Chrome viewport becomes always on top when rendering pages with 3d transforms

[requiredfield]

Steps to reproduce the problem:

Visit any page with a css 3d transform applied in Google Chrome or Chromium in an Ubuntu VM in VirtualBox, e.g. go to ​http://www.w3schools.com/css/css3_3dtransforms.asp and click the red "3d rotate" rectangle

Expected behavior:

The viewport should not be rendered always on top of other windows; rather, other windows should be able to display on top of the Chrome window.

Observed behavior:

The viewport (note: not the whole Chrome window, but just the viewport) becomes always on top of everything else on the screen until the Chrome window is closed. This does *not* happen in Firefox in the Ubuntu VM.

Please see ​http://youtu.be/cIc7O9R5eR8 for a demonstration of the bug.

As of this writing, I can consistently reproduce this in an up-to-date Ubuntu 13.10 desktop i386 VM running the latest Chrome stable (Version 31.0.1650.57) inside the latest VirtualBox (4.3.2-90405) with the latest VirtualBox guest additions installed. Unfortunately I don't have an Ubuntu system running as a host OS to test on. Therefore, I can't say that this isn't instead a bug in Ubuntu or just Chrome rather than VirtualBox, or some interaction with my settings, but I'm opening tickets in both places just to be sure.

Chromium issue is at ​https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=322085

[Perry G]

Seems to work properly with Firefox for me. Both host and guest.

[requiredfield]

Yeah, like I said, it works in Firefox but not Chrome.

Here's a clue: After disabling 3D acceleration in VirtualBox I can no longer reproduce. So I'm guessing it's not Chrome's fault, and is some buggy interaction between VirtualBox's 3D acceleration and the 3D APIs Chrome is using.

[requiredfield]

@Perryg, can you reproduce if you enable 3D acceleration and try with Chrome as in the demo video?

[Perry G]

Not really. I missed the part where you had said it worked in FF. Google Chrome is not in any of my repos and the last time I installed it manually it trashed my system and I had to to remove it to get the system back. So in that sence I am afraid I can't add to the discussion, sorry.

[Michael Thayer]

It is a known issue that in Linux guests 3D content is always rendered on top of non-3D, even if the non-3D is higher in the stacking order, and this sounds like what you are seeing. I'm afraid though that there isn't a quick fix for that, so it will not change in the immediate future.

[requiredfield]

Thanks for the info, @michael. Is there another ticket somewhere for the issue you mentioned so people who find this ticket can track progress on that one? And now that I've disabled 3D acceleration, my Ubuntu 13.10 VM is very laggy. Is that because of #11107, even though that was logged against Ubuntu 12.10? That ticket has a very long discussion; is the takeaway to use ​http://askubuntu.com/questions/207813/why-does-an-ubuntu-12-10-guest-in-virtualbox-run-very-very-slowly/214968#214968 as a workaround?

Oh, and speaking of tracking progress, how can I get email updates when this ticket is modified? Couldn't find it under https://www.virtualbox.org/prefs.

Thanks for the helpful discussion.

[Frank Mehnert]

If your email address correctly set under /prefs? I guess not...

[Michael Thayer]

The fact that this happens in a VirtualBox virtual machine but not on a physical Ubuntu machine is due to the design of the VirtualBox 3D pass-through, and will only change with a major or complete rewrite of the VirtualBox 3D drivers. There are probably other open tickets for the same issue, but none which is tracking progress. Ticket #11107 is a different issue. If you can live with this issue then that is probably the best for now, as you see that Ubuntu guests don't like disabled 3D very much.

[requiredfield]

Thanks for the additional info, @michael. Is a rewrite of the VirtualBox 3D drivers planned, or is that not currently on the roadmap?

[Michael Thayer]

It is planned as soon as time permits, but this is quite a big job, so I can't predict when it will be ready.

[andrejz]

Is there any update regarding the issue?

I'm retesting this with every virtualbox release. Last I have checked Virtualbox 5.0 on Windows 7 running ubuntu 14.04. The unity acceleration works. The Chrome browser does not have access to acceleration though.

Please find the chrome gpu related details on following link: ​http://goo.gl/4mnzfn.