lots of mouse problems (scroll wheel, buttons) with vnc

[robertb]

Win7 host, Ubuntu Karmic guest.

I seem to have a lot of problems when using x11vnc and the X Windows display that is apparently created via Xorg and the virtualbox addons in the Ubuntu guest.

Mainly, the problem is the mouse buttons and mouse scroll wheel (or, my case, touchpad "wheel" and buttons). Some of these problems have been worked around (see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10113145 for example), but, just now, I discovered that the right mouse button crashes x11vnc.

I'm thinking that, rather than attempting to work around all the problems, it may be better if I can fix the X Windows server that's created in the first place so it can accommodate x11vnc better.

So, here are my problems so far:

• scroll wheel is inaccessible (BadInput in Xlib client)
• right mouse button inaccessible (also BadInput)

.

It looks like the problem may be:

Code: Select all

"VirtualBox Guest Service"      id=8    [XExtensionPointer]
        Type is MOUSE
        Num_buttons is 2
        Num_axes is 2
        Mode is Relative
        Motion_buffer is 256
        Axis 0 :
                Min_value is 0
                Max_value is 65536
                Resolution is 10000
        Axis 1 :
                Min_value is 0
                Max_value is 65536
                Resolution is 10000

Is there a way I could coax Xorg so that, when it starts up and generates its xorg.conf configuration, it includes the missing buttons (I assume just buttons 3 (right) and 4 and 5 (scroll wheel))?

[Sasquatch]

Of course you can create an xorg.conf that specifies your mouse. There is plenty of information on the web for this. But are you sure that will solve it? Shouldn't you just see if there is a different VNC server/client that you can use that doesn't give these errors?

[robertb]

Of course you can create an xorg.conf that specifies your mouse. There is plenty of information on the web for this. But are you sure that will solve it? Shouldn't you just see if there is a different VNC server/client that you can use that doesn't give these errors?

I just tried the vino vnc server and it crashes in exactly the same way. I tried xtightvnserver (I was using vinagre) and it also crashes the VNC server.

I just tried an experiment using xev. The left mouse button correct reports as "button 1", but, bizarrely, the "middle" button reports itself as "button 12". (Of course, the right button crashes so I have no idea what it would report itself as. I can only imagine.)

I guess the next thing to try is to modify the mouse properties in xorg, but I'm not sure what I'd tweak.

Code: Select all

The program 'vino-server' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)'.
  (Details: serial 2229 error_code 2 request_code 142 minor_code 2)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

[Perryg]

TightVNC is the one I use. Works with Ubuntu fine. In fact that is what they suggested for you to use on the Ubuntu forum isn't it?

[robertb]

TightVNC is the one I use. Works with Ubuntu fine. In fact that is what they suggested for you to use on the Ubuntu forum isn't it?

TightVNC server won't cut it for my purposes. My Virtualbox session starts up with an established X server and that is exactly the session that I want to use remotely. I.e., I don't want to create a separate X server session that I would then have to connect to from the guest OS (Ubuntu). Running 2 separate X Windows servers under Virtualbox would be too much overhead, I think.

[Perryg]

That's fine Robert. you know what's best for you. Good luck.

[robertb]

After doing more research, I'm starting to think my problem is this: http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/7152. It seems to indicate that Virtualbox interferes with XTEST, and that is precisely what x11vnc depends upon.

I think, until this is fixed, I will not be able to use x11vnc to its full capacity, unfortunately. Until then, I'll have to use my current workarounds.