GUEST ADDITIONS not working for FULL SCREEN

[michaelwmc]

Hi,

I am running Ubuntu as a guest on my 11" Macbook Air. I installed guest additions right away to fix the screen resolution issue and it worked perfectly... for a few days. Guest screen sizes are back to default. I can't get a full screen without it either looking extremely stretched out, or just being too small with black blocks on either side. Shared folders still work, and when I click "install guest additions" it gives me the "already installed" error. Nothing happens when I click "unmount". Any suggestions for me? I really wanted to run Ubuntu on this machine, but I can't deal with the screen being off. Looks like there's no pretty way to uninstall any of these apps on a Mac, anyway, right? Thanks much!

Michaelwmc

[Perryg]

Make sure that auto-resize is still enabled. (host+g)

[michaelwmc]

Thanks PerryG- I hadn't thought of that, but it is still enabled...

[stefan.becker]

Are you sure that they are allready installed? Probably there was a kernel update in the guest and now they must be reinstalled?!

[Perryg]

What is really important is which guest additions are installed. The ones from VirtualBox or did you install the ones from Ubuntu?

In either case if you are sure they are installed you can re-activate them by running the following in a guests terminal.

Code: Select all

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxadd setup

If this fixes it and you have installed the ones from VirtualBox.org you really need to install dkms so this does not happen again when a kernel update happens.

[michaelwmc]

Thanks Stefan! I think you might be on to something... It doesn't let me reinstall them, though. It says:

"unable to mount CD/DVD image
/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso
on the machine Ubuntu. Would you like to force mounting of this medium?"

"could not mount the media/drive
'Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VboxGuestAdditions.iso'
(VER_PDM_MEDIA_LOCKED)."

From what I could research online, people took this to mean the Guest Additions are already installed, is that right? There is a "Force Unmount" button which does nothing, and a "Cancel" which closes the window.

Maybe there's another way I can reinstall them? Thanks again!

[michaelwmc]

What is really important is which guest additions are installed. The ones from VirtualBox or did you install the ones from Ubuntu?

In either case if you are sure they are installed you can re-activate them by running the following in a guests terminal.

---------------------------------
If this fixes it and you have installed the ones from VirtualBox you really need to install dkms so this does not happen again when a kernel update happens.

Wow ok thanks Perryg. I believe all I did when installing guest additions the first time was to click on "Devices" and then "Install Guest Additions" I'll give your code a shot!

[michaelwmc]

What is really important is which guest additions are installed. The ones from VirtualBox or did you install the ones from Ubuntu?

In either case if you are sure they are installed you can re-activate them by running the following in a guests terminal.

Code: Select all

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxadd setup

If this fixes it and you have installed the ones from VirtualBox. org you really need to install dkms so this does not happen again when a kernel update happens.

So I get:

"sudo: /etc/init.d/vboxadd: command not found"

Sorry, I must be missing something obvious here...

[Perryg]

Post the following from the guests terminal:

Code: Select all

ls /etc/init.d/vbox*

Also post the version of VirtualBox you are using.

[michaelwmc]

Thanks Perryg. It's Virtualbox version 4.2.16 r86992

When I type in the code it says:

"ls: cannot access /etc/init.d/vbox*: no such file or directory

[Perryg]

That only leaves two possibilities.

• 1) the guest additions are not installed.
  2) you are using the Ubuntu fork of the guest additions (that we don't support ).

I would purge the guest additions ( if they are the Ubuntu fork additions ) and install the ones from VirtualBox.
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualb ... 4.2.16.iso

[michaelwmc]

Thanks Perryg, that's totally what I'll do. Not sure how to purge the ones I have installed at the moment, though... Is there any way to uninstall them? When I click "unmount" it does nothing...

[Perryg]

I usually use the ( guest ) terminal. There are several ways to purge them but I find that running the following code will clean it up and not miss anything.

sudo apt-get purge VirtualBox*
sudo apt-get purge virtualbox*

Then install the guest additions
This should help Howto: Install Linux Guest Additions
Use the Debian example

[michaelwmc]

This is awesome- thanks so much. So, I'm almost there, but stuck at mounting the guest additions. It turns out that whenever I try to do that step from the "Devices" menu, I get:

"unable to mount CD/DVD image
/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso
on the machine Ubuntu. Would you like to force mounting of this medium?"

"could not mount the media/drive
'Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VboxGuestAdditions.iso'
(VER_PDM_MEDIA_LOCKED)."

I'm not sure what to do...

[michaelwmc]

I did the purge part as you instructed me, and downloaded the packages using "linux-headers-generic", as detailed in the HOWTO link you posted. I think all of that worked.