Possible solution for USB mounting issues

[starshipeleven]

For the impatient: it seems to be because of USB 1.0 or 1.1 devices. Unplug the devices. Make sure that your mouse or keyboard aren't USB 1.0/1.1 devices.

For VB devs: I attached guest logs of my main VMs, if you need more or more specific logs just ask as I can reproduce the issue easily.

I have Virtualbox (latest) on an Asus m4a78 motherboard (AMD stuff), a Phenom 9650 and a Nvidia 9800GT run the show. Running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.
I have a Windows XP 32-bit VM, a bunch of Linux VMs (Debian and Ubuntu mostly) and a "boot from USB media" VM (using a Super Grub disk iso). All VMs apart from the "boot from USB" one have the Guest Additions.
I also have the Extension Pack (that enables USB 2.0 mounting and a couple other things)

I remember that 6 months ago it worked fine. (not a huge VM user)

Then all of a sudden, it started bluescreening saying stuff about usb drivers issues and/or screwing up the USB device passthrough to the VMs.

Issues more or less described by others in this section and otherwise easy to find by just googling (Forum rules prevent me from posting links atm but it's not so necessary anyway).
With last VB version it just fails to capture stating that the device is busy and sometimes locks out the device so that not even the host can see it.

Tried with flash drives that are perfectly fine and with a couple of external hard drives (ran full disk checks on all, everything clean). No difference. Connected them to a usb hub, no way again.

I applied various tweaks and fixes like removing the AMD filter driver, cleaning all USB drivers of older usb devices from the system, rebooting VMs hundreds of times with USB devices loaded (in the USB filter section of VM settings) before it was started as in various tutorials around.
I also removed a Rensas USB 3.0 PCI-e addon card and removed its drivers too because I saw that USB 3.0 could be an issue for Virtualbox. (was sitting there gathering dust so it's no big loss anyway)

I also uninstalled Avira (my antivirus) for lulz, no discernible difference. (it is now installed again and is not affecting anything)

I reached the point where at least the guest (any guest) would recognize the USB device for a minute tops and then freezes hard and has to be put down with force (task manager's terminate process or trying to close it until Windows 7 host asks if I want to force close it)

During my tinkering with drivers I saw 5 weird entries in my Device Manager, in the USB section.

Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller

In the past I did tinker to have my %&$& Xperia Sola smartphone recognized by the custom ROM flashing tool (and ADB, the command-line android debug bridge for that matter) and I'm pretty sure those entries were not present at the time.

Googling around, I find out that they are standard Windows drivers for USB 1.0/1.1 controllers.
I'm relatively sure that USB 2.0 is "backwards compatible" with 1.0 just because there are two different controllers and something makes the switch between one or the other depending on what device is connected (also my BIOS was set to disable USB 1.0 controllers if it did not detect appropriate devices at boot).
So, if the 1.0 controllers are alive, I must have a USB 1.0 device connected.
I got the sneaking suspicion that if this "someone" (driver or system or whatever) does not notify the USB 1.0 controllers that the USB 2.0 device is in use by someone else (Virtualbox's VM) they may get into the way and fubar everything.

So, I went and opened them (right-click and Properties), I went in the Advanced tab and I saw that one of them had a mouse connected.

Lightbulb turned on. I did change my mouse more or less at the times it started having issues. I bought a NEW one a few months back, and I thought it was USB 2.0 device gawdamnit. But for 10 Euros I can't really complain.

Grabbed my 60-euro full-features wireless touch-sensitive gold-plated mouse (I use it on my laptop) and connected it. Shows up as composite USB 2.0 device. Awesome.

I went and disabled all Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller entries. (right-click and select disable) The cheapo mouse stopped working as expected.
My keyboard is PS/2 (older round connector with plugs) so it's not going to be affected, but if you have a USB one please make sure it is USB 2.0 before trying.

Opened Virtualbox, started various VMs and now they all can mount and transfer files to USB devices without freezing.

Issue is that now I can't use my cheapo mouse when using Virtualbox. It's indeed a 1.1 device. Even behind a 2.0 hub it still freezes VMs.

Amusingly, if connected to the same USB 2.0 hub I connected the 60-euro mouse everything is fine. Using the 60-euro mouse alone gives no issues, probably because it's a USB 2.0 device.

Since the issue happens even through hubs, I don't know what to think, if it is a more general USB 1.0 driver issue or if the issue is specific for Virtualbox's drivers that capture the mouse when working on a USB 1.0 mouse.

Before submitting a ticket I'd like to get some feedback, because maybe it's just that I have a crappy mouse or mobo or whatever.
Does removing USB 1.0/1.1 devices work for you too?
Does investing half of your pay in a gold-plated glowing high-end mouse work?
Does using a normal but USB 2.0 mouse work?