[Resolved] Can use Guest Additions no more due to ...

[DdB]

Hello,

Host is debian stretch, using many VM's, one of them needs to keep GA 5.2.22, because no matter, if i upgrade to 5.2.24 or 6.0.2, the VM ceased to be useful due to a weird graphic issue, i even have difficulties to describe properly:
At VM start (autostart) there are 2 applications with a GUI that need to come up and they do (in the correct sequence), but
whereas in 5.2.22 (Guest additions), the second app comes up in front of the first, as it should, and i can switch between them via GUI at will
with newer GA, the first application behaves like "always on top" and i can do nothing about it. It thereby blocks access to the second app, that was the main purpose for the VM in the first place, thereby rendering it unuseable.

As mentionned, i tried both, the 6.0.2 version and the 5.2.24 version, but same behavior.
BTW: The one VM in question is a standard stretch one, which provides an application for de- & encrypting email traffic via a bridge that understands GPG.
It has been working since a while now, and continues to do so, if i keep the old GA, except for the nagging message wanting me to upgrade GA.

I am at a loss for better understanding/resolution. Currently running 5.2.24 with the 5.2.22 guest additions for this specific VM

[socratis]

No host details, no guest details, no VBox.log, no screenshots... no case.
Minimum information needed for assistance.

[DdB]

Dont know, what you were missing.
Couldnt upload screenshots due to size limit exceeded (4x >100K compressed)

[DdB]

@socratis:

No more need to follow up on this one:
I am running into more problems (like sound distortions on youtube or not playing at all) all appeared with the *.24 release. And because that is giving me too much pain (and i have no time, due to a move that needs to be prepared), i decided to roll back to *.22 for good until further notice. Currently preparing that and will reconfigure tonight.

BTW: I appreciate your support, even though i noticed, you object to my criticism against 6.0 GUI. We apparently having a different understanding of how a GUI should behave.
I am going to skip *.24 alltogether and hopefully other people will have to notice and report the issues.

[DdB]

Hi,
finally i noticed the 5.2.26 release being available.
I installed (upgraded to) it, and put in the guest additions, only to immediately run into the same old issue again.
With the current GA, there is one application that reacts like "always on top" and makes the machine unuseable. But after reinstalling the GA from 5.2.22, all is fine again, although the host is running 5.2.26 still.

I am running debian stretch, x64 bit, enough RAM for several VM's (12 GB free) - The guest in question is running debian stretch as well, no extensions. Logfile is attached, i will provide more info, if needed.

[DdB]

...history repeats itself:
After running 5.2.26 for several days, i noticed more problems, that i could not blame the guest additions for. And since those problems really hurt (put in question the way, i use and operate vbox), i am forced to go back to 5.2.22 once again.

Too bad, i cannot discuss the issues with someone closer to the development to help me make a wiser decision. As things are right now, i am stuck with an old release, not a good spot to find myself in!

[socratis]

Too bad, i cannot discuss the issues with someone closer to the development to help me make a wiser decision

You don't have a support contract, do you? And even in that case, you would talk with the help of a proxy; your customer service representative. Until then, we're all you got

So, unless you start describing the problems, and we could potentially help you out, they're going to stay like that...

[DdB]

Ok. I am fighting my way through this, as good as i can.
The initial problem was centered around a change AFTER Guest Additions 5.2.22 (described above).
Then, after some time, i happened to notice more problems.

I am running into more problems (like sound distortions on youtube or not playing at all) all appeared with the *.24 release.

I have no support contract. No.

In the meantime, i was able to test on current 6.0.4 release and the "distortion-problem" vanishes there, potentially opening up a road forward.
BUT: the "Always-on-top-problem" reappears after installing *any* guest additions after 5.2.22. Currently, i am still checking out the 6.0 release, and since i have many machines, that is going to take some time, in order to have a chance of noticing eventual problems.

For now, i am using 6.0 with 5.2.22 additions on the one specific machine, where the behavior is too annoying otherwise.
Unfortunately, almost every VM is in some way "specialized" and deviates from standard in one way or another, and i am aware of this making it difficult to reproduce the behavior i see.

BTW: I just ran into a new problem:

Der globale Extradata-Schlüssel GUI/GroupDefinitions/seltener verwendet/MS - sterben Anfang März - nur in empty verwenden konnte nicht auf den Wert {m=56581527-f03c-4352-bb3e-65b47cf67b7d,m=0fe1b41d-be7d-4b2a-bc70-d8517072b036} gesetzt werden.

Callee RC:NS_ERROR_INVALID_ARG (0x80070057)

I decided to delete the whole VM affected instead of tracking that one any further.

[socratis]

The sound has nothing to do with the Guest Additions (GAs), so we'd better leave it out. One issue per thread, one thread per issue. This thread is dealing with the GAs, so if you have any GAs related problem, go ahead. For other problems, please open problem-specific threads.

[DdB]

Sorry, and thank you.
Yep. Sound is a non-issue on 6.0 anyway, and the other problem vanished with its entourage.
So back to GA:
It is a somewhat narrow problem, but nasty as hell, because it renders a formally working VM unuseable all of a sudden:
The VM doesnt do much, apart from being a bridge to encrypt and decrypt email communications and showing those. When it starts, it used to first start the bridge's GUI, and then the email client, which comes up in front of the bridge's GUI. All is well, unless i react to the nagging messages about outdated GA's.
As soon as a newer version of GA's get installed, and the VM reboots, the Bridge's GUI remains "always-on-top" hiding the email client and i can do nothing about it, except shutting down the VM.
Unfortunately, i know, the Bridge is in development, and it even got an update, which is not yet available for linux. In the meantime, all i can do to keep my communications alive, is to stay with the GA 5.2.22, when everything still works as expected, no matter the hosts vbox version.

[DdB]

The problem is still very much there:
In order for that one VM to be useable, i need(ed) GA 5.2.22 or anyone before that. This has been working for about 6 months. But since 5.2.24, i needed to downgrade the GA's, and i still need to, even in 6.0.x.
BTW: The linux update for my software, while still beta, has authentication problems and is thereby not even installable on debian.

[DdB]

Hello,

In the meantime ... i was able to understand this:
Since the change to 5.2.26, the clipboard used to transfer data from VM to host and/or vice versa gets flushed after a very short time period. I reckon, this is mainly done for security considerations.

And myself, being old and handycapped, i just mostly am not able to use the clipboard content during the time alotted, because it takes too much mouse/keyboard skills to

• fill the clipboard
• switch context
• eventually prepare the receiving end
• and paste the cliboard content

In the past, i had all the time, i needed, but since the timely flush got introduced, i am having SERIOUS problems to use the shared clipboard functionality!

I am asking for a verification of this description (be it in 5.2.x or 6.0.x doesnt matter, it is the same),
and after confirming it, to issue a priotity feature request: If the time before the clipboard gets flushed was a configuration option, i could raise it to satisfy my needs. But for the time being, this shared clipboard is close to being unuseable for me. REALLY!

This is a call for help, repeated and with more detail.

[socratis]

the clipboard used to transfer data from VM to host and/or vice versa gets flushed after a very short time period. I reckon, this is mainly done for security considerations.

I'm not sure where you got this from, but there's no such thing as "flushing the clipboard" for security or any other reasons.

What I think you're describing is the clipboard not filling in at all in the first place. Remember, the cipboard supports only plain-text, that's all. If you're trying something more complicated, it will fail.

[DdB]

not filling in at all in the first place.

No, i know about this and only use the clipboard for simple text.
BUT: I am too slow (most of the time) to make use of it. Frequently, when i manage to find the destination for pasting, the clipboard is already empty. If i switch back and refill it (copy), i sometimes manage to hurry up and be fast enough for the receiving end to still be able taking the content.

And because that is giving me such problems, i still kept a version of the guest additions from 5.2.2, because those worked just fine. Unfortunately, i moved to 6.0 in the meantime and i am suffering since about 2 months from this issue.

As you say, that there is no flushing involved, i really do have a hard time explaining to myself what is happening then. Something IS causing problems that were NOT there before!

[socratis]

I don't know what's causing this, but I can't say I've seen it before. Try to see what's going on with "xclip". See also this article from the Wiki: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/X11Clipboard