Seamless Mode stopped working for Windows guests

[OraOra]

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No guest additions installed.
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well this is new, users usually claim they installed the guest additions when they haven't.

I didn't bother to look at the log because of the OP's statement. bad me.

yeah sorry about that one

[noteirak]

before doing so, can you check if your graphic drivers are the latest available?

[OraOra]

They are the ones that always worked with the VMs, have not changed them.

Should I update them? Do you think that could be the source of the error? Why suddenly now?

[noteirak]

Just trying to make sure we don't miss anything. If it always worked, don't change anything.

So the host is in the exact same state as before when it worked? No Windows update? No new program installed?
What about the guests - did you update them since then?

[OraOra]

I have updates turned off for both the host and guests.

Would creating and deleting a guest VM be able to cause this behaviour?

I could try and do a restore again to an earlier host image when Seamless Mode worked 100%. Though I have done that plenty of times already.

Are there some VB logs on C that I could extract from an earlier host OS image?

Could it be that the graphics card is failing?

At some point I experienced a flickering of colours on the screen, though when properly reconnecting the cable to the external display that I am using this stopped.

Is there a way to test the graphics card for such behaviour, I mean does the graphics card need have a certain setting or property to be able to support Seamless Mode and this setting or property has gone haywire because the actual hardware is failing?

[noteirak]

Would creating and deleting a guest VM be able to cause this behaviour?

I'll say No without being authorative

I could try and do a restore again to an earlier host image when Seamless Mode worked 100%. Though I have done that plenty of times already.

No point if you have serveral times already

Are there some VB logs on C that I could extract from an earlier host OS image?

In your home directory, you should see a .VirtualBox folder. Run one of your VM again and try to go seamless using the RightCtrl + L key combo, then post the VBoxSVC.log inside the folder + the newest VM log and I'll see if there is any correlation.
Doubt we'll see anything new tho...

Could it be that the graphics card is failing?
At some point I experienced a flickering of colours on the screen, though when properly reconnecting the cable to the external display that I am using this stopped.

Yes it is possible, but I don't see why it would only affect VirtualBox in this manner. Very unlikely IMO

Is there a way to test the graphics card for such behaviour, I mean does the graphics card need have a certain setting or property to be able to support Seamless Mode and this setting or property has gone haywire because the actual hardware is failing?

I don't know...

I have to be honest, I am out of ideas. I am not a big user of the GUI part of VirtualBox so my knowledge tends to be limited here. Hopefully one of the devs will see this topic and help you further.

[OraOra]

Went back to a host OS image that had not got VB on it. 9 of 25.

Deleted the folder on the D partition with the VMs that stopped working.

Created a new VDI on D with latest version VB and am now installing Windows Ultimate 64 SP1 as guest again.

Guest Additions mounted and will also be installed.

Updating this with more news. Highly curious if this will help enable Seamless Mode.

2D and 3D acceleration is not needed for Seamless to work, correct?

[noteirak]

2D and 3D acceleration is not needed for Seamless to work, correct?

Correct.

[OraOra]

Bang Seamless Mode is back. So this is not a hardware failure! Super glad!

So it looks like I will go back to the latest host OS image and either update or install the latest version of VB on the host OS.

Or should I keep it and just make a new VDI with a new Windows guest to be able to rule out it was the VB installation but instead somewhere in the VMs folder or VMs themselves?

What are the benefits of the latest version and has that glitch mentioned above (link) been fixed?

Should I update it or remove it from the host OS let Ccleaner take the remains, pray quickly and install the latest version of VB?

[OraOra]

In the log window why are there 4 tabs and when I hit save log will the info in those 4 tabs be consolidated?

[loukingjr]

The four tabs are the four most recent logs. You just want the first "vbox.log" which is the most recent.

[OraOra]

The four tabs are the four most recent logs. You just want the first "vbox.log" which is the most recent.

Attached above and says it is working in the log.

To see where the error was I will do this.

Restore latest host OS image.

Use the same old version of VB and make a new VDI with a Windows guest, Guest Additions and check if that works. If so the old VMs got messed up, possibly due to that excursion the two of us discussed, though that then would mean that one VM can influence another VM somehow.

If this does not work I will have to remove the old VB and either re-install it or use the latest version VB. That I will see when these questions are clear. No worries, not pressed on time here.

[loukingjr]

I'm having trouble following your questions. First, one VM cannot "influence" another one. What you should do in my opinion is just update your host to the latest version, update the extension pack to match and update the guest additions for your guests.

[OraOra]

Done, it all works again.

Using the latest host OS image with all the software and setup how I tuned it, this includes the old version of VB.

The VDI I created on D with the latest version VB while using image 9 of 25 of my host OS images also works with the old version of VB installed on image 25, the latest one, of my host OS.

So in the end, all I had to do was create a new VDI, and, let's not forget I lost all my VMs in that. I still even have an image of those when Seamless Mode worked, so might try and restore that and see if that helps.

If one VM can influence another one I am totally not sure about, though I will also test this, run that other routine and see if that shuts off Seamless Mode in other VMs on that same VDI. If so now that would be interesting.

Tremendously happy and thankful for the help all over. Will keep updating this with latest findings.

[OraOra]

The restore of the old VMs did not work, got rid of that as well. So left with a new VM and starting from scratch with that, but Seamless Mode is working again what is great!

This with the latest host OS image that I dig so much, including I did not have to change VB version and can leave that installation intact as well.

Will report back if making that other VM kills Seamless Mode for the now working Windows VM.