Graphics broken with any guest on Linux host (only with 128 MB VRAM) -> reopened due to regression

Log

Refer to public forum entry http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19498.

Contents duplicated here, just in case.

I also am experiencing this issue with Gentoo guest running in a Gentoo Host (Intel quad core CPU) using kdm as my greeter and fluxbox as my desktop. My installation is deliberately very minimal.

My guest has 2 CPU's configured.

The visual effect, for me, is the whole screen is 'compressed' to the top 5% of the screen, leaving the remaining 95% lower part, black.

Sending ctlr-alt-backspace to the machine shows the screen refreshing, so I knew it was working, just not displaying.

Host-F1 then Host-F7 refreshes and fixes the problem (thanks to an earlier post for that one!)

It should also be noted, if I restart X (ie, log out), the corruption returns, requiring another Host-F1,Host-F7.

It was not a problem with the older 2.2.4 additions.

I rebooted to single user mode and re-installed the Guest additions by using the * Devices->Install Guest Additions option * mount /dev/cdrom * cd /mnt/cdrom * ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run

This had no effect. Assorted software versions include :-

xorg 1.5.3-r6 kernel gentoo-sources 2.6.28-gentoo-r5 compiled with gcc 4.3.2

Capture from the Runtime attributes dialog.

Runtime Attributes Screen Resolution 952x727x32 VT-x/AMD-V Enabled Nested Paging Disabled Guest Additions Version 1.4

Guest OS Type Linux 2.6

Hard Disk Statistics

IDE Primary Master DMA Transfers 18,417 PIO Transfers 474 Data Read 171,660,288 B Data Written 76,237,824 B

CD/DVD-ROM Statistics

DMA Transfers 178 PIO Transfers 301

Data Read 4,110,336 B Data Written 0 B

Network Adapter Statistics

Adapter 1

Data Transmitted 1,374 B Data Received 25,580 B

What would I do with Windows guests ? The lack of virtual terminals once again renders the system unusable...

Could you please retry this with VirtualBox 3.0.2? This issue may be fixed there.

FYI: As mentioned in the forums, lowering the Video memory to 64MB works also. I will try 3.0.2 as soon as I can organise it to be placed in the Gentoo jokey overlay.

This has not been fixed in 3.0.2 . It made my system lock up completely after a few minutes of use. When I turned the Video memory down to 64mb as suggested above it does work. But at 128mb it locks up my guest and makes GDM show up scrunched up into about 2% of the vertical space available at the top of the screen (once logged in however X restores itself to full size).

Virtualbox running Ubuntu 9.04 32bit base install at 128mb vid mem

The original problem report is not related to the other comments (reporter used 32 MB).

We're looking into it. Keep in mind though that you are just wasting memory configuring a VM with so much VRAM, unless you have special requirements.

I just installed version 3.0.2 which doesn't make a difference. I tried with video memory sizes of 16 and 8 MB which did not change anything.

I installed 3.0.2 on Gentoo Linux, x86. Using a Gentoo Linux guest, I upgraded the tools to 3.0.2 and the problem persists. Using 128MB VMEM, the video is crunched up to the top, fixable by switching consoles. Using 64MB VMEM, no problems.

We have found the problem and fixed it in svn. It should hit the OSE repositories tomorrow if anyone feels like testing it. (It is an error setting the initial line pitch in the guest X.Org video driver, as you might have guessed from the look of the screen).

#4517 has been marked a duplicate of this ticket.

My thanks to the VirtualBox team for their efforts.

I just compiled Rev. 21480 which does not work.

The changeset is r21532, and you only need to build the (X.Org) Guest Additions.

Just tested 21573 which seems to be working.

Just out of curiousity- aren't the Guest Additions only active when the guest loads them ? The graphics output was already unusable during boot/'bios' phase.

srattat: sorry, I obviously paid too much attention to the (changed) ticket title and not enough to your comments and screen shots. It looks like you are seeing a different issue to the one I fixed, but one which should in fact be fixed in 3.0.2. That issue can normally be worked around by setting the environment variable XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1 when starting VirtualBox, but which has the side effect of preventing guest 3D from working. (3.0.2 is actually supposed to automatically set this variable for all modules except the 3D one.) If you can still reproduce the issue, can you try starting VirtualBox with that variable set?

It turns out that two separate issues have been discussed on this ticket, both of which have been fixed in SVN. One is that the the VirtualBox windows are shown with the wrong colours or partly transparent, and this is discussed in #3095 . The other is that X11 guests with Additions installed and large amounts of VRAM start with their display compressed into a few lines until the window is resized. Both issues are fixed in SVN, and the fix for the first is also in 3.0.2 for most of the Linux installation packages (notably not the All Distributions package).

Ticket #4517 has been marked a duplicate of this one.

Honestly michael, I actually dont consider the two issues separate because the transparency problem only appeared for me when I had VRAM set wrong, thus causing my VM to become unstable once I got passed the compressed login screen.

ju2wheels: interesting, I wasn't aware of that. However, when I said that they are separate issues, I meant that they are caused by separate problems in the code (the transparency is a problem in the Qt library on the host and/or the host display drivers which we work around, while the squashed display is a bug in the X11 Guest Additions).

A quick update, particularly for those using the .run installer which didn't get the original fix. We have replaced the original fix with a new one which covered a couple of additional problem cases, and it would be great to have some feedback from people who experienced (experience) this issue that the new fix also works for them. I will link to test builds here (the links will work for a week or so), so that anyone interested can give the fix a try. The usual warnings about test builds apply - please only use official releases on production systems, and please only use testbuilds if they fix a specific problem that you are experiencing :) That said, here they are:

http://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VirtualBox-2009-07-23-18-19-36-lin32-3.0-3.0.3-r50373.run

http://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VirtualBox-2009-07-23-18-09-37-lin64-3.0-3.0.3-r50373.run

And for those interested, this is the fix that was applied:

http://www.virtualbox.org/changeset/21760 and http://www.virtualbox.org/changeset/21761

Ah drat, this ticket was being used for the 128MB RAM issue, #3095 was for the transparency issue.

This is not completely fixed - with the 3.0.4 Guest Additions the problem can be seen on Fedora guests with relatively (!) small amounts of VRAM (reproduced with 20MB VRAM) which worked fine with the 3.0.2 Additions. See http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20952 for details.

In fact, this seems to be a regression caused by the fix to the original problem. We have reproduced the issue locally, and I believe I have fixed it. A testbuild of the Additions (disclaimer here...) in which the problem should be fixed can be downloaded at http://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VBoxGuestAdditions-r50791.iso. The link will be valid for a week or so.

I have tried the testbuild and it has fixed the video issues I was having. Host - Vista Guest - Fedora 11

3.0.5 guest additions from ISO above works for me too - GDM is not corrupted, screen resizing works up to 1920x1200, mouse integration etc.

Host: Fedora10 64-Bit, 128Mb VRAM, running 3.0.4 PUEL with VT-x enabled.

Guest: Fedora11 64-Bit, 16Mb VRAM, no 3D/compiz, kernel 2.6.29.6-217.2.3.fc11.x86_64.

Ticket #4764 has been marked a duplicate of this one.

Just a note to say I was having issues with Fedora 10 as a guest on a Vista Host machine, any time I booted the guest box the screen was garbled. Multiple re-starts of the X server would fix it until I restarted the guest machine.

Installing Vbox addons from the link above resolved it. I was using the default vbox addins from version 3.0.4r50677.

Thanks Michael!

I refreshed the link in comment 24, so it will be valid for another week or so as of now.

Thanks Michael; I downloaded it this morning. Will install, test and report results tonight.

Thanks, Michael! This helped me with latest Fedora 11 guest on Windows 7 host. Login screen and desktop no longer messed.

Ticket #4798 has been marked a duplicate of this one.

Thanks, Michael. This fix worked great.

I was having the same issue running Fedora 11 (2.6.29.4-167.fc11.x86_64) as a guest on Windows 7 Beta under VirtualBox 3.0.4r50677 regardless of the virtual video adapter settings. After the installation of the 3.04 GA package the Gnome login screen was scrambled and the guest basically locked.

After booting it single user mode and installing the VirtualBox-2009-07-23-18-09-37-lin64-3.0-3.0.3-r50373.run everything is working perfectly (including resize) with any combination of HW acceleration and video RAM.

Hope this helps, thanks very much for the beta GA package.

Thank you for the solution!

Is this problem fixed in 3.0.6-52128?

It should be, but in the end people experiencing the issue have to decide that, so feel free to test it for yourself and post feedback here.

Ok, I confirm it works for a fully upgraded Fedora 11. It seems, you can safely update to 3.0.6. Well, thanks again for your effort, Michael.