VirtualBox/Ubuntu mouse disappears

Question

I just created an Ubuntu 14.04 VM in VirtualBox (the host is Windows 7) and have noticed a strange "bug" occurring with the mouse. And yes I installed guest additions.

About 50% of the time, when I start the VM, it "registers" with my physical mouse, and when I mouseover the VM window, VBox correctly turns it into a "virtual mouse" on my Ubuntu desktop.

But about 50% of the time, something goes awry and as soon as I mouseover the VM window, my mouse just disappears. The only fix I've been able to find so far is to keep forcefully restarting the VM until I get lucky and the mouse registers/connects correctly.

What can I do to fix this?

Solution 1

There is a simple answer to this. VirtualBox latest guest addition 4.3.10 are still not fully compatible with Ubuntu 14.04. Screen auto-resizing issue, mouse pointer issue, shared clipboard issue and there are some others that occur intermittently with 14.04 VM.

Use Precise (12.04 Ubuntu) or wait for a new release of VBox to solve this issue.

Solution 2

One suggestion I found was to "Just disable "mouse integration" in Machine tab.". Also on that page "Moving the Vbox window to my primary screen solved all issues." You can also toggle mouse integration from the lower-right corner of the guest:

I also wonder if this is related or would be of help

The vboxvideo driver causes the mouse pointer to disappear

Solution 3

I had similar issue (i.e. my mouse never showed up at all). None of the above solutions worked for me. What worked for me is select the VM by clicking and highlighting it in the VirtualBox. Then navigate to the "Settings". Click on the "Display" in the left pane. Then inside the "Video" tab, un-check "Enable 3D Acceleration". Apparently I had clicked on this checkbox that made my mouse pointer in VM disappear. Now boot the VM.

Comments

[Pie21]

This worked for me too: select Machine > Disable Mouse Integration, then select it again to re-enable. To clarify, the mouse was working before, I just couldn't see the cursor. Happens mainly when restoring from saved state.

[user2970139]

This worked for me on OSX 10.11 as a host and Ubuntu 14.04.4 as a guest.

[JesseM]

That fixes the "invisible pointer" problem, but with current Linux Mint 18.2, turning of 3d acceleration makes Cinnamon run in software rendering mode, which burns lots of cpu. There should be a way to keep the pointer and have 3d acceleration on. The VM pointer is visible at the login screen, an only vanishes after login as Cinnamon window manager starts up.