Microsoft Office unusable in version 5.1.24, was working in 5.1.22 fairly well, not perfect though

[Rafcio]

After installing the latest VBox (5.1.24) the guest becomes unusable when Microsoft Office is running. It becomes completely unresponsive. The clock (showing seconds) no longer advances by 1 second, instead it jumps every few seconds showing that the VM is hung most of the time. The guest window even darkens periodically showing that the host detects it as unresponsive.

For some applications, it's enough to open it without loading anything (Word 2016 or Excel 2016 for example). The older versions (i.e. Word 2013 or Excel 2013) can be opened, but if a document is loaded, or in the case of Excel if any single cell (or a range of cells) is copied to the clipboard, the guest becomes pretty much locked. It is possible with persistent clicks on the close button to terminate MS Office application and regain guest responsiveness, but this usually takes minutes as the VM pretty much doesn't respond for most of the time.

I have reverted to 5.1.22 and the problem went away proving it's a regression in 5.1.24.

[Rafcio]

Log file

[Frank Mehnert]

I have no idea if any of the 5.1.24 changes could be relevant to your problem, at least I don't see an immediate candidate. Decreasing the number of VCPUs from 4 to 1 is always worth to try, also disabling 2D video acceleration.

[Rafcio]

Well, isn't that a proof that reversing to 5.1.22 fixes the issue? Let me add a little more background information. Due to the full screen mode issue (bug report 16931 and the older one) I was using version 4.3.30 until a few weeks ago I couldn't use any more PRECISELY for the same reason. I had to replace the hard drive and reload the RHEL Workstation on it. Previously I had RHEL 6.8 and I loaded release 6.9. VBox 4.3.30 was running just fine (in full screen mode), but I couldn't use MS Office any more. Exactly the same symptoms (VM unresponsive, etc.) as with 5.1.24. So, I upgraded to the latest version then available, which was 5.1.22. MS Office could be used again until I installed 5.1.24. And VM freezes when running MS Office apps returned. I uninstalled 5.1.24 and installed 5.1.22 and again VM is usable again with MS Office.

One thing that I want to add that there are minor issues with 5.1 that I didn't have under 4.3.30. Namely keyboard and mouse. When I need to select several items in the list (no necessarily in MS Office) I click one item and then hold Shift or Control and click on another. That was working flawlessly in 4.3, but in 5.1.22 frequently (not always, but quite frequently) the new item is selected instead of a range or another item in addition to the one originally selected. This is as if Shift or Control wasn't pressed. I release the key (Shift or Control) press it again and reattempt multiple selection. Again, it doesn't work as if Shift or Control wasn't pressed. It usually work on the third attempt. I never had this issue with 4.3. Similarly mouse behaves erratically in Excel. I click on a cell and then release the mouse button and just move the cursor. A range of cells is selected as if the left mouse button was pressed. These mouse/keyboard issues were not present in 4.3.30. I'd be happily using it if not for the MS Office issue now. So, the latest releases are not as perfect as it may seem to you. That reminds me that I need to update another 2 of my tickets dealing with XP crashes and host network interfaces pauses. I've found out that reversing to 5.0.x there resolves the issues I started experiencing with 5.1.x.

[Rafcio]

So, I've installed version 5.2 and immediately the same issue as in 4.3.30 when VM became totally unresponsive running MS Office. I did a little testing and I've found out that reducing the number of CPUs to one did nothing, however disabling 2D acceleration solved the problem. In 5.2 version 2D acceleration is not disabled in the GUI as it was previously. So you have one lead there as 2D acceleration is the culprit, however the keyboard and mouse issues are still there. I almost can't use left mouse button to select text, because to system it looks like the mouse button was released soon after being pressed even though I keep pressing it.