virtualbox.org

Hi, all. I'm new here, so this question might have been answered already, but even using the search function, I couldn't find a thread related to this issue, so here goes...

I've been running an Ubuntu 9.04 guest OS for a while. It's "survived" the updates I've done to VirtualBox so far, but now I'm seeing something rather odd in version 3.0.0. The guest has 3D acceleration and Compiz enabled, and under normal circumstances it works fine. However, at the login screen, the display seems to be scrunched at the top of the virtual display. I don't know if this might have something to do with the video drivers installed with the guest additions or what, but it's really quite annoying.

Here's a screenshot that should clarify what I'm talking about:

Screenshot

The input/button locations are correct, but it's just impossible to see anything correctly here (I have to log in blindly). When I do log in, though, everything is fine.

Is there anything I can do to fix this?

There are a couple of things that might help.
First I have been working on this and solved my problem with enabling PAE in the settings area of the guest.
Now I know this sounds stupid but I was having this exact same problem and that is what fixed it for me. Would you be so kind as to try and see if this does work or was just a fluke?

Also another thread states that you can run this from terminal.
VBoxManage setextradata global "GUI/RenderMode" sdl

Well, I had it on to begin with, and I tried disabling it, but that doesn't seem to have helped...

Just as a note: my comp's processor (a P4) doesn't support Intel VT-x, but I noticed that the option to enable it has been checked in the settings, and I can't uncheck it because it's greyed out. Maybe that's part of it?

Another suggestion for the VBox Dev team was to revert back to the 2.2.4 guest additions and see if it works. See below:

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 52&start=0

Edit: The grayed out part for VT-x/AMD-v just means it is not available. They all have the check mark even when disabled. (very confusing)

I had something like this on Fedora 11 Guest and fix the problem by setting 64 Mb of video memory in Virtual Machine settings, not 128 Mb.

i hade this same problem when upgrading my ubuntu 9,04 from vbox 2.2.4 to vbox 3.0.0 because the guest additions where not updated but where the ones of 2.2.4 , i solved installing the new guest additions

Well, it seems that the problem has been solved... I set the video RAM back to 64MB, and the login screen is back to normal. I was afraid to do this at first because I thought maybe Compiz would have issues with running out of texture memory, but it seems to work just fine, too. Thanks for the help!

Got the same error. First off not really a fix but a quick work around....

I had to drop ubuntu out of X by pressing Ctrl+alt+F1
Then just pressed Ctrl+alt+F7

Viola X worked again... Kind of annoying though.

Also tried disabling/enabling 3d Accelleration but had no effect.
Also got some weird ghosting with compiz enabled. I just disabled it and rolled without visual effect.

Host: Win 7 RC1 x64
Guest: Ubuntu 9.04 x86