[Solved-ish] Rendering Issues with Opera & Chrome in Linux Mint 17.3 Guest

[Drew5316]

Host: Mac OS X 10.8.3
VBox: 5.0.26r108824

Guest: Linux Mint 17.3
GA version: 5.0.26r108824

Recently updated the GA to 5.0.26r108824. Now I'm running into rendering problems with Chrome and Opera, but not Firefox or other desktop apps, like LibreOffice. See images:

Opera:


What's even more funny is it's grabbing bits of screen from my Host OS, where I'm typing this into...

Any thoughts?

Looks like a vbox 5.0.26 rendering error...

Other applications, like LibreOffice 5 Writer & Firefox, seem to be rendering fine.

...and when I go back to the OS (close out of Opera, for instance), the main menu is hosed until I reboot:


When I turn 3D acceleration "off" the guest goes into software rendering mode, and the browsers display fine.

Any idea how to fix?

Thanks!
Drew

[socratis]

If I remember correctly 5.1.x requires 10.9, that's why you're on 5.0.26, right? I'm on 10.9.5 and 5.1.6 and I happen to have a Mint 17.3 ready to go (aren't you lucky ). I just downloaded Opera. Can you give me a website address where it fails?

[socratis]

No need to, I see the bug. And they're aware of it, at least for 5.1.4: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/15876
I didn't look for more bugs that might be open, but I bet you there are. I just did a quick search for "Chrome" in the bug report database. In the bug report they say that GAs less than 5.0.16 do not have the problem, so that should include your case.

[Drew5316]

Yes, due to having 10.8.3 version of OS X, the highest version vbox I can go is 5.0.26.

I can install a previous version -- like 5.0.15. I only needed to update vbox in order to support a Windows 10 guest, which my previous version (4.3.34) did not support.

I'm also guessing when they fix it, it's not going to be available to me, unless I update my Host OS... that sucks. Oh, well.

Thanks for your reply!
Drew

[socratis]

Why downgrade the whole VirtualBox and not just the GAs in Mint to 5.0.16?

[Drew5316]

Why downgrade the whole VirtualBox and not just the GAs in Mint to 5.0.16?

...'cause I didn't know you could do that...?

Let me give it a shot.

Drew

[Drew5316]

I guess I don't know how to do that, because when I install VBox, it automatically puts the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso within the Applications directory of Virtualbox. Downloading the extensions pack gives me a file: Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.0.16-105871.vbox-extpack

Is the iso in here, somewhere? And how do I load into VBox?

Thanks.
Drew

[Drew5316]

OK, so I found where to add the extensions-pack via the Preferences > Extensions in Virtualbox (for Mac OS X). However, it will downgrade GAs for all the guests, and I only seem to be having the issue with Linux Mint 17.3 at this time.

One reason I don't upgrade virtualbox is because of the need to keep all the GAs in synch with the host app. If I get one that works, I stick with it. Downgrading the GAs means applying the GAs to all the VMs.

For now, I've turned off 3D acceleration on the Linux Mint 17.3 guest, opened it up, gone to the Settings of both Chrome and Opera and turned off hardware acceleration. Restart each app, then shut down the guest. At this point, I turned 3D acceleration back on, and started the guest. Both Chrome and Opera are now running without the rendering errors.

If this was the first guest to fix, I probably would have downgraded, but it's the fourth, and I need the others at the moment.

Thanks for your assistance with this issue. I'll consider it "solved-ish".

Drew

[socratis]

No, no, no!!!
ExtensionPack: installed on the host and must match the VirtualBox version.
GuestAdditions: installed on each guest and it would be good to match the VirtualBox version.

What you need to do is to remove the guest additions from Mint (see Ch. 4.2.2.4 Uninstalling the Linux Guest Additions) and then download the 5.0.16 GAs (http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualb ... 5.0.16.iso) and install these on Mint.

No other guests have to be affected. You can have your cake and eat it too.