VirtualBox bidirectional clipboard sharing stops working after some time on a Linux guest OS

Question

Clipboard sharing starts working fine, but it stops working after some time (until I reboot the machine).

From what I understand sometimes the guest additions stop working. I read that I should see vboxadd-timesyn running on my system. I checked ps -A | grep -i vbox and I don't see it. All I get is:

VBoxSerive
VBoxClient
VBoxClient
VBoxClient
VBoxClient

If this is indeed the problem, how do I restart the service? If it isn't, what else I could look at?

This is with a Windows 7 host and Linux Ubuntu guest.

Solution 1

The linux one-liner:

pkill -f VBoxClient; VBoxClient --clipboard

---

A Windows powershell script.

echo "Trying to restart VBoxClient"

$vbox_process = Get-Process VBoxTray
Write-verbose $vbox_process
$procID = $vbox_process.id

if ($procID  -gt 0)
{    
    $cmdline = (Get-WMIObject Win32_Process -Filter "Handle=$procID").CommandLine
    Write-Verbose $cmdline

    Write-Verbose "Stopping VBoxTray"
    $vbox_process.Kill()
    $vbox_process.WaitForExit()
    Write-Verbose "VBoxTray stopped"

    Write-Verbose "Starting VBoxTray"
    Start-Process -FilePath $cmdline.Split(' ')[0]
    echo "VBoxTray Restarted. All Done"
} else {    
    Write-Warning 'Could not find existing vboxTray process. Launching direct?'
    Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Windows\System32\VBoxTray.exe"     
}

Note: powershell is not really my field of expertise, so I'm expecting some community edits here :)

Solution 2

How to fix shared clipboard in VirtualBox

1. In VirtualBox Windows Guest, Open Task Manager
2. Go to Processes Tab, highlight VBoxTray.exe and select End Process
3. Go to Applications Tab and select New Task
4. Browse to the VirtualBox Guest Additions installation folder and select VBoxTray.exe and select OK.

The clipboard should work afterwards.

Solution 3

I found out that on Linux guests (Ubuntu in my case) and Windows 7 hosts (I guess that doesn't matter) you just have to restart the following process on your guest machine:

/usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard

Find out the PID of the process with ps and kill it. Afterwards start the process with the above command again and the clipboard starts working again. I use this for example:

kill $(ps aux | grep '/usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard' | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}')

/usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard

Solution 4

I had similar problem: but in my case the process /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard were closing multiple times per session.

To deal with that I created bash program:

#! /bin/bash

ps aux | grep '/usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard' | grep -v grep || /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard

I just run it every time, I lost ability to use clipboard.

Solution 5

Try running vboxadd-timesyn start to restart the service.

One other thing that I remember reading was to change the clipboard sharing from bidirectional to host to guest.

Here you can find an old bug ticket that looks similar to your problem. It's a long read, but you may find some suggestions in there useful.

Finally, if nothing solves the problem, I suggest you to open a bug report in VirtualBox's Bugtracker yourself, because you are not the first one having problems with the shared clipboard.

View more solutions

Comments

[Amelio Vazquez-Reina]

Thanks! But when I type vboxadd-timesyn start I get: command not found. Any suggestions?

[Amelio Vazquez-Reina]

The commands available are: VBoxClient, VBoxClient-all, VBoxControl and VBoxService.

[user1301428]

Can you try running /etc/init.d/vboxadd-timesync start?

[Amelio Vazquez-Reina]

The only commands completing /etc/init.d/vboxadd are vboxadd, vboxadd-service and vboxadd-x11

[user1301428]

I've googled around a bit, and it looks like that command may have been renamed to vboxadd. If this is true, you might want to try running /etc/init.d/vboxadd and similar commands.

[Amelio Vazquez-Reina]

Thanks. this is indeed helpful. Unfortunately I am unable to restart or stop the service. If I try to stop it, it complains with Cannot umount vboxsf folders, whereas if I try to restart it, it complains with Cannot change owner vboxadd:1 for device /deb/vboxguest. In both cases it prints that the service I am attempting to stop or restart is the VirtualBox Guest Additions`, so I am probably heading in the right direction.

[user1301428]

Did you set up any shared folders? If so, unmount them before you run the stop command.

[Amelio Vazquez-Reina]

Thanks, I didn't set up any shared folders. I haven't touched that feature since my last installation.

[user1301428]

Then I suggest to proceed with the other options included in the answer, maybe this one is not the way to solve the issue.

[Andrew Lott]

What does that command actually do for you? Where would you type that in, Windows host or Linux guest?

[slhck]

@AndrewLott It's obviously a Linux command (sudo and init.d scripts). But still, having a little more explanation as to what it does would be nice.

[Andrew Lott]

You and I can tell it's a Linux command, but I'm thinking about other visitors who might not be so certain.

[Sentient]

How does this work? The question description is 'Linux Ubuntu guest' Or do you mean the Windows Host?

[starlocke]

Thanks for providing a copy/paste solution! The catch: one has to fetch superuser.com/questions/536827 in the guest machine to be able to copy/paste that!

[Evelina]

Worth noting these are both for the guest.

[Evelina]

I found VBoxClient was installed in /usr/sbin on Debian 8 - this may well not be on the path for non-root users.

[Evelina]

I found that the problem was due to VirtualBox Guest Additions not installing properly (missing dependency of kernel headers etc causing a Virtualbox kernel module to not be built).

[Evelina]

The question is about a Linux guest, and the VBoxTray.exe only applies to a Windows guest.

[Evelina]

Changing away from bidirectional sharing didn't help.

[raylu]

That kill is a really long-winded way of saying pkill -f 'VBoxClient --clipboard'. If you don't care about the other services, you can just killall VBoxClient

[Sarke]

Thank you, these both work great! It sucks that it's now 3 years later and this bug still exists.

[peedee]

Linux one-liner worked great, upvoted. Didn't try powershell.

[Jeff Learman]

NOTE: this will stop any other VboxClient services, such as drag-and-drop (and --seamless and --vmsvga, whatever they are.) Presumably they're just as easy to restart, so first use ps -ef | grep -i vbox .

[Oskar Berggren]

With regards to the commenters, it can be noted that they same problem occurs on Windows guest still in 2021 VB version and this answer is a workaround for it.

[Community]

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