Intermittent Keyboard & Mouse issues.

[JDLJr]

My Setup
I am running Windows 7 Pro 64 bit on a quadcore Q6000 with 8 gigs of ram and about 5 hard drives of various sizes. The motherboard is a Gigabyte EP45-UD3R. I have Avast free antivirus running without Windows Defender or Microsoft Security Essentials. I use an nVidia GeForce GTS 450 graphics card with 2 Samsung 20" displays.

I'm running VirtualBox 4.2.0 r80732 with the latest Guest additions.

I have a USB keyboard and mouse, the keyboard runs with MS drivers only, nothing special, and is an Eclipse II from Saitek. The mouse is a peculiar little deal from Logitech, a G700 with the full software installation in Windows.

I took VirtualPC and VMware off of the machine and reinstalled VirtualBox. The Windows 7 version of "Windows XP mode" has been totally disabled and/or uninstalled as a failed experiment.

I'm running Linux Mint 13 Maya 64 bit with the Mate desktop as a virtual instance in the right display.

Everything is up-to-date as far as software goes.

I checked the conflict hardware/software lists. Nothing there matches any hardware/software that I am using that I know of.

Now to the problem.
I'll be going along in the Linux virtual instance and I'll notice my mouse scroll button/wheel to scroll windows with will stop functioning. If I allow that to persist, pretty soon the mouse and keyboard will both stop functioning altogether in the virtual instance.

While this is going on in the virtual instance, I can switch over to my Windows desktop and I'll notice key combinations no longer work, and mouse key combinations won't work, such as pressing the Windows key to get the menu to pop up, or right clicking the desktop in windows, or even clicking an icon in Windows to run something. It will all get to the point of freezing up.

I've discovered I can do a <Ctrl><Alt><Del> in Windows, early on, click the mouse a few times in that screen, press <Esc> and everything will go back to normal full functioning.

I can go for quite a while without this happening, and I have no idea what may be triggering it. As soon as I notice that the scroll wheel on the mouse no longer scrolls relevant items, I've got to do the <Ctrl><Alt><Del> soon.

Does anyone have any idea what this might be? It isn't a complete showstopper, but it sure is an impediment that I would like to get resolved if possible. I don't remember if this happened in Vmware. I just found VirtualBox better for setting up some things the way I wanted it and stuck with VirtualBox.

I do not have any of the USB devices checked for "pass through" operation with VirtualBox taking over the device.

My general plan has been to use the Linux instance for internet browsing, email and such, and I've come to find out I really like many aspects of Mate, XFCE, and LinuxMint and that I want to use it for quite a bit more than just the internet. I'm looking into converting a few old machines I have over to Linux, but I plan on keeping this virtual instance available on this Windows box.

[mpack]

I do not have any of the USB devices checked for "pass through" operation with VirtualBox taking over the device.

VirtualBox doesn't offer any such feature anyway. Either VirtualBox or the host can own a USB device - there is no "passthrough".

To me it sounds as if you may be capturing the host mouse and keyboard using a blank USB filter in the guest settings. Try disabling the virtual USB controller and see what effect it has.

[JDLJr]

I do not have any of the USB devices checked for "pass through" operation with VirtualBox taking over the device.

VirtualBox doesn't offer any such feature anyway. Either VirtualBox or the host can own a USB device - there is no "passthrough".

To me it sounds as if you may be capturing the host mouse and keyboard using a blank USB filter in the guest settings. Try disabling the virtual USB controller and see what effect it has.

By pass through I did mean take over. Wrong terms.

I disabled the USB page by unchecking the "Enable USB Controller". There is no difference. I had no filters there anyway.

I have no USB devices now to be selected in the Devices menu, which is okay except for using thumb drives. On occasion I do need the USB drives.

There is no difference in the noted problem. I'll probably reenable the USB Controller in the USB page of the Settings.

[JDLJr]

I did just try putting a usb drive through. That did not go well. CPU usage jumped up and Windows Explorer was doing constant refreshes of devices I guess (blinking in Explorer), and I found a process called DcomLaunch that appeared to be the CPU hog. This didn't happen until I tried to "take over" a usb device and Windows said a driver had to be installed and the name on the driver said it was to do for VirtualBox.

I uninstalled VirtualBox, but discovered these drivers remain installed and hidden. I had to manually remove those and restart the computer a few times. I subsequently reinstalled virtualbox without USB support. I'm not happy about this but still I'll work with it.

CPU is back to normal and so is DcomLaunch activity. I don't know about the keyboard mouse/issue at this point.

[mpack]

I tried to "take over" a usb device and Windows said a driver had to be installed and the name on the driver said it was to do for VirtualBox.

Of course. VirtualBox must install a filter driver to redirect messages from the selected USB device to the VM, otherwise the host gets them as normal. If you want to capture a device then plug it in while the VM is running, allow that driver to be installed, then unplug and replug the device, still while the VM is running.

[JDLJr]

I tried to "take over" a usb device and Windows said a driver had to be installed and the name on the driver said it was to do for VirtualBox.

Of course. VirtualBox must install a filter driver to redirect messages from the selected USB device to the VM, otherwise the host gets them as normal. If you want to capture a device then plug it in while the VM is running, allow that driver to be installed, then unplug and replug the device, still while the VM is running.

I understand about the need for this. For some reason on my machine there is a severe conflict. I cannot trace it down. I've simply disabled the usb altogether.

I'll mention that I have an old HP 5610xi series all-in-one with only the drivers (and no general software) installed, PaperPort Pro 14, Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express along with the obligatory instances of MSSQL, Embarcadero RAD XE C++ along with the old Borland Database Engine, Postgres, Acronis Backup & Restore Workstation, Raxco PerfectDisk, Avast Free Antivirus, and a Logitech G700. I cannot think of any other software atm that could be producing conflicts. These folks all install drivers of one sort or another. I'm looking to get some of this moved elsewhere anyway.

It is a bit less convenient, but I can still map a usb drive through networking to Linux.

I prefer printing over the network rather than attach printers anyway, and there are no other devices I need for Linux to see.

I really need to get up an old box, refurbish it a bit, and attempt to move this virtual machine off to a physical machine. There are nice things about having a virtual machine however. I use this virtual machine for all internet activities except for updating Windows. As long as I'm careful about the networking of drives, I should have myself a pretty decent sandbox to contain internet access in.

VirtualBox has been reinstalled from the ground up without USB and NAT support. I only need the bridged networking where the VM appears on the network as a separate machine.

I'm still testing to see if there are anymore keyboard/mouse issues.

Also, for any developer reading this, the DcomLaunch mess didn't settle down, even after reboots, until after VirtualBox drivers were uninstalled. The VirtualBox drivers are the item added to my particular mix that had DcomLaunch running in circles. That isn't to say it would be the VirtualBox drivers actually causing the problem as they are being put into a particular system environment, and it could be some other software interacting improperly in the mix. I realize this.

[JDLJr]

So far with NAT and USB not installed, I'm not having keyboard & mouse issues.

I'll be back to report later after testing for a few days & maybe reinstall with USB, but not with NAT.

[mpack]

? I don't remember an option to not install NAT. There is one to not install the host-only network adapter driver I think - which incidentally is a very useful feature, particularly if you aren't going to be using USB.

[JDLJr]

? I don't remember an option to not install NAT. There is one to not install the host-only network adapter driver I think - which incidentally is a very useful feature, particularly if you aren't going to be using USB.

I rechecked, It was as you said, to not install the Host-only network adapter, as well as no USB.

So far for me it is quite a bit more stable.

Thank you.

[JDLJr]

Still have keyboard and mouse issues, but not as badly as before.

Still better than trying to use Vmware atm.

[mpack]

Just to be clear: did you create these VMs in VirtualBox, or are they ports from another VM platform, i.e. either VPC or VMWare?

In the VMWare case several people have previously reported problems with keyboard and mouse, though they insist they have uninstalled the VMWare guest tools.

[JDLJr]

Yes, the virtual drive was created in VirtualBox, and as a vmdk file.

When testing VMware I had installed the Vmware Tools and uninstalled the tools when moving back to VirtualBox.

By the same token, while testing VMware, the VirtualBox Guest Editions were removed and when going back to VirtualBox they were subsequently reinstalled.

Even when initially created in VirtualBox, the keyboard/mouse issues were there which prompted me to do the testing with the VMware product.

I had used VirtualBox to create a vmdk file for the drive, which VMware complains of being an old format, and that I did NOT update when doing the tests with WMware.

Right now I am staying with VirtualBox, even with the wrinkles of the moment on my system. It is only mildly inconvenient from time to time.

[mpack]

We seem to be talking at cross purposes.

When testing VMware I had installed the Vmware Tools and uninstalled the tools when moving back to VirtualBox.

The "VMware tools" are the equivalent of the VBox Guest Additions. They are installed inside the guest to provide e.g. mouse and keyboard integration with the host. If you created a brand new VM in VirtualBox (as you seem to say you did) then you would have had nothing to uninstall. Host drivers etc are less important as long as they don't grab ownership of anything that VBox wants (e.g. VT-x). But it is very important that either VMs are re-made from scratch when moving to VBox, or that you have enough knowledge to completely remove the VMWare guest tools.

I would guess that the majority of VirtualBox users use Windows Hosts, and they do not suffer your problems - so I'm pretty sure the problems you see are not endemic in VirtualBox.

[JDLJr]

I had said the issue was initially there.

When testing VMware it made sense to install their tools and uninstall the Virtual Box additions.

When moving back it made perfect sense to install the Virtual Box additions and uninstall the VMware tools.

I do not see where you are saying that we seem to be talking at cross purposes.

I've since created other Virtual Machines, and they've had the same issue. I'm running in Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. I am not running nor do I currently have any other Virtual Machine software other than VirtualBox installed.

vmware-uninstall-tools.pl is what you use to remove the VMware drivers from the Linux machine.

Edit: I've since gone into the virtual machine and removed drivers that came packaged with the distribution, both VMware and VirtualBox by using Synaptic Package Manager, and after rebooting the virtual machine I again reinstalled the VirtualBox current driver set, even though the respective updated install packages for both VMware and VirtualBox seemed to be taking care of this, I decided to not leave this stone unturned.

I did create this VM in VirtualBox and had the issue, and decided to test VMware. I do understand these drivers CAN conflict. I think we've gone as far as this will go. Apparently there is no further constructive dialog to be had.