Bidirectional Clipboard copy stops working eventually, Win client to Fedora host, then both ways. -> duplicate of #5266

[quantsuff]

This is similar in symptoms to ticket #5266, except here, host is Linux and Guest is Windows

VirtualBox 3.1.2 r56127

Host: Fedora 12 64-bit - 2.6.31.12-174.2.3.fc12.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon Jan 18 19:52:07 UTC 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Guest: Windows7 32-bit (single guest)

Guest additions are installed and guest rebooted afterword. Shared clipboard copies work in both directions, the after a random number of hours, guest-to-host copying will fail, and sometimes copying both ways will fail

Rebooting guest always fixes it for a while, but is impractical as an ongoing solution.

This seems to be a known bug with Windows Host and linux client, but I don't see many bugs or posts about the other way around.

Attempted to restart the service in Windows 7 but with no improvement. Should I be restarting something in Fedora?

What logs can I provide and from which host?

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Steps attempted inside Windows client: Recently when guest-to-host failed again I tried restarting VirtualBox Guest Additions Service (system32\VBoxService.exe)

-Control Panel\System and Security\Administrative Tools -Services -Highlight VirtualBox Guest Additions Service -- choices are Stop the Service or Restart the Service

Click on either. You get this shutdown timeout message:

"Windows could not stop the VirtualBox Guest Additions Service service on Local Computer Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion"

Now Service Manager shows it as having no Status (not running) and your only option is now Start the Service

Click Start the service. It appears to start, but guest-to-host clipboard is still broken.

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[quantsuff]

vbox-install.log attached

[quantsuff]

OP: And here are the only vbox lines in /var/log/messages.

(Do I really need to "echo 2 > /proc/sys/kernel/perf_counter_paranoid" ?)

---

Feb  3 13:57:34 cha kernel: vboxdrv: Warning: 2.6.31+ kernel detected. Most likely the hardware performance
Feb  3 13:57:34 cha kernel: vboxdrv: counter framework which can generate NMIs is active. You have to prevent
Feb  3 13:57:34 cha kernel: vboxdrv: the usage of hardware performance counters by
Feb  3 13:57:34 cha kernel: vboxdrv:   echo 2 > /proc/sys/kernel/perf_counter_paranoid
Feb  3 13:57:34 cha kernel: vboxdrv: fAsync=0 offMin=0x38e offMax=0x161c
Feb  3 13:57:34 cha kernel: vboxdrv: TSC mode is 'synchronous', kernel timer mode is 'normal'.

[quantsuff]

I'll upload VBox.log from the linux host the next time the clipboard dies.

[Frank Mehnert]

Replying to quantsuff:

OP: And here are the only vbox lines in /var/log/messages.

(Do I really need to "echo 2 > /proc/sys/kernel/perf_counter_paranoid" ?)

You can ignore this message if you are using the PUEL version as /etc/init.d/vboxdrv does that for you.

[quantsuff]

You're right. It's in /etc/init.d/vboxdrv under

# HACK: disable the hardware performance counter framework

[quantsuff]

Bidirectional clipboard worked Thursday evening. Now, Sat afternoon, it doesn't. See comment 2/13/2010

[quantsuff]

Uploaded attachment: I attached the VBox.log from my still-running virtual machine as "VBox-clipboard_fail.log"

Sometime between timestamp 26:33:06 and 45:45:33 bidirectional clipboard has changed to unidirectional:

• Cut and paste text from 64-bit linux host to 32-bit Windows 7 client works
• Cut and paste text from Win 7 client to linux host does not.

[sunlover]

quantsuff, you could try to restart VBoxTray.exe process, when clipboard stops working. If it helps, this means some application in the guest broke the clipboard viewers chain.

[quantsuff]

waiting for it to die again. will attempt what you suggest when that happens. Thanks.

[Dieter Fauth]

Since I experience that error since a long time, I searched in google for "clipboard viewers chain" and found this interesting page: ​http://www.clipboardextender.com/?page_id=6

I explains quite some backgrounds and it looks like we must blame MS for another weak design.

[quantsuff]

I have upgraded to VBox 3.1.4 r57640, then went away for a week. Nothing to report yet. I will be using the environment heavily this week, so maybe I can reproduce it.

[quantsuff]

sunlover, how would I go about restarting the VBoxTray.exe process as you suggest?

I see an icon in the System tray that pops up a ToolTip saying "Sun Virtualization Guest Additions 3.4.1r57640" Clicking in various ways produces no visible effect.

[quantsuff]

Update:

After upgrading to VBox 3.1.4 r57640 on my Fedora 12-64 bit box, I scrapped the Windows 7 VM and installed a new 32 bit WinXP VM.

Client to host clipboard copy just died again. It kept pasting the previous item in the clipboard buffer to the Fedora host, instead of the new item I copied into the clipboard on the guest XP vm.

Then 5 minutes later, it spontaneously began working properly again. Is there a log I can attach that would be helpful?

(All this happened before I tried clicking around in the System Tray as mentioned in previous post)

[quantsuff]

I cannot reproduce this bug at will. It comes and goes, and apparently resolves itself, given time, as described 2010-03-04.

It is annoying, but since I can't cause it reliably, I'm not sure this ticket needs to remain open.

Unless someone else has a comment soon, I guess I'll close/abandon it

Thank you for your suggestions.

[blickley]

I have the same issue. It dies randomly and sometimes comes back. I have tried various setting "bi-directional", "HostToGuest", etc. I've also uninstalled/reinstalled the guest additions. This happened on 3.1.2 and 3.1.4. Not sure what to do at this point....I've been using a text file in a shared folder to copy/paste back and forth, but that is really a pain.

[eewww]

This ticket seems to be a duplicate of ticket #5266 ​http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/5266

[quantsuff]

Actually, no, this is the opposite of 5266.

See first sentence of the problem description where I point that out. (and it's still happening, FWIW)

[Graham Perrin]

I'm usually in favour of separate tickets but in #5266 there's discussion of various hosts, various guests.

In this ticket, the opening

Host type: Windows

is wrong. quantsuff, please, can you change it?

[Graham Perrin]

Replying to quantsuff:

"Windows could not stop the VirtualBox Guest Additions Service service on Local Computer Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion"

#7683 is 'Windows could not stop the VirtualBox Guest Additions Service'

Now Service Manager shows it as having no Status (not running) and your only option is now Start the Service

I'll add that to #7683.

Click Start the service. It appears to start, but guest-to-host clipboard is still broken.

I had the same experience with a Windows XP guest.

[Michael Thayer]

For now (until proven otherwise) I will assume that this is the same issue as #5266, since the clipboard code in Windows hosts and Windows guests is pretty similar and Windows suffers from known issues in this respect for which we don't have good workarounds.