Using clipboard on guest locks host from using it -> fixed in 3.0.6

It would be great if you could find a recipe for reproducing this so that we can test.

Unfortunately I cannot contribute a recipe for reproducing this bug, but I can say that I am seeing the same problem with Mac OS X 10.5.7, VirtualBox 3.0.2, and an Xubuntu 9.04 guest. I have found that when the clipboard malfunctions, the VBoxClient --clipboard process on the guest starts consuming around 75% of the guest CPU, and VirtualBox starts consuming 102-105% of the host CPU.

Can VBoxClient be configured to run verbosely or with debugging information?

kurtraschke: did you update the Guest Additions to version 3.0.2 as well? If you did and still see this issue then I will look at providing you with a version of VBoxClient that can run more verbosely.

Output from strace while "VBoxClient --clipboard -d" consumes 100% CPU

I have updated the Guest Additions to 3.0.2, and the issue persists. I have attached the output from a run of strace on VBoxClient --clipboard while the VBoxClient process was consuming full CPU.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you! Here are two test builds of the Additions, one which works on a 32bit (K/X)Ubuntu 9.04 guest, and one for a 64bit one. As usual, the builds should only be used for testing this particular problem (and the links will in fact expire in a week or so).

http://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VBoxGuestAdditions-r50558-x86-Ubuntu-9.04.iso

and

http://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VBoxGuestAdditions-r50558-amd64-Ubuntu-9.04.iso

If you install the right one of these, and run VBoxClient -d --clipboard with the following environment variables set:

VBOX_LOG_DEST=file
VBOX_LOG=all.e.l.l2.l3.f

it will produce a log file which should provide more information about what it is doing. Since these builds also include debugging symbols, you could also (if you have experience with that sort of thing) break in with a debugger when the programme gets stuck and get an all-threads backtrace and information about local variables ("info locals" in gdb IIRC) for both threads.

I've attached logs from the debugging build of VBoxClient posted above. In this case, all I had to do in order to get VBoxClient to go into a loop was copy some text onto the guest clipboard.

#4619 has been marked a duplicate of this.

I believe I may have fixed this problem. If you would like to try out the updated version of the Guest Additions you can download them via the link below. This is a test build of the future VirtualBox 3.0.6 Additions. Obligatory disclaimer here.

http://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VBoxGuestAdditions-r51082.iso

I've experienced the problem of the host clipboard getting locked using a windows XPSP3 host with a linux guest (mandriva 2009.1, kde 4.2.4). Virtualbox version is 3.0.4. (Note: KDE's klipper seems to exacerbate the problem.)

Michael: Is the fix you've posted in VBoxGuestAdditions-r51082.iso likely to have any effect on window's hosts? Should I try it?

Thanks.

#4792 has been marked a duplicate of this ticket.

rct: if you are seeing similar issues on a Windows host then the fix might help there too. It should basically prevent the Linux or Solaris guest from permanently grabbing the host clipboard under certain circumstances.

My original bug report was a duplicate of this one (http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/4619)

Returning from holidays, want to test this fix, but unfortunately, the link is not working now. Any new build to test ?

http://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VBoxGuestAdditions-r51082.iso

You could try out the 3.0.6 Beta version, see http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewforum.php?f=15&start=0.

Ok, just installed the 3.0.6 and the last guest addons, and the problem was solved. Thanks for this fix.

Thanks for the feedback.

It seems you managed to isolate and fix this very long standing bug that has been annoying me to death since at least VirtualBox 2.0 with a Linux 2.6.26 guest on a Mac OS X 10.5 host. Great job and thank you!