Alt and AltGr keys no longer working with mouse integration enabled -> fixed by reconfiguring

[aha_1980]

I had a Windows 7 guest running for some weeks without problems, with both mouse pointer integration and a working German keyboard.

I recently tried to import and use another Windows guest, where I had strange problems getting the keyboard running. I therefore played a bit with turning mouse pointer integration on and off, but didn't succeed and gave up.

Now my problems began: The long time working Windows guest does not accept the Alt and AltGr keys anymore. That is very annoying for me as I need them to get the curly brackets on the German keyboard (I'm C++ programmer, and by the way, Qt contributor ;) ).

Like suggested in [1], the following both work:

• Pressing Windows+Alt or Windows+AltGr together
• Disabling mouse pointer integration

But as this had worked perfectly fine before with mouse pointer integration, any chance to get it back?

Thanks

System: Amd Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD M2, USB keyboard and mouse Host OS: Ubuntu 16.04 x64 Guest OS: Windows 7 Professional SP1 x64 VirtualBox 5.2.10 (upgraded yesterday from 5.2.6), with Extension Pack and current Guest addon German keyboard layout Host key: Shift Right + Ctrl Right

[1] ​https://superuser.com/questions/710091/how-to-use-the-alt-key-in-a-virtual-box-guest-session

[Socratis]

Related discussion in the forums: ​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=87722

[aha_1980]

Just to make it clear: the problem exists in 5.2.6 and 5.2.10. I only upgraded to see if it makes a difference.

[Michael Thayer]

Any idea what caused the problem to appear in the first place? Might it be related to additional software on the host or in the guest? I doubt that anyone on the team will have time to take a look at this, so I wrote up a very rough guide to how our keyboard input works<1> in case you want to investigate.

1. wiki:KeyboardInput

[Michael Thayer]

Feel free to write up what you find on this bug ticket though.

[aha_1980]

Any idea what caused the problem to appear in the first place? Might it be related to additional software on the host or in the guest?

I'm not aware on Host side modifications. I did install software in the Guests (I have two that are effected), and reverted to earlier safepoints a couple of times.

I doubt that anyone on the team will have time to take a look at this, so I wrote up a very rough guide to how our keyboard input works<1> in case you want to investigate.

Please find attached two screenshots of KeyView2 (I didn't find keylook, hope that is Ok too).

• With mouse captured (no mouse pointer integration), everything is fine
• With mouse not captured (mouse pointer integration on), some Alt or AltGr presses reach the Guest (approx. 10 %). Alt+Tab and Alt+Print are handled by the Host (but you see the DRUCK at the bottom, which is th result of Alt+Print). Note that some keys only have an Up event, some only a Down event and sometimes the events arrive in the wrong order.

So my conclusion is, that these keys are not relyable forwarded to the Guest with mouse pointer integration.

This has worked before - I assume some mis-configuration!

I'm tempted to do apt remove --purge virtualbox and reinstall. Should I backup anything for later investigation?

Thanks

[aha_1980]

Hi, I got it working again.

It seems indeed a mis-setting in my VirtualBox configuration, from the experiment with a Guest system for which I could not get the keyboard running at all (it was impossible to log into Windows).

I reinstalled VirtualBox with apt, afterwards I renamed my ~/.config/VirtualBox directory and added my main guest system again.

At boot up I noticed a "keyboard capture" message I have not been aware of before. Futher, mouse pointer integration was reported. In the Guest, the keys are working properly now. Afterwards I noted the "Auto capture mode for keyboard" in the VirtualBox settings. I assume that this was deactivated (I still have the old configuration files in case you are interested) and therefore Alt and AltGr were not functional.

I'm not sure if this is the expected behavior (the help text states "redirection of Alt+Tab into the Guest").

If it is, then sorry for the noise and please close this ticket. On the other hand, I'd recommend to add a warning to this setting that these keys are not properly working afterwards.

In any case, many thanks for your help, patience and a great product.

Keep the good work going.

Regards

[Michael Thayer]

Thanks for letting us know.