[WorksForMe] guest linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Discussions about using Linux guests in VirtualBox.
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bsmile
Posts: 27
Joined: 22. Oct 2017, 17:33

[WorksForMe] guest linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by bsmile »

I am using virtualbox 5.1.30 with host windows 7 64 bit and guest linux mint 18.2 64 bit. I would like to achieve very simple/quick data transfer through clipboard between host and guest by using mouse to select/copy/paste, however, I cannot achieve this effect.

More specifically, using mouse to copy things from host windows 7 to guest linux mint is fine, but going from linux mint to windows, one has to use menu edit -> copy in linux program and then menu edit-paste in windows program to make clipboard work, which is not convenient.

I used to successfully set what I want when I just started using virtualbox as a newbie, but when I reinstall the guest system after I am apt in installing it, it does not work any more. This is very frustrating, has anybody else met with this issue, anybody has any idea how to possibly resolve it?
Last edited by socratis on 1. Dec 2017, 22:21, edited 3 times in total.
Reason: Marked as [WorksForMe].
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 linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by socratis »

This *is* a duplicate, and since I was already ready to move your previous post from the "Windows Hosts" to the "Linux Guests", I'm going to move your second post from "Using VirtualBox" to the "Linux Guests" (where it belongs) and I'm going to delete your first post. That from the cleaning up front. Please do not post duplicates less than 12 hours apart, or even bump it. It's not a matter of life and death and we're volunteers here, not a dedicated 24/7 tech support.

Now, I'm not sure what you mean by "you have to manually install the GAs if you have more than 1 CPU". Can you describe the differences? Because it's the first time I've heard differences in the GAs installation if the number of CPUs is different.

Second, what doesn't work if you have 2 CPUs in the Copy/Paste area? The Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V?

Third, I'd like to see if possible two VBox.log from the two cases; 1 vs 2 CPUs.
  • Follow a "start the VM from cold-boot" / "observe error" (try to copy paste) / "shutdown the VM" cycle.
  • With the VM completely shut down (not paused or saved), right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log".
  • Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response (see the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form).
Do that please for both cases.
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.
bsmile
Posts: 27
Joined: 22. Oct 2017, 17:33

Re: guest linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by bsmile »

Thanks for your help. I have tested out the 1cpu and 2cpu cases again before I read your note and found that both behaved the same on the clipboard behavior. So, this is quite reassuring but frustrating. I totally revised my question by asking how to enable mouse click clipboard behavior from guest to host. Please let me know what information I should look into and upload for you to help.
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 linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by socratis »

bsmile wrote:I totally revised my question
Please do not do such drastic edits of your posts in the future. You could have said later on that the issue was resolved, but right now 1) the original question is lost, and 2) my reply does not make any sense. This is borderline vandalism and people have been banned for doing that. But you're new and things can be forgiven, just do not do it in the future. ;)
bsmile wrote:one has to use menu edit -> copy in linux program and then menu edit-paste in windows program to make clipboard work
What happens if you use the shortcuts? It doesn't work? Please note that the HostKey (as shown in the bottom-right corner of your VM window) might conflict with that operation. So if you have Left-Ctrl as your HostKey, and you're using Ctrl-C in the VM, then you are simply sending a "C" to the host. Your "Ctrl" releases the keyboard from the guest and then the remaining "C" is sent to the host. Make sure that's not the case.
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.
bsmile
Posts: 27
Joined: 22. Oct 2017, 17:33

Re: guest linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by bsmile »

Sorry for the big revision of my original post. I did that before I saw your reply ... :?

After I highlight characters with mouse click and drag, if I use ctrl+shift+c in the guest and then ctrl+v in the host, I can paste successfully between guest and host.

However, I would like a quicker approach that highlighting characters using mouse at the same time copies them in the guest, then using mouse right bottun -> paste in the host so that I don't need to move fingers. Within the guest, highlighting character as copy works as expected, so the clipboard system within the guest seems to work fine. I cannot understand why ctrl+shift+c works but highlighting character itself does not work.
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 linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by socratis »

This behavior has absolutely nothing to do with VirtualBox, only with the behavior of your mouse and your clipboard in the host and the guest. As far as VirtualBox is concerned, everything is working as it should. You should be looking elsewhere for answers to your workflow problems.
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.
bsmile
Posts: 27
Joined: 22. Oct 2017, 17:33

Re: guest linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by bsmile »

I frankly don't know, as I have seen my very old installation of guest linux mint has the expected behavior, but the current installation does not. It is the same host system, same guest system I play with, while I did observe something different between my previous installation of guest and the current installation in that previous installation of the virtual machine does not have the guest addition automatically installed, while the current installation does install the built-in guest addition automaticlaly (version number something like 8.***). I don't know whether this causes the difference, this seems to be the only difference I can recall during the installation procedures.

Maybe more technically is is there a way to track what's in the clipboard both in windows and in linux mint? If so, then I might figure out what's going on behind the scene.
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 linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by socratis »

Your problem has absolutely nothing to do with the clipboard, as you clearly stated the keyboard shortcuts work. So you can forget all about this being a clipboard issue. I told you that this is the behavior of the OS, some misconfiguration or different configuration from the working one. But it's not the clipboard.
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.
bsmile
Posts: 27
Joined: 22. Oct 2017, 17:33

Re: guest linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by bsmile »

Thanks for your input, but the mouse behavior is precisely what I expect if within the linux mint os, it only works unexpectedly between the guest and host. If you think the issue is within linux mint, then as a guest system, it has no idea/does not care where it is installed, how do you interpret what I see that the unexpected is between guest and host?
bsmile
Posts: 27
Joined: 22. Oct 2017, 17:33

Re: guest linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by bsmile »

I just noticed there are some errors in /var/log/vboxadd-install.log and /var/log/VBoxGuestAdditions.log. The relevant details are the following

in /var/log/vboxadd-install.log

test -e include/generated/autoconf.h -a -e include/config/auto.conf || ( \
echo >&2; \
echo >&2 " ERROR: Kernel configuration is invalid."; \
echo >&2 " include/generated/autoconf.h or include/config/auto.conf are missing.";\
echo >&2 " Run 'make oldconfig && make prepare' on kernel src to fix it."; \
echo >&2 ; \

in /var/log/VBoxGuestAdditions.log

Failed to stop vboxadd-x11.service: Unit vboxadd-x11.service not loaded.
Failed to stop vboxvfs.service: Unit vboxvfs.service not loaded.
Failed to stop vboxadd-timesync.service: Unit vboxadd-timesync.service not loaded.
Failed to stop vboxadd-service.service: Unit vboxadd-service.service not loaded.
Failed to stop vboxadd.service: Unit vboxadd.service not loaded.
vboxadd.sh: failed: Configuration file /var/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/config not found.

I don't know how serious the error with /var/log/vboxadd-install.log is, the series of errors with /var/log/VBoxGuestAdditions.log seem to me that the installation of the newer version of guest addition failed to replace the installed default guest addition. I do see no error in /var/log/VBoxGuestAdditions.log in my very old guest os installation(but still see the same error in /var/log/vboxadd-install.log). Maybe this is why they behavior differently. But, how to proceed with this information?
bsmile
Posts: 27
Joined: 22. Oct 2017, 17:33

Re: guest linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by bsmile »

socratis wrote:Your problem has absolutely nothing to do with the clipboard, as you clearly stated the keyboard shortcuts work. So you can forget all about this being a clipboard issue. I told you that this is the behavior of the OS, some misconfiguration or different configuration from the working one. But it's not the clipboard.
You are right!! I just figured out that terminal in linux does not automatically push selections into clipboard unless you check an option in its preference. This stupid little thing has cost me several days, which really does not worth it!
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 linux mint copied text cannot be pasted to windows 7 host with mouse button click

Post by socratis »

Great, thanks for the feedback. Marking as [WorksForMe].
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.
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