Saving Ubuntu guest in full-screen mode causes guest X session hang when resuming. Windows 8 host.

[Jim Avera]

Host is Windows 8 64-bit, guest is Ubuntu 13.04 64 bit.

Everything works fine including saving state & restoring when the guest is in a normal window. But if the guest is saved while in full-screen mode, then when the guest is restored it is unresponsive, cursors do not flash, etc.

However the "hung" guest does respond to Host-F1 and switches to a VT where you can log and kill the X server, after which normal operation resumes.

So saving or restoring in full-screen-mode breaks something related to sending events to the guest X server.

HOW TO REPRODUCE:

Start Ubuntu guest
Go to full screen (Host-F)
Put cursor at bottom of screen to get vbox menu, then
Machine->Close-Save Machine State

Restart the saved VM. It hangs.

(to recover: Host-F1, log in as root and kill the X server process)

I'll attach two log files (one from the session which ended with a save while in full-screen mode), the other from the restarted VM with the hung X server.

[Jim Avera]

Doesn't anyone else have trouble with save & restore on win8 hosts?

After further testing, it looks like Save & Restore hangs the guest REGARDLESS of whether full-screen was in effect when the save was done. The X server is deaf and dumb after restore, but Host-F1 works to get a vt.

However, there might be some kind of corrupted state caused by ever using Full Screen mode, because a Snapshot TAKEN WHILE IN NON-FULLSCREEN MODE restores to full-screen mode the first time it is restored, but not in subsequent times:

1. Host-F to enter full-screen mode. Host-F to return to regular mode (desktop in a window). Guest still works normally.
2. Machine->Take Snapshot
3. Machine->Close, select "Power off & restore current snapshot"
4. Open VBox manager and start the VM.

The VM opens immediately into Full Screen mode! But the guest's display image is the small size it should have had in normal (desktop-in-a-window) mode. As usual, the X server is mute, but can be killed to restore normal operation.

5. Machine->Close, select "Power off & restore current snapshot"

This time the VM restores to normal, non-fullscreen mode (with X server mute).

So there must be some state in the VM which leads to incorrect window mapping on the host the first time. Very strange.

[therms]

I may be experiencing the same thing on Windows 7 64-bit with an Ubuntu 13.04 64-bit guest.

Save machine state and then restore. X is completely unresponsive *except* for the mouse cursor changes when over window borders and the like.

[ma_tej]

I have the problem described in the original ticket: on a Windows 8.1 64-bit host with VirtualBox 4.3.16 r95972 and Ubuntu 14.10 Desktop guest: after restoring from snapshot a VM that was saved to snapshot + closed in full screen, the guest does not seem to respond visibly to any GUI manipulation, except that it is obvious that only the display overlay is frozen.

I am glad to see there is at least one way around this, I just need to remember to exit the full-screen mode before closing to snapshot the VM.

[Jurek]

I have similar issue. VirtualBox 4.3.20, Windows 8.1 64-bit host.

[richard allen]

the same issue.

windows 8.1
virtual box 4.3.20 r96997
guest additions 4.3.20