VirtualBox Clipboard Issue

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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itdept@emw.com
Posts: 2
Joined: 9. Sep 2011, 18:11
Primary OS: MS Windows 2003
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Windows XP, 2003, 2008

VirtualBox Clipboard Issue

Post by itdept@emw.com »

We have several virtual systems hosted in Oracle VirtualBox 4.1.0 r73009. Users using these virtual systems are reporting multiple glitches with the Windows clipboard when the Virtual Clipboard is enabled via Guest Additions, even when the clipboard operations are taking place outside of the Virtual system.

The most common reported issue is that when multiple users are working with different virtual systems hosted by the same VirtualBox Manager, they have access to each other's clipboards. When a user signed in to a VirtualBox system through Remote Desktop uses the paste command, they get the last item copied to the clipboard by any other VirtualBox user, even if both the cut/copy and paste operations are outside of VirtualBox.

Anyone know of a way to fix this?
Leak
Posts: 242
Joined: 31. Mar 2009, 13:00
Primary OS: MS Windows 7
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Debian Testing, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003/2008 R2

Re: VirtualBox Clipboard Issue

Post by Leak »

itdept@emw.com wrote:Anyone know of a way to fix this?
Are all your users using Remote Desktop? If so, I think disabling the Shared Clipboard in your VMs should fix it as Remote Desktop probably does it's own clipboard handling anyway...
itdept@emw.com
Posts: 2
Joined: 9. Sep 2011, 18:11
Primary OS: MS Windows 2003
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Windows XP, 2003, 2008

Re: VirtualBox Clipboard Issue

Post by itdept@emw.com »

Leak wrote: Are all your users using Remote Desktop? If so, I think disabling the Shared Clipboard in your VMs should fix it as Remote Desktop probably does it's own clipboard handling anyway...
I'll give it a try. We want the clipboard functionality because we use the VMs very heavily and need to transfer information back and forth and doing so without the clipboard is very cumbersome. If one person is on, it isn't an issue.

Update: The remote desktop clipboard seems to work with the shared clipboard disabled in VirtualBox, but traffic is light just before the weekend and I can't run a complete test. even with the VirtualBox Shared Clipboard disabled, another issue is still noticeable: when I have both the VM and the server running the VM open as remote desktops, even with the shared clipboard disabled, the Windows clipboard on my machine does not work frequently even when the copy/paste doesn't involve either Remote Desktop at all, and always fails with either remote desktop.
awakecoding
Posts: 2
Joined: 7. Oct 2011, 19:40
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Linux, Windows

Re: VirtualBox Clipboard Issue

Post by awakecoding »

Hi,

I would like to point out that we (FreeRDP) have an open bug report regarding the issue discussed here:
https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/issues/230

FreeRDP is an RDP client, and has its own clipboard redirection plugin. It turns out that when accessing a local virtual machine that has guest additions enabled, the shared clipboard will work even if the FreeRDP clipboard plugin is not in use. This means that I can effectively copy/paste from the host to the guest... through a remote desktop session which has nothing to do with VirtualBox in the first place. How come the shared clipboard ends up redirection my clipboard even through a remote desktop session? I thought VirtualBox would only catch events when the VirtualBox window was in use for accessing the VM.

Now this caused us a couple of headaches until we tried using our clipboard redirection plugin from a different machine to access the VirtualBox virtual machines, and boom, the clipboard redirection plugin works flawlessly. Obviously the VirtualBox shared clipboard is:

1) Breaking our clipboard redirection plugin due to severe interference
2) Redirecting the clipboard period, no matter if you're actually using VirtualBox to access the VM

Is there a way not to have VirtualBox behave the way it currently is? Such as: don't share my clipboard with my entire system all the time, even when I'm not using VirtualBox to access the VM? Otherwise, is there an easy way to just temporarily disabled the shared clipboard on the guest side, such that I turn it off before using FreeRDP?
Izual Rebirth
Posts: 8
Joined: 16. May 2014, 16:24

Re: VirtualBox Clipboard Issue

Post by Izual Rebirth »

Just wanted to point out this issue still exists.
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