Cloned VM has keyboard problems in some hosts

[habumaster]

Hello all,

Using 4.3.8 on Windows 7

Working Ubuntu 12.10 VM, cloned using VM utils.

2 users of clone VM are experiencing the same problem. When VM is booted and GUI is up,
Any input in a terminal is not seen until you click the mouse.
That is, the keyboard buffer is filled, but does not display in the terminal until the mouse is clicked.

I have re installed the Guest Additions and problem still occurs.

Looking for debug ideas.........

[habumaster]

If I uninstall the Guest Additions following these directions:

1. Start your guest but hold down the shift button right after the vm startup white screen appears, so that you can interrupt normal boot and view grub options.
2. Select recovery mode and let it load.
3. On the recovery mode's blue screen, enable networking so that you can install packages. That will remount your system as read/write. If this fails for some reason, you must follow a slightly different procedure explained in PS 1 but normally you should be ok.
4. After networking has been enabled successfully, select the option to start a root session.
5. In root mode, type cd /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-4.3.8.
6. Type ./uninstall.sh. This will uninstall 4.3.8 additions from your guest. You may safely remove the VBoxGuestAdditions-4.3.8 folder too afterwards but it's not necessary.

My Keyboard works as I expect. Typing immediately appears.

A Bug in Guest Additions?

[mpack]

A Bug in Guest Additions?

I doubt it. An Ubuntu guest on a Windows host is a popular combination. Others would have mentioned the problem.

More likely a user error, for example enabling a USB filter that steals ownership of the keyboard and mouse from the host.

[Perryg]

One other consideration is the guest additions are tied to the host and *might* need to be reinstalled on different hosts.

[socratis]

I see the same thing as well. If I disable 3D it gets fixed.

[habumaster]

Here's how I fixed it. The Nvidia drivers were somehow NOT loaded - even tho the original VM works fine on another machine. YMMV

1. Install linux headers:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic

2. Install/Reinstall nvidia driver

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current-updates

3. When you do this, it will say something like:

"Building initial module for 3.5.0-17-generic
Done."

4. If it successfully installs, restart the computer :

sudo shutdown -r now

[Perryg]

Please tell me you didn't run this on the guest. The guest is not running on an nVidia driver and must use the VBoxvideo driver.

[mpack]

I'm puzzled... Why would you install Nvidia display drivers in a VM, and why would you expect those drivers to affect the keyboard?

I suspect that something done as a peripheral activity, such as recompiling the kernel, is the actual fix.

[socratis]

You installed the NVidia drivers in your guest and that fixed it? You understand that the VM doesn't "include" an NVidia graphics card but a virtualized graphics card, right?

[habumaster]

Ok Ok mpack is right - after removing the nvidia-current-updates and restarting, the problem is still gone.

Kernel must have needed "freshening up"

So just:

Install linux headers:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic

[Perryg]

I am curious about one thing. Were/are the guests running on the Ubuntu guest additions?
That would explain why you needed to install the header to get the re-compile and the fact that dkms must be missing from the Linux guest/s
dkms is what keeps the various modules that are kernel specific updated.

I would suggest that you see if dkms is installed and if not to install it or the next kernel update you get in the guests will force the manual renewal of the kernel module.

[habumaster]

DKMS was/ is already installed before all this occurred.

[habumaster]

And yes they were all running Guest Additons, since the Hosts were Windows 7.