virtualbox.org

Hi all,
I have the following problem and I'd like to know if there's a workaround or if it is a bug.

Using an Intel NUC D34010WYKH with Debian Wheezy.
Running a Windows XP VM on VirtualBox 4.3.12 from wheezy-backports. I also installed the USB extension pack on the host and the guest additions on the guest (matching version 4.3.12).

I have a Canon USB printer and I defined a filter so that it's always connected to the VM.

The symptom is the following: if I start the Windows XP VM after switching on my Canon printer all works fine.
Instead, if I switch on the printer after the Windows XP VM has already been started, although Windows detects the printer and shows it as normally operating, when I try to print I get errors that say that the printer is not responding and printing does not start. To fix this, I have to go to the VM menu, USB Devices, uncheck the filter for the USB printer (so that it gets disconnected from Windows) and then check it again (so that it gets connected again to Windows): after doing this, all gets back to normal.
Another symptom I was told about by my father who is using this system: after some time of inactivity, even though the printer is still on and connected, it seems like the VM loses the connection to it and the procedure to check and uncheck the printer in the USB devices VirtualBox menu is needed again to get it back to normal.

I already tried to change the USB port, with or without a USB hub in the middle, but nothing changes.
I also had no benefit from upgrading VirtualBox from 4.3.8 to 4.3.12. I didn't try any older versions.

Any ideas?

Does the printer work on the host? Have you tried sharing the printer on a network? I would expect that to work much better than a virtual USB connection, though I've not tried it on a Linux host.

That's a possibility, but I have to learn how to do it (I mean, how to make Linux share a printer on the network).
The drawback will be that certain printer specific functions won't likely be available (like ink-level monitoring). In fact, this is just a plain USB printer and in my experience when you share such a printer on a network through a Linux USB hub you'll lose this kind of features.

After all, since in this system the printer is used to print only from Windows, the virtual USB connection would be perfectly fine.

Maybe some VirtualBox expert know what kind of investigation I could try to better understand this problem...

I think this is a general issue. I also have another Windows XP SP3 guest machine run on another system (Linux Mint 16 KDE) with different USB hardware (a Tom Tom GPS device). The USB connection is very unstable there too, with the link between the device and the guest OS interrupting frequently (although Windows keeps on seeing the device as connected).
I'll try to open a topic on this...