Guest display problems

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
Post Reply
elewis33
Posts: 17
Joined: 10. Dec 2012, 19:08

Guest display problems

Post by elewis33 »

I'm running a Windows 10 guest on macOS Mojave (10.14.3). When I'm at my desk I have multiple monitors and typically display the guest on one of the additional external monitors. This works great. However, when I disconnect from the external monitors and try to run the guest on the native display (Macbook Pro 15" 2018) the guest display misbehaves badly and will not allow me to resize or set display settings that allow me to use the VM. It looks like the VM thinks the external displays are still connected and seems to want to use those settings, I think.

In any case, it seems that this kind of problem here on the forum requires a look at the log file, so I've attached it here. I followed the recommended procedure of starting with a fully shutdown VM, start the VM, observe the problem, shutdown the VM and grab the log. Could someone take a look at this log and see if you can help point me in the right direction on fixing this? Thank you.

Earl
Attachments
VBox.log.zip
(33.56 KiB) Downloaded 25 times
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Guest display problems

Post by socratis »

elewis33 wrote:I have multiple monitors and typically display the guest on one of the additional external monitors
Full screen or windowed? HiDPI or not?
elewis33 wrote:try to run the guest on the native display (Macbook Pro 15" 2018) the guest display misbehaves badly
As in having a different size? Physical size?

This is one time that the log might not be needed, but thank you for including it!

This most probably have to do with the Scale Factor per monitor, which can be set from the VirtualBox Preferences » Display. You may want to set the Scale Factor to 200% for Monitor1 and 100% for the rest of the monitors.
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
elewis33
Posts: 17
Joined: 10. Dec 2012, 19:08

Re: Guest display problems

Post by elewis33 »

Full screen or windowed?
Yes, both are misbehaved. However, in full screen mode you can't scale the display and it still jumps around like it can't make up it's mind what it wants to be.
HiDPI or not?
Not HiDPI.

On the display preferences, I've never specified multiple monitors, because I thought that was for the VM to support multiple virtual displays, and I never really wanted to do that. The displays just always automatically adjusted to the display I put them on (thank you VirtualBox!) and never messed with that. But maybe I was operating on the wrong assumption about how that setting works.

Anyway, I was intrigued by your suggestion so I shut down the VM, went into Virtual Box preferences and made those changes and the display seems to be behaving better, but I have to manually set which display the VM is displaying on now, whereas I never had to do that in the past. I'm pretty sure I just used good ole scaled mode most of the time and all was well. Can you correct my understanding/assumptions about this?

Earl

BTW, I've attached a couple screenshots of the misbehaved guest machine. Enjoy.
Attachments
Screen Shot 2019-02-14 at 11.04.35 AM.jpg
Screen Shot 2019-02-14 at 11.04.35 AM.jpg (115.11 KiB) Viewed 1940 times
Screen Shot 2019-02-14 at 11.03.09 AM.jpg
Screen Shot 2019-02-14 at 11.03.09 AM.jpg (44.84 KiB) Viewed 1940 times
Screen Shot 2019-02-14 at 11.03.34 AM.jpg
Screen Shot 2019-02-14 at 11.03.34 AM.jpg (53.74 KiB) Viewed 1940 times
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Guest display problems

Post by socratis »

I've seen that behavior myself sometimes. Difficult to say what's causing it, or how to get it easily reproduced. That's why I started avoiding multiple monitors until this new behavior is ironed out.
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
fulltimemonti
Posts: 2
Joined: 22. Apr 2019, 18:38

Re: Guest display problems

Post by fulltimemonti »

I have also had multiple display problems that sound similar to the original post. My Mac mini is running 3 physical displays, and it is my goal to run the guest at full screen on the two monitors that are not the Mac's main display. However, when I try going to full screen, it automatically opens a full screen in the main display and starts wigging out. My only solution is to uplug the main display, every time I loan VirtualBox, open the two windows at full screen on the remaining two monitors, then turn on the 3rd monitor, then change the main mac display. It is quite annoying. I wish VirtualBox would let the user choose the targeted displays in the settings, before going to full-screen.
Post Reply