When in VirtualBox full screen, switching the desktop with keyboard doesn't work properly

[Adam Ryczkowski]

Linux Mint Cinnamon 16 64 bit.

When using the VirtualBox in Full screen mode, it is difficult to change workspace. The desktop responds to keyboard combination (Alt+F1 and selecting the desktop with the mouse, Ctrl+Alt+Arrow) but it doesn't end up with switching the workspace. It starts the switching animation (sliding the screen), but in half-way the direction of the animation reverses and the old workspace returns back to its place.

The walkaround is to keep the Ctrl+Alt+Arrow pressed for as long, as it takes to switch the workspace; it will get switched eventually; it just doesn't happen after the first key press.

The key combination to move the application to neighbouring workspace (Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Arrow) works well.

To reproduce:
1. Install the Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon 64 bit on Asus N56VZ notebook; (https://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/N56VZ/#specifications; I use the Intel® Core™ i7 3610QM Processor variety with 16 GB RAM).
2. Install VirtualBox 4.3.0 r89960
3. Run whatever guest OS in full screen mode (Tested with Ubuntu 13.10 64 bit and Windows XP)
4. Release the keyboard (by pressing the host key)
5. Press Alt+F1 and click on any other workspace, or Alt+Ctrl+Arrow.

It feels like full scren VirtualBox guest is "glued" to the screen, and it needs extra force to pull it apart.

It forces me to use seamless mode, but I guess it introduces other problems.

Everything worked well on Linux Mint Cinnamon 15 64 bit with VirtualBox 4.2.

[Adam Ryczkowski (adam-ryczkowski)]

The problem affects VirtualBox 4.2.20 r90983 as well.

[isecore (isecore)]

This affects me as well. Fullscreen guest VM under Cinnamon 1.8 is unusable. I'm running Mint 15 with Cinnamon 1.8 and it's a pain using Virtualbox. Fullscreen is completely impossible since the Cinnamon panel ends up "fighting" with the VM window over who gets to be most on top, and the system crawls to a stop due to this.

Occasionally this doesn't happen, instead I'm locked into my fullscreen VM, the host-key (right ctrl) does NOT release the grabbed keyboard/mouse from the VM. This is with a dual-head VM. If I run the VM with just one screen, then I can mostly release it but as described above, it's very "sticky" trying to move to another workspace.

[heiko (heikosch)]

This afects me as well. I'm running 64Bit Linux Mint 13 with tp-kernel 3.2.0-57 (http://thinkwiki.de/Ubuntu_tp-Kernel) on a T61 with Intel integrated grafics (Intel 965GM Chipset) and latest stable Cinnamon (2.0.13).
There are at least two tickets on VirtualBox as well:
1. https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/12359
2. https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/12407
One issue report is found on GitHub (hosting Cinnamon):
3. https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/2672

[Adam Ryczkowski (adam-ryczkowski)]

I wonder whose fault it is. Since it is introduced with VirtualBox 4.3 it is natural to assume it is sort of regression problem with VirtualBox. OTOH it affects only users using Linux Mint Cinnamon...

Anyway, my guts tell me, it has more to do with Cinnamon than Virtualbox - on my machine with Linux Mint 15 Cinnamon has some glitches, and the new Mint 16 Petra is actually unusable to me https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/1257709 .

[Adam Ryczkowski (adam-ryczkowski)]

Today VirtualBox 3.8 went out and it seems that upgrading did solve the problem. Hurray!

[chemicalfan (mike-lumsden)]

Can anyone else confirm that this is now fixed?

[heiko (heikosch)]

Confirmed.
See recent changelog:
'GUI: make sure that a minimized guest (using mini toolbar in fullscreen/seamless mode) keeps the minimized state (bug #12199)'
See: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/12199