Frequently losing mouse response in XP guest with 3.04

[belzecue]

Win7 64-bit host running VB3.04; XPsp3 32-bit guest with 3.04 additions. USB mouse; PS2 keyboard.

Every few minutes the XP guest completely loses mouse support. I can reactivate it simply by pressing any key on the keyboard -- suddenly the mouse is responsive again (for a while). I never saw that problem with VB2.2.4 with same setup.

[EDIT - added 64-bit/32-bit details; updated from 3.02 to 3.04]

[Perryg]

Double check the guest for screen savers and any power saving. If they are on turn them off.
Also double check the guest settings and see if you have a blank filter or any filter in the USB section.
If so note them and then shut them off. See if the mouse function improves.
Does your Ubuntu Guest have this problem as well, or just the Windows XP guest?

[belzecue]

Installed 3.04 on setup above. Same issue with mouse going AWOL now and then.

[Kanzie]

Similar problem:

Ubuntu 9.04 (x86) guest + VB x64 - works normally with 3.0.2, broken after upgraded to 3.0.4.

* New version VBoxAddition installed
* mouse response problem - mouse moves but clicks does not register (with mouse integration on)
* Turn off mouse integration - mouse works
* Turn back on mouse integration - mouse does not move, but mouse clicks registers.

* Last happened when the VM is in full screen, and MS Powerpoint "hijacked" the screen the VM was on. After closing the ppt, the VM seems to be in full screen, except offset from the corner of the screen (top left of the display is where the screen would be displayed in window mode). Turn off full screen and turn back on - mouse problem started.

Another problem that may or may not be related - shutting down from Ubuntu guest:
* ubuntu mostly shuts down, but "hangs" near the end.
* VB window indicates that the machine is "powered off", but the VM window's title is "Ubuntu [Running] - Sun VirtualBox"
* Ctrl-Alt-1, etc works (ie. it switches tty), typing into keyboad hangs that tty (no characters appears at the username field)

[sleewok]

I'm having the same problem. I'm running a Windows XP x64 host with Windows 7 x86 as a client. The mouse stops responding to clicks quite frequently. It makes it unusable. I've tried seamless, not seamless, fullscreen, windowed modes and they all seem to have the issue.

I'm running dual monitors with an nvidia card.

* Something to test out would be running without seamless mouse integration. I've been testing that and I haven't had the problem in a while.

Vbox 3.0.4

[sleewok]

I've been looking further into this issue and I finally noticed that I have IO APIC enabled on the guest. This is known to cause slowdown etc. I was able to force it to be disabled on my guest and the system seems to be much more responsive at this point. I still need to verify that the issue has disappeared. Do those of you experiencing the problem have IO APIC ENABLED?

How to force IO APIC to disable after a Windows Install:

• Boot the Guest OS
• Go to Device Manager, and click on "Computers"~>
• Select the Properties of ACPI Uniprocessor PC ~>
• Click on the Driver tab, select Update Driver, ~>
• Click on the "Install from list or specific location"~>
• Click "don't search I will choose what driver to install" ~>
• In the window find and click on "Advanced Power and Configuration Interface (ACPI) PC" then click next ~>
• Click "finish" after Windows loads the new drivers. You may need your CD.(I didn't)~>
• Now click Close to exit those property pages, Windows will tell you to Reboot. DO NOT REBOOT! SHUTDOWN THE GUEST

Once the guest is shutdown you need to change the settings of the VM. Changing the IO APIC Setting within VirtualBox will not work. It keeps re-enabling the setting.

• Close VirtualBox and open your guest machine's XML configuration file in a text editor.
• Find the setting <IOAPIC enabled="true"/>
• Change value from "true" to "false"
• Save the file and exit the text editor
• Right-click on the XML file and open the properties.
• SET THE XML FILE TO READ ONLY (this will not allow Virtualbox to re-enable IO APIC)
• Start VirtualBox and Boot the guest OS
• After windows boots it should install some additional drivers and ask you to reboot again.

IO APIC should now be disabled

[Perryg]

Well this will work, but I see a real problem with making the machine.xml read only. Bad things can happen.

Actually if you follow the first part of you guide and then simply take the check mark out of IO APIC ( It should already be gone from the fist part of your guide) and just boot the guest it should do the same thing.

[sleewok]

I wasn't sure why VirtualBox kept enabling IO APIC, even after I disabled it. If it's something detected in the OS, then I would think that simply changing the driver and then disabling the checkbox should have the desired effect.

Of course you can always take off the read-only attribute after you follow my guide. This way it just ensures that the setting doesn't "accidentally" get enabled.

[belzecue]

Disabling APIC in the guest does indeed seem to solve the problem. But then you're limited to using one cpu only.