6.1.10 or 6.1.2 CentOS 6, 7 and OracleLinux-6.10 issues with VMSVGA display adapter

[Wheaties]

On login for OracleLinux-6.10, CentOS-6, or CentOS-7 the display goes black after login when using the VMSVGA display adapter. Resizing will restore the display, but the screen will go black again if the window is resized large enough. This can be done using the "Virtual Screen 1" menu choice on the bottom of the Display Menu. Any resolution at or above 1440 x 900 will display a black rectangle

VboxSVGA still works and resizes correctly

[Frank Batschulat (Oracle)]

I cannot reproduce this on any of the mentioned guest OS CentOS 6, Oracle Linux 6.10 and not on CentOS 7 either using the VMSVGA adapter and running Ubuntu 20.04 as the host OS using the latest Virtualbox 6.1.12 version and 6.1.12 GAs in the guests.

Q: From the log it looks like seemless mode is being used?

"00:02:25.637713 VMMDev: Guest Additions capability report: (0x1 -> 0x5) seamless: yes, hostWindowMapping: no, graphics: yes"

Q: Are you using multiple guest window screens?

"00:02:40.777793 GUI: UIMachineLogic: Guest-screen count changed"

[Wheaties]

Replying to fbatschu:

I cannot reproduce this on any of the mentioned guest OS CentOS 6, Oracle Linux 6.10 and not on CentOS 7 either using the VMSVGA adapter and running Ubuntu 20.04 as the host OS using the latest Virtualbox 6.1.12 version and 6.1.12 GAs in the guests.

Yes, the host system is using Fedora 31 or 32 (tested on both) and the Guest Additions have been updated to 6.1.12 as is the Virtualbox

Q: From the log it looks like seemless mode is being used?

Seamless mode is not selected. I am not using seamless mode

"00:02:25.637713 VMMDev: Guest Additions capability report: (0x1 -> 0x5) seamless: yes, hostWindowMapping: no, graphics: yes"

Q: Are you using multiple guest window screens?

"00:02:40.777793 GUI: UIMachineLogic: Guest-screen count changed"

No, just the one screen for that guest if that's what you're asking. For testing purposes, I only ran one virtualbox at a time.

[Wheaties]

Re-reading my original ticket comment, I have misused the word 'screen'---my intent was to describe the "screen" of the virtualbox, namely the window that provides the "screen" While I have graphics right up through log in, the window goes black after log in. The desktop background will reappear if I resize the window until I resize to a window that is above a certain size. You've probably figured out what I mean, but I want to clear that up anyway.

[Frank Batschulat (Oracle)]

I cannot reproduce this with any of the mentioned guest OS CentOS 6, Oracle Linux 6.10 and not with CentOS 7 either using the VMSVGA adapter and running Fedora 32 as the host OS neither with XOrg nor with XWayland on the host using the latest Virtualbox 6.1.12 version.

[Wheaties]

Replying to fbatschu:

I cannot reproduce this with any of the mentioned guest OS CentOS 6, Oracle Linux 6.10 and not with CentOS 7 either using the VMSVGA adapter and running Fedora 32 as the host OS neither with XOrg nor with XWayland on the host using the latest Virtualbox 6.1.12 version.

How can I help? I'm not customizing the environment in any way that I know of. I am using two different laptops, both of them Lenovo with nvidia drivers. The VboxSVGA works for now. One is Fedora 31 and the other is Fedora 32.

Matt

[Frank Batschulat (Oracle)]

Questions for using the VMSVGA adapter:

1) Are you using 3D Acceleration enabled for the failing guests?

If so, does the problem go away if you disable it?

2) You have 12 MB video RAM vor the guest, seems little bit low,

can you test with 28MB video RAM please?

[Klaus Espenlaub]

Better try with 32MB video RAM. I seem to remember that the VRAM allocator of the vmwgfx driver from some Linux kernels has trouble with available space which isn't a power of 2. The black screen is the symptom of the allocator failing to find enough space.

[Wheaties]

Thank you! The display memory size was the issue. (No, I have never used 3D acceleration)

Setting the display memory to 28 meg fixed things right up. In fact, I discovered almost by accident that setting display memory to 16 meg fixed the problem.

I guess the VMSVGA driver uses/needs more memory. I will bump usage up to 32meg

We can close this ticket.

Matt

[alealeale]

I have the same issue on Oracle Linux Server release 7.8 since 6.1.10. VM started full screen (on 2nd host monitor, guest has 1)->GDM Greater->type password->black screen I think that the GDM greater has a lower resolution then the one set after the login (1920x1080).

When the screen is black, I ssh into the guest and run sudo telinit 3 and then sudo telinit 5. Then GDM greater now is full screen and after typing the password the desktop appears. (I prefer that then resizing because doing so the icons on the desktop don't get messed)

EDIT: I opened that page about 10 hours ago and replyed without refreshing, so I missed the suggestion about video memory. The Video Memory for my VM is set to 128MB, so that shouldn't be the cause. I'll try disabling 3D as soon as I can reboot the VM.