some changes to the settings and updated Virtualbox to the most recent version (6.1.18). Now it is not working anymore, with the problem consistently arising as follows:

When I boot up the machine, everything is fine, but over the course of a few minutes of use, the clicking and mouse control gradually deteriorates. Each click seems to register more slowly than the last, until eventually, clicks stop registering at all, and mouse integration becomes slow when transitioning in and out of the guest system. When I right click the icon for the running machine program at the bottom of the host screen, there is a greyed out message in the menu that says "Application not responding" and the only thing left to do is to force quit the machine.

I installed the new guest additions when I updated Virtualbox. I have tried every possible combination of settings in an effort to alleviate this problem. The problem is easy to induce, as it occurs every time the machine is opened after about 10 uses of the mouse. Attached is a log zip file from an instance where the machine was opened, the problem was induced, and then the machine was force quit. Any advice or insight is greatly appreciated.
Attachments
Computer sr-2021-04-16-00-29-44.log.zip
(24.05 KiB) Downloaded 17 times
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Mouse stops working after a while and window stops responding

Post by scottgus1 »

levlevinson2 wrote:I made some changes to the settings and updated Virtualbox
The easiest solution to this problem would be to undo the unreported changes you made and downgrade Virtualbox, or restore the backup of the working VM you took before changing things. :wink:

OK, lecture mode off. :lol:

The VM log shows some not-optimal settings:
Guest CPU settings:
00:00:01.157003 NumCPUs <integer> = 0x0000000000000006 (6)
More processes in a VM slows down the VM due to extra scheduling oversight on the host. The slowdown doesn't become acceptable until there is parallel-processing programs running in the VM that can fill up the extra processors. Reduce processor count to 2.
00:00:01.127106 Guest OS type: 'Windows10_64'
Paravirtualization:
00:00:01.175504 GIM: Using provider 'KVM' (Implementation version: 0)
'Paravirtualization' is a comm channel for virtualization-aware OS's to talk to whatever hypervisor is running them, so they can run more efficiently. Windows does not speak 'KVM'. Set the VM's System settings, Acceleration, Paravirtualization Interface to 'Hyper-V'.

Try the VM after making these changes, let us know what happened.
levlevinson2
Posts: 2
Joined: 16. Apr 2021, 17:30

Re: Mouse stops working after a while and window stops responding

Post by levlevinson2 »

Thank you for your advice! I had changed paravirtualization setting off its defaults because I didn't know what it meant and wanted to see if it would help, thank you for explaining that. I changed the CPU number down to 2 and changed paravirtualization to Hyper-V, but unfortunately the same problem still occurred. The next logical thing to try is downgrading Virtualbox to an older version, but I am concerned with how this will affect my VMs and what the safest way to do this is. I have single-use installs on my VM of software I use for work and so it will be a hassle to rebuild from scratch. How do I reinstall an older version of Virtualbox without losing my machines, and how do I safely back up my machines just in case, ie what files should I copy?
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Mouse stops working after a while and window stops responding

Post by scottgus1 »

I would do a full disk image of the whole host disk (I would be taking regular whole disk images anyway - which I do). This way if anything goes wrong, the image can be restored. Web-search a good disk imaging software, there should be a free app or two, like there is for Windows.

The VMs should not be damaged by a downgrade of Virtualbox. I would uninstall Virtualbox, reboot the Mac, then install the older version. However, I am not skilled in Mac hosts, so you'd have to wait for a Mac guru to help if you ran into trouble.

Another alternative is to make a new VM and a new Windows 10 install, and see if that VM has trouble too.

Please post another zipped log so we can see how the changes wee implemented.
granada29
Volunteer
Posts: 691
Joined: 3. Mar 2015, 07:27
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Linux, macOS, Windows

Re: Mouse stops working after a while and window stops responding

Post by granada29 »

Adding to the excellent advice from @scottgus1 you might also try:

1. Shut down any VMs you have running
2. Open System Preferences/Security and Privacy
3. Unlock the pane
4. Navigate to Privacy/Accessibility and uncheck both VirtualBox and VirtualBoxVM if they are present
5. Navigate to Privacy/Input Monitoring and uncheck both VirtualBox and VirtualBoxVM if they are present
6. Close System Preferences and restart your VM(s)

This may help. I found my Windows 10 VM was quite erratic in it's keyboard response until I disabled these items.
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