[Resolved] Is there a way to switch to or from full screen without host key?

[MarkFoley]

I'm a bit stuck. I have remotely connected using VNC to a remote Linux system running a WIndows Guest. I've just updated VirtualBox on the remote system to the latest version and installed the guest additions. I would like to get the Windows VM back to full screen mode. Apparently the VNC program on my local Linux (Tiger VNC) does not pass through the right-CTL-F key, so nothing happens when I do that. I also have a local Windows VM running on my local Linux and I've tried using the RealVNC client on that VM to connect to the remote Linux running the Remote Windows Guest. However, when I try right-CTL-F from there it puts my local Windows VM into or out of full screen mode and does not pass the Hostkey through (as I expected, actually).

Is there some setting or some means other than using the Hostkey to put the remote Windows guest back to full-screen mode? I've examined the VM menu and the Virtual Box Manager menu and can't find anything.

[socratis]

So, you don't see the menu "View" » "Full-screen Mode (Host+F)"? The very first entry in the "View" menu?

[MarkFoley]

My view menu on the remote VM (5.2.10) starts with "Seamless Mode", which is grayed out. I don't have a "Full Screen Mode". I do have the "Full Screen Mode" on my local VM which is 5.1.28.

[socratis]

on the remote VM

You kind of forgot to mention that!

Plus you don't have the HostKey available? I have no clue. Typically the answer would be press the HostKey+Home to bring up the run time menu.

I'd say start simple, windowed mode so you see the menus. Don't go from one fancy mode to another fancy mode with an RDP connection. You're asking for trouble...

[MarkFoley]

I tried again from a physical Windows computer to eliminate the nested hostkey problem and with a different VNC client in case the Linux one wasn't passing through certain keys. Same problem, no apparent Hostkey functionality. So, I went into the office to sit at the actual console of the problem computer. Still no hostkey functionality, at least with respect to Hostkey-F (I didn't try other keys). I tried changing the host key, no go. While puzzling about this I update another computer in the office to the 5.2.10 version -- and completed that update remotely via VNC w/o problem.

I backup the VMs every two weeks, so I decided to just start over with the problem VirtualBox. I restored the most recent backup and completed the update on that VM to 5.2.10, remotely. That worked and the Full Screen Mode on the menu re-appeared. I don't know what caused the problem. What I did differently was that I normally put the VM in NOT-Full-Screen mode before uninstalling the Guest Additions. After upgrade, installing Extension, logging in and installing Guest Additions, then I put it in full screen mode. I normally take it out of full screen mode as part of the upgrade in order to have access to the Devices menu and the Guest Additions CD. I'm pretty sure I forgot to take it out of full screen mode the first time round, but I don't see why that would have removed my full screen mode menu selection from the View menu.

Still a puzzle as to what happened, but restoring a previous version and upgrade that solved the problem.

[socratis]

Hmm... That's really ... interesting. "Interesting", as in "it shouldn't happen" . I don't see any reason why the HostKey wasn't working, but an upgrade made it work. Neither the restore from the backup, unless you restored the VirtualBox.xml as well; that's where the HostKey configuration is stored, not on a per-VM basis, but on a global basis.

In any case, I'm really glad you got it going. And thank you for marking the topic as [Solved], however since this was not directly a VirtualBox problem, I'm going to remark it as [Resolved]. It was either that, or [WorksForMe] which is code word for "Hey, you did something really foolish"...

[MarkFoley]

Hmm... That's really ... interesting. "Interesting", as in "it shouldn't happen" . I don't see any reason why the HostKey wasn't working, but an upgrade made it work. Neither the restore from the backup, unless you restored the VirtualBox.xml as well; that's where the HostKey configuration is stored, not on a per-VM basis, but on a global basis.

Yes, I restored EVERYTHING, including the VirtualBox.xml

[socratis]

Aha! And I take it you don't have a copy of the one before the restoration, right? Why would you, that's the point of restoring after all...

I believe that something went wrong in the HostKey assignment, but I can't prove it no more. But, if I was a betting man, that's where I'd bet my mythical fortune on!

[MarkFoley]

Actually, I also did a complete backup of the troublesome VM before restoring, including the Virtualbox.xml, logs, etc. -- just in case the user had done something important since the previous backup and that needed to be recovered. So far, no complaints from the user about, "Hey, where is my ....!?"

[socratis]

Impressive! KUDOS!!!

You know, these days I'm a little bit surprised to hear people applying common sense towards backup, mainly because I've seen the number of incidents increasing at an alarming rate...

So, can you post the "rogue" VirtualBox.xml? ZIPPED, otherwise it won't get accepted. Post and the working one for comparison.

[MarkFoley]

Well, maybe hold off on your kudos. What I restored was the whole hierarchy under the user's VirtualMachine directory including the .vbox, .vbox-prev, .vdi files and the Logs/ and Snapshots/ directories. During this thread, I did not realize until I just now went looking for it, that the xml file is in /opt/VirtualBox/virtualbox.xml. That file has remained unchanged (according to the timestamp) since Nov 28, 2017 -- long before my hostkey/full-screen-mode issues two days ago. Do you still think it's worth posting?

[socratis]

Do you still think it's worth posting?

Sure, why not. It wouldn't hurt to see the HostKey settings.

But still, the backup was 99.99% executed to perfection! You can almost always recreate the VirtualBox.xml file.