virtualbox.org

Can you boot the guest and set the resolution and colour depth that you want - clicking OK to close all the dialogs. Before rebooting the guest, can you open the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and navigate down the tree to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers. If the NewDisplay entry hasn't been deleted can you manually do so. Reboot the guest and see what happens next...

-Andy.

No change

Ok So I have done a few tests.
I removed the guest additions and exported the VM. I imported it on my desktop. Totally dif processor/display/mem/everything. Both are running Linux Mint 19 cinnamon.
The results were exactly the same.
So I tried the NT4 Wks VM I already had on there (not used in well over a year). That had the same problem!
2000/2003/vista/7/8/10/etc all no problem.
I might try rolling back virtualbox to an earlier version and see if that works.

Here at work I found I had an old "NT4 Workstation" VM that I've not fired up in ages (it was still using Sun era GAs).

So, I cloned it and tested it with "latest" GAs, by which I mean VirtualBox 6.0.97 with the 6.0.97 GAs. This was a test build which fixed a display resizing problem in 6.0.4.

It seems to work fine for me, so you don't seem to have found a systemic problem in VirtualBox 6.x. However just to be sure you may you want to try upgrading to the same version.

Beginning to think that it's not the drivers but something else. At the moment it eludes me what. The install is literally a default everything except it's the high encryption version.

salan wrote:Beginning to think that it's not the drivers but something else. At the moment it eludes me what.

From the moment I started reading that sentence, I started thinking "How do you spell it's you? Your distro/CD." but then the next sentence was...

salan wrote:The install is literally a default everything except it's the high encryption version.

Whoa... what's that? What does that mean?

As I mentioned, one of my NT4 VMs is my P2V old computer. And the one, the single most important VM that I have, if nothing else for sentimental reasons. And its' the single, the only VM that matters when I do an update (and I do several). I've been testing this NT4 VM since VirtualBox 3.x.x, and I've never seen any problems like that.

I don't think it's your host, I don't think it's VirtualBox. I think it's the NT4 that you're using. I'm literally willing to share my NT4 VM with you, although at my upload speeds it's going to take me for ever...

@salan: I'm currently going through your log vs mine to see what's different. Of course yours is a Linux host and mine is Windows, which is a bit distracting in my DIY "blink comparator" but I'll try to ignore.

Result: I see lots of minor differences, but no relevant ones. No graphics related errors for example.

One thought did occur: what do you have in the manager GUI for File|Preferences|Display|Max Guest Screen Size?

mpack wrote: One thought did occur: what do you have in the manager GUI for File|Preferences|Display|Max Guest Screen Size?

Set to automatic.

Of course there is another obvious difference which we're ignoring: that UHD display. Could there be something in VirtualBox that breaks in the "old graphics driver" + "UHD host display" scenario? No way for me to test that.

What exactly is the host resolution anyway? E.g. my own host has a 2560x1440 IPC display, and that seems to work fine.

salan wrote:

mpack wrote: One thought did occur: what do you have in the manager GUI for File|Preferences|Display|Max Guest Screen Size?

Set to automatic.

Try setting it to "None", which is what I have.

ok with theVB 5.2.18 on the machine the vm (with relevant GA) works! But when I upgrade to 6 nada.

Right I am very puzzled now!
With the same Vm (so same iso build, same service pack (6a high encryption etc), on 5.2.18 it works fine.
Uninstalled 5.2.18 and installed latest . Fired up vm WITHOUT changing anything (including the GA), it works!!
Upgraded the GA and it still works!???
Yet when I use this mv just with the latest GA ie. uninstall old GA it fails.
ERRRR

salan wrote:Yet when I use this mv just with the latest GA ie. uninstall old GA it fails.

Uninstall? Why do an uninstall? When you update the drivers for your AMD/Intel/Nvidia GPU, do you first uninstall the ones that you already have? Of course not!

Testing your theory of first uninstalling the old GAs and then installing the new ones...

I uninstalled because it had failed.!
If it ws a good system then I would not just upgrade. but a failed install. Who knows what state it is in?

I can't reproduce it. I uninstalled the GAs, rebooted the guest, came up with 640x480x8 (256 colors, ugly), but then I installed the current GAs, rebooted and it came up with 640x480x32. Logged in, was immediately presented with the Display Settings control panel, took it to 1280x1024x32 no problem...