VirtualBox

Opened 14 years ago

Closed 11 years ago

#8331 closed defect (fixed)

Mouse tracking fails on dual screen (when not using Mouse Integration)

Reported by: Grant Owned by:
Component: GUI Version: VirtualBox 4.0.2
Keywords: dual screen mouse Cc:
Guest type: Linux Host type: Windows

Description (last modified by Klaus Espenlaub)

Using latest version of VB (4.0.2) and Windows 7

When VB window is placed on a non-primary desktop part of a dual screen (in my case, to the right extended desktop) the mouse tracking is all wrong/fails. This only happens for guests where Mouse Integration is not an option or enabled. The mouse tracking doesn't work and essentially the VM Windows is unusable in dual screen setups (like mine). The tracking events are stuffed up and the mouse is pushed as if back onto the primary desktop (when obviously you are in the window of VB in the secondary desktop/screen).

Change History (16)

comment:1 by Anton, 14 years ago

Im have windows 7 host and Windows XP guest this bug works too...

on version 4.0.4 the bug exixts too

How to make it: 1.Get dual screen system 2.Open Vbox in fullscreen on secondary (not primary) monitor 3.Switch off mouse integration mode 4.Go mouse pointer to all 4 directions 5.U'll see that guest machine lost mouse pointer focus no matter that integration mode is switched off

comment:2 by Allen, 14 years ago

I also have this problem. At first I thought it was related to the fact that my monitors are set to different resolutions, but after changing them to matching resolutions the problem remained. With older versions of virtualbox, I could not drag VM windows from one screen to the next without them snapping to the bottom of the screen and spasming. It still does this if I change the resolution while virtualbox is open. Windows 7 x64 host with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 98 guests.

comment:3 by nicorac, 13 years ago

Same here, my setup:

Host: Windows7 x64 Pro
VBox: 4.1.0
Secondary screen at left side (it has negative coordinates)
Mouse integration does not affect, bug always present

comment:4 by Tom Wilson, 13 years ago

Also seeing it on Windows7 x64 Ultimate host with a WS2008 guest. VBox 4.1.2 Secondary screen is to the left of the main monitor. Happens when pointer integration is turned off.

If I move the mouse up, for example, the cursor suddenly un-captures itself. The host cursor will be at the top of the physical monitor, and the guest cursor will be somewhere in the middle of the virtual monitor.

It looks like VBox is passing the relative mouse movement in to the guest but not moving the mouse cursor back to a fixed position.

I have written a remote control app, and here's what I came up with as the best way to deal with it:

  1. When clicking on the guest window, hide the HOST mouse cursor.
  2. Remember the host's mouse position.
  3. Move the HOST mouse cursor to the center of the display.
  4. When the mouse moves, grab the new mouse coordinates. Calculate the offset from the center of the display. Pass that in to the guest mouse driver as a relative movement. (Never absolutely position the guest cursor.)
  5. Move the HOST mouse BACK to the center of the display.

When the user presses the host key:

  1. Release the cursor from the guest.
  2. Move the host cursor back to the remembered position.
  3. Show the host cursor.

comment:5 by Don Gateley, 12 years ago

Still true on 4.2.6 so I guess there is no interest among the developers to fix this. Heavy sigh.

comment:6 by nicorac, 12 years ago

That's really sad, because multimonitor configurations are getting widespread.

in reply to:  5 ; comment:7 by Klaus Espenlaub, 12 years ago

Description: modified (diff)

Replying to DonGateley:

Still true on 4.2.6 so I guess there is no interest among the developers to fix this. Heavy sigh.

Your guess is plain wrong. Please bear in mind that you're not the only person using VirtualBox (many million users, and quite some other bug reports), and this implies that the developers have to prioritize issues.

Disabling mouse integration is a VERY unusual setup, only a tiny fraction of the user base even knows that this is an option.

in reply to:  7 comment:8 by Joe E. S., 11 years ago

Replying to klaus:

Replying to DonGateley:

Still true on 4.2.6 so I guess there is no interest among the developers to fix this. Heavy sigh.

Your guess is plain wrong. Please bear in mind that you're not the only person using VirtualBox (many million users, and quite some other bug reports), and this implies that the developers have to prioritize issues.

Disabling mouse integration is a VERY unusual setup, only a tiny fraction of the user base even knows that this is an option.

As far as developers having limited time, a ton of bugs to fix, and thus being required to set priorities, I get that. I'm okay with that.

But that last part about disabling mouse integration being a "VERY unusual setup" is pure rubbish, and a total cop-out. Talk about a hand-waving argument. How would you even know what percentage of VirtualBox users know about disabling mouse pointer integration? That's nothing but pure speculation, being used to casually dismiss and marginalize anybody who actually cares about having mouse capture work correctly on dual monitor setups. As if having a dual monitor setup and wanting to run some flavor of Linux as a guest OS on your second monitor is some sort of unheard-of exotic configuration, when in reality that's fairly vanilla. You should have just stopped at "Sorry, there are lots of bugs and the devs have to prioritize."

Last edited 11 years ago by Joe E. S. (previous) (diff)

comment:9 by repharaoh, 11 years ago

I am very disappointed that this issue hasn't been fixed more than three years since it was initially reported.

VirtualBox is unusable because of this issue. I'm pirating VMWare instead, you lost a customer.

Last edited 11 years ago by repharaoh (previous) (diff)

in reply to:  9 comment:10 by nicorac, 11 years ago

+1
3 years and not a single update on this issue.

Multiple screen setups are really widespread nowadays, especially with laptop users.
Mouse crazyness and/or disabling mouse integration is not an acceptable solution.

comment:11 by Michael Thayer, 11 years ago

As Klaus mentioned, the number of open issues for VirtualBox greatly exceeds the amount of paid developer time we have available for working on them. Two of the factors we take into account when deciding what to prioritise are whether paying customer are affected (prioritising here also benefits non-paying customers for obvious reasons) and the number of people we see reporting an issue. Compared to many tickets this one has a low-ish number of comments, so I think it is reasonable to assume that this is not a usual set-up.

And as usual I will point out that VirtualBox is open source, so the amount of time the core developers have available does not need to be the limiting factor. We get relatively little outside contribution, and what we get is more often feature contributions than simple fixes for bugs of this sort which we have not had time to address ourselves. So contributing if you can write code, or encouraging other people to contribute might be a good use of your time.

Not saying we will not take a look at this if we do find enough time, but I can't promise we will either.

comment:13 by repharaoh, 11 years ago

This build fixed the issue!

Thanks, VirtualBox! :D

comment:14 by nicorac, 11 years ago

YES, it works on my side too!

@michael: thank you very much for the notice.
Are you the author of the fix?
How can I find a link to the SVN revision that fixes this ticket?

Thanks

comment:15 by Michael Thayer, 11 years ago

Thanks for testing. Quick answers: no, and this is the revision in trunk (not the back-port to 4.3) which fixes the issue:

https://www.virtualbox.org/changeset/51203/vbox

comment:16 by Frank Mehnert, 11 years ago

Resolution: fixed
Status: newclosed

Fix is part of VBox 4.3.12.

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