Copy and paste is very unstable

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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xpt
Posts: 5
Joined: 29. Apr 2013, 16:00

Copy and paste is very unstable

Post by xpt »

Hi,

I've been using VirtualBox for years, and copy and paste has always been unstable. I'm now so frustrated about it and finally decided to jump over the hoops to register a forum account to complain about it.

I know Copy and paste,

- must be enabled in the VM settings.
-It will only work if the Guest Additions are installed in the Guest.
- And it will only copy text - not files.

No problem with that, but the stability -- It works when the VM is freshly started, but it won't be long before the copy and paste capability between the host and client is gone.

Host: Win 7 desktop, 12G Mem
Guest: Ubuntu Precise

I restart my Win 7 Host every week, but because of loosing the copy and paste capability in my VM, I normally need to restart my VM at least 3 times a week. When the situation is worse, I need to restart my VM two or three time a day! As a reference, my Linux system back home will last months before I ever need to restart . This is so frustrating.

Over the years, I was trying to observer what cause the copy and paste to be gone, and finally realized that there is no reason at all. It works seconds before, and when I try to copy another word, it just suddenly stop working. I've been carefully observing my RAM usage lately because I was thinking it might be caused by extreme end conditions, but notice that my host RAM usage was never close to 60%, yet the copy and paste will be gone at any moment.

Anyone experience the same as well?
xpt
Posts: 5
Joined: 29. Apr 2013, 16:00

Re: Copy and paste is very unstable

Post by xpt »

If you are a VirtualBox support staff, it is very easy to duplicate the problem.

- Start a Linux guest under Win 7 Host that has limited RAM.
- Make sure copy and paste is working between the host and client
- Start chromium in Win 7 Host and browser some random web pages, each in different tabs,
- and view some youtube videos as well. You don't need to watch the whole videos, starting it for several seconds will do, then stop it and jump to another one.
- Try copy and paste between the host and client again.

It won't be long for the copy and paste to be gone.

When it is gone,

- it is always that copy from Win 7 Host and paste into Linux guest that is not working. The other way around normally still works.
- it will not work if I merely restart my Linux within VM, but I have to stop the VirtualBox entirely, and restart again.

Then it will work again.
xpt
Posts: 5
Joined: 29. Apr 2013, 16:00

Re: Copy and paste is very unstable

Post by xpt »

Over the several years that I've been using VirtualBox, the copy and paste has always been very unstable. There isn't any reason that I could found that is causing it, so I understand that it is difficult to duplicate and fix.

However, all that I'm asking is, to have a feature that restore the copy and paste capability when it is gone. As my previous post implies, it is a problem between the VirtualBox and host, so it should be easy to reset / restore the copy and paste functionality between the VirtualBox and host and straight out any mysterious failures.

Thanks
xpt
Posts: 5
Joined: 29. Apr 2013, 16:00

Re: Copy and paste is very unstable

Post by xpt »

xpt wrote:I've been carefully observing my RAM usage lately because I was thinking it might be caused by extreme end conditions, but notice that my host RAM usage was never close to 60%, yet the copy and paste will be gone at any moment.
Latest milestone: copy and paste gone even my RAM usage is below 30%.
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