Arch Linux

anadyr

Member

Registered: 2005-02-10

Posts: 225

[solved] Virtualbox guest freezes when terminal in full screen

Host: win8.1, Virtualbox 5.0.20
Guest: Arch x64, latest updates and latest virtualbox-guest-modules-arch. Running fluxbox, VBoxClient is run from .xinitrc. Resolution is set from /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

Action: running dmesg from a full screen xterm or aterm. Or opening large log files in vi in a full screen xterm or aterm.
Result: virtualbox window "freezes" and stops updating. However the system remains responsive; when I click outside the VM and then in the VM I can manually trigger an update of the screen. But from there it doesn't update again until I trigger the update again. This behavior occurs since about a month; before that there were no problems.
The same happens occassionally when running dmesg or vi in a smaller window, but not always.

Unfortunately there is nothing in the virtualbox logs in the host, nor in the kernel logs in the guest VM.

What I tried to do to fix:
- update everything and following the virtualbox wiki closely
- changing the amount of video RAM in virtualbox
- setting the resolution differently (hardcoded in a kernel line or from the virtualbox shortcut in windows)
- enabling and disabling video accelleration in the VM.

Any help is appreciated!

Last edited by anadyr (2016-08-15 14:17:17)

pm3840

Member

Registered: 2013-12-16

Posts: 67

Re: [solved] Virtualbox guest freezes when terminal in full screen

See if this helps: use Ctrl+Alt+F1 or similar to switch to text console then Alt+F? to switch back to GUI

Slithery

Administrator

From: Norfolk, UK

Registered: 2013-12-01

Posts: 5,776

Re: [solved] Virtualbox guest freezes when terminal in full screen

...and latest virtualbox-host-modules-arch.

Probably unrelated to your issue but why are you running the host modules? Surely you should be using the guest modules.

---

No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

anadyr

Member

Registered: 2005-02-10

Posts: 225

Re: [solved] Virtualbox guest freezes when terminal in full screen

pm3840 what you suggest works. When switching to console and then back to the GUI the problem disappears entirely. This is a workaround I can live with, but it isn't a structural solution so I am hesitating to set this post to solved.

slithery: I made a typo and I corrected it just now. I was indeed running the guest-modules.

fobbyal

Member

Registered: 2016-06-11

Posts: 4

Re: [solved] Virtualbox guest freezes when terminal in full screen

I have the same exact issue in windows 10