keyboard input less responsive after screensaver fails to activate because of VirtualBox

[James]

Binary package hint: gnome-screensaver

Description: Ubuntu 9.10
Release: 9.10

  Installed: 2.28.0-0ubuntu3
  Candidate: 2.28.0-0ubuntu3
  Version table:
 *** 2.28.0-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Expected to happen:
I work away inside a VirtualBox image, leave my machine for 10 mins come back and type away as normal.

What happened instead:
I come back to the VirtualBox image and the keyboard becomes unresponsive. I escape out the VirtualBox machine, wait 5 seconds and the screen saver starts.

Application causing the bug: VirtualBox
Application affected: gnome-screensaver
Gnome-screensaver setting: after 10 mins of idle keyboard and mouse the screen saver will activate

Reproducing the problem:
1) Using the mouse click inside a VirtualBox machine.
2) Leave Ubuntu to idle for over 10 mins.
3) After 10 mins observe that the screensaver has not started.
4) Start typing text into any application within VirtualBox
5) Observe that keyboard input is unresponsive (50% of text typed is accepted .e.g. into gedit)
6) Press Right CTRL to escape out of the VirtualBox and wait 5 seconds.
7) Observe the screensaver starts instantly.
8) Move the mouse or tap a key on the keyboard to cancel the screensaver.
9) Observe the keyboard input responsiveness within VirtualBox has returned to normal.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Nov 30 17:30:23 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
Package: gnome-screensaver 2.28.0-0ubuntu3
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-15.50-generic
SourcePackage: gnome-screensaver
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-15-generic i686
XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:1851): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:1904): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (nautilus:1889): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed

[James (james-r0bertson)]

I meant 5 minutes not 10 minutes.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. A new version of gnome-screensaver is available in both Lucid and Maverick and we are wondering if this is still reproducible in any of those versions, May you please test and give us of feedback about it? Thanks in advance.

[James (james-r0bertson)]

Hello Pedro,

I am unable to test this bug now because I've moved to Debian testing
which also has the bug but I can tolerate it.

Thanks for getting back in contact with me.

James Robertson

On 2 July 2010 15:31, Pedro Villavicencio <email address hidden> wrote:
> Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make
> Ubuntu better. A new version of gnome-screensaver is available in both
> Lucid and Maverick and we are wondering if this is still reproducible in
> any of those versions, May you please test and give us of feedback about
> it? Thanks in advance.
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-screensaver (Ubuntu)
>       Status: New => Incomplete
>
> --
> keyboard input  less responsive after screensaver fails to activate because of VirtualBox
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/490434
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

no worries, closing the bug, someone having the issue on ubuntu should re open or file a new one.

[Leyli Cecil (leycec-3)]

I'm currently seeing this under Ubuntu 14.10.

In my case, however, the issue is somewhat worse than that originally reported. Regardless of whether the guest image is idle or not, the keyboard in such guest becomes unreliably unresponsive exactly X minutes after (re)entering such guest, where:

* "Unreliably unresponsive" means a seemingly random loss of roughly half of all keyboard input (as in the original report).
* "X" is the currently configured inactivity time in the Ubuntu host (defaulting to 10 minutes), after which the host screen is blanked or a host screensaver run.

Interestingly, this is correctable in the same manner as that originally reported. To reiterate, when a guest keyboard becomes unresponsive:

1. Return to the Ubuntu host from the guest VirtualBox image (e.g., by hitting <Right-Ctrl>).
2. At such point, Ubuntu immediately performs inactivity handling (e.g., screen blanking, screensaver running).
3. Stop such blanking or screensaver (e.g., by hitting any key).
4. Return to the guest VirtualBox image from the Ubuntu host (e.g., by clicking in the VirtualBox window for such guest).

This is may not necessarily be a gnome-screensaver issue. I'm currently running Cinnamon 2.2 as provided by the canonical (horrible pun intended) 14.10 Ubuntu repositories. While I do have both "cinnamon-screensaver" and "gnome-screensaver" installed, the prior appears to currently take precedence.

Intuitively, this "feels" like a lower-level upstream issue. My suspicions are that VisualBox is failing to notify the host X11 of the activity state of guest images *AND* that VisualBox is failing to preempt guest images on guest inactivity with the host X11 inactivity handler (e.g., screen blanking, screensaver running).

It may be pertinent to note that the guest in question is OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard). Due to licensing concerns, Oracle has yet to offer a Guest Additions ISO for OS X VirtualBox guests, thus preventing use of Seamless Mode under such guests. Seamless Mode displays application windows running under guests as native windows running under the host, and is available for all non-OS X guests. Since virtualization of OS X is non-trivial (to say the least), most VirtualBox users are likely to run guests under the blatantly superior Seamless Mode.

Does any this matter? Possibly not. My deepest suspicion, however, is that VirtualBox only fails to notify the host X11 of the activity state of guest images *NOT* in Seamless Mode – which would, of course, always be the case for OS X guests and only rarely the case for non-OS X guests. This could explain the lack of concurring reports for this bug. (Or this could explain nothing at all.)