Copy and Paste from Guest to Host Email client problem

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
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macusereric
Posts: 6
Joined: 18. Sep 2009, 11:01
Primary OS: Mac OS X Leopard
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Solaris 10

Copy and Paste from Guest to Host Email client problem

Post by macusereric »

Hi all,

I'm wondering if anyone has run into this problem - I've seen it both with Ubuntu 9.0.4 Client and Solaris 10 U7 Client
(not tested it with Windows yet).

If you select some text in the Guest OS, and copy it to the clipboard, then paste that text into a
Thunderbird message you are composing, any text after the text you have pasted in will be lost
when you send the message. (This is highly annoying).

I've seen this with many previous releases of Virtual Box (2.x through to the current release 3.0.8)
running on both Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard.

I've always ensured that the latest Guest Additions has been installed on the OS's and this issue
is highly repeatable.

I'm using Thunderbird 2.0.0.23

I only see this copy and paste issue when copying from the Guest Clipboard to the Host Thunderbird client.
(Nothing else seems to trigger this - copy and paste from other applications to Thunderbird works fine).

I'm quite happy to help try and debug this issue.
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Copy and Paste from Guest to Host Email client problem

Post by Perryg »

I just tried this and it works fine for me. Ubuntu guest copy and paste to Windows host in T-Bird. Sent message to myself. All text after the paste still shows up.
I will test this later on a Linux host to Windows guest.
T-Bird version is the same as you have. VBox Version 3.0.8, Ubuntu version 9.10, Windows Vista SB
mcb9
Posts: 1
Joined: 14. Oct 2009, 20:29
Primary OS: Mac OS X Leopard
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Ubuntu, Fedora, Windows

Re: Copy and Paste from Guest to Host Email client problem

Post by mcb9 »

I've encountered the same problem. I'm using Mac OS 10.6.1 as the host and a Windows XP Professional client with the Guest Additions installed.

When I copy text inside the client and paste it in the host, a NULL character is appended to the text. This seems to be independent of the client and host apps involved.

In many cases, the NULL character goes unnoticed, but it has a disastrous effect in Thunderbird. Thunderbird truncates the message at the NULL character and all text after it is lost.
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Copy and Paste from Guest to Host Email client problem

Post by Perryg »

Just tried with Ubuntu host and Xubuntu guest.

It must be something that is specific to MAC.

If you can reproduce this I would look at bugtracker (link is below my post) and if a ticket does not already exist I would create one.
Be specific and attach this link in the post and don't forget your log files. They are really touchy about that.
zephyrus
Posts: 9
Joined: 16. Oct 2009, 10:47
Primary OS: MS Windows XP
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: linux solaris

Re: Copy and Paste from Guest to Host Email client problem

Post by zephyrus »

I have had the same problem with vbox 3.0.8 under Windows XP host
and linux GUEST.

When I copy something in the host win XP, say a web page shown in firefox,
and paste it into Emacs running under client linux inside VBox
I see ^@ (NUL) character there.
Emacs is clever enough to handle such binary code all right, but
I have to manually delete it.

Incidently, I noticed a reverese problem (copying from guest to host)
in the following ticket.
http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/4712

Maybe we need to fix similar code relevant to host->guest copy?

Use of emacs as the target of copying may be important since
many applications don't show such NUL at the end. (Many applications simply
take it as the terminator character [and ignoring the length information passed].

TIA

(Sorry if I accicently submit a short post previously by mistake.)
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