3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

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Drugwash
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by Drugwash »

agtiger wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 3:31 pm Virtual box display settings set to: VMSVGA (this is the appropriate setting per the VirtualBox User Guide for linux guest machines.)
How did you actually get to this setting? Is is a VBox v6-only feature? I still run VBox 5.1 on my Mint 19.2 and can't find any video driver-related feature.

As for the issue at hand, I can only say a virtual Mint on my machine (Samsung R-580 notebook) has always been presented with a software-only driver (with the annoying accompanying notification on every boot) for both Mint 19.x and Mint 20.x. Maybe the NVIDIA video card (GT218M - GeForce 310M) could be the culprit?
RIH
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by RIH »

VB1.png
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agtiger
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by agtiger »

Sumarious wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:32 pm Just had this exact issue when running updates on mint.

Before you login, change your session to software rendering.

Once you're logged in, attach the guest utils cd, and run the installer to reinstall them.

For some reason on this latest kernel update, the guest utils don't get applied to the latest kernel..

sudo /sbin/rcvboxadd quicksetup all

Reboot, and you should be golden.
Can you verify that you re-enabled 3D acceleration mode, rebooted, and signed into the desktop and observed no issue?

I just ran through a series of testing steps here where I switched to software rendering mode, re-applied the guest additions, then ran your command and watched it build modules for two previous kernels but skipped the current one (as it had already built the modules for that, and I verified that by running your command a second time and watched it build no modules at all.) Then I applied the Mesa video acceleration driver patch, rebooted, signed back in and observed no problem (since I was still in software rendering mode.) Finally, shut down and turned 3D Acceleration back on in VirtualBox, started the linux image, logged in and the problem (white screen, white icons, illegible menu items) manifested instantly.

Sorry to say, but your workaround was unsuccessful here as well. I think we're stuck either blacklisting this version of the mesa patch, or using software rendering mode until this is properly addressed/fixed.
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agtiger
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by agtiger »

Drugwash wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:23 am
agtiger wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 3:31 pm Virtual box display settings set to: VMSVGA (this is the appropriate setting per the VirtualBox User Guide for linux guest machines.)
How did you actually get to this setting? Is is a VBox v6-only feature? I still run VBox 5.1 on my Mint 19.2 and can't find any video driver-related feature.

As for the issue at hand, I can only say a virtual Mint on my machine (Samsung R-580 notebook) has always been presented with a software-only driver (with the annoying accompanying notification on every boot) for both Mint 19.x and Mint 20.x. Maybe the NVIDIA video card (GT218M - GeForce 310M) could be the culprit?
Checking the User Manual for VirtualBox 5.1.38 ( https://download.virtualbox.org/virtual ... Manual.pdf ) I do see references to VMSVGA on pages 117 and 132, but this option appears to be set/controlled using the vboxmanage command line utility, and not the VirtualBox GUI.
vboxmanage --graphicscontroller vmsvga

For VirtualBox 6.1.26, the setting is in the GUI, under Settings, Display, and there's a dropdown called "Graphics Controller", and I have that set to VMSVGA, per the VirtualBox User Guide for version 6: https://download.virtualbox.org/virtual ... Manual.pdf. See page 59. Note that if you try to access this under Machine > Settings in the VirtualBox menu when the virtual image is running, the options will be greyed out. They can only be changed while the image is shut down.

Hope that helps you out!
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by delanef »

agtiger wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 10:31 am
Sumarious wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:32 pm Sorry to say, but your workaround was unsuccessful here as well. I think we're stuck either blacklisting this version of the mesa patch, or using software rendering mode until this is properly addressed/fixed.
I can confirm. This issue is still present with 3D Acceleration enabled on the VM config and VM Guest Additions applied.

For now, I've turned off 3D Acceleration on the VM config so I don't have to switch to Software Rendering each time I login.

Cheers.
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by Drugwash »

@ RIH: No such option in VBox 5 so I guess it's a VBox 6-only option. Thank you for providing the screenshot. Here's how 5.x looks like:
Screenshot from 2021-08-05 18-59-11.png
@ agtiger: Thank you for delving into this issue for me. Coming from Windows I had only tried the Help option in the GUI menu, and that didn't immediately yield any related video driver result. Upon a deeper search I did find some details in section 8.8.
this option appears to be set/controlled using the vboxmanage command line utility, and not the VirtualBox GUI.
vboxmanage --graphicscontroller vmsvga
Never been a fan of commandline, especially for crucial settings like this. Besides, there may be a (valid) reason why 3D acceleration is disabled by default on this machine.
That aside, looks like such command may be generic, involving all guests not only a particular one. Therefore I decided to leave it alone since I have absolutely no spare room for backups.

Will back off now to avoid hijacking this topic. Again, thank you all.
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working solved

Post by ACE256 »

UPDATE: problem is back again, most likely had software rendering on. Ignore earlier message below sorry

I have been able to solve it by adding The Kisak-mesa PPA with graphics drivers as follows

https://itsfoss.com/install-mesa-ubuntu/

upgrade the repository and then upgrade mesa to version 21.1.6 (it shows up in the update manager)

You need to do this in the virtual guest, just start it up with software rendering option or without 3d acceleration.

For me this solved the problem - hope you can also confirm/test
Last edited by ACE256 on Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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agtiger
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working solved

Post by agtiger »

ACE256 wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 1:51 pm I have been able to solve it by adding The Kisak-mesa PPA with graphics drivers as follows

https://itsfoss.com/install-mesa-ubuntu/

upgrade the repository and then upgrade mesa to version 21.1.6 (it shows up in the update manager)

You need to do this in the virtual guest, just start it up with software rendering option or without 3d acceleration.

For me this solved the problem - hope you can also confirm/test
Sadly, I was unable to reproduce your results with either version 21.1.6~kisak1~f or version 21.3~git2108050600.da00a1~oibaf~f
Are you sure you re-enabled 3D accelerated mode, restarted, and logged back in as the final step in your testing?

Here's my test results in detail:

Virtualbox 6.1.26 r 145957 (Qt5.6.2)
Linux Mint 20.2 with Cinnamon 5.05 as guest operating system.
Host: Windows
Linux Kernel: 5.4.0-80-generic
Graphics setting in VirtualBox: VMSVGA with Acceleration enabled
Graphics card inside virtualbox image: VMware SVGA II Adapter

All patches applied EXCEPT Mesa VDPAU video acceleration drivers (21.0.3-0ubuntu0.2~20.04.1)

(A 3D Accelerated fully updated image except Mesa driver that
has been causing the problem, inside of the latest VirtualBox.)

Steps taken:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kisak/kisak-mesa
Put in sudo password
(pressed [ Return ] to confirm addition of ppa) - ppa was added successfully

sudo apt update
(successful)

sudo apt install mesa
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package mesa
(unsuccessful)

Ran the Update Manager, refreshed, and installed the Mesa VDPAU acceleration drivers
Version: 21.1.6~kisak1~f

Logged out and back into cinnamon and... problem manifested again.
White screen.

Problem NOT solved with version 21.1.6~kisak1~f

= = = TRY 2 = = =

Shut down and restored image from snapshotted state pre-mesa driver update

Tried bleeding edge version:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers
Put in sudo password
(pressed [ Return ] to confirm addition of ppa) - ppa was added successfully

sudo apt update
(successful)

sudo apt install mesa
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package mesa
(unsuccessful)

Ran the Update Manager, refreshed, and installed the Mesa VDPAU acceleration drivers, and libdrm (Direct Rendering Manager) driver:

Version: 21.3~git2108050600.da00a1~oibaf~f
and
libdrm: 2.4.107+git2108030500.8d0fb9~oibaf~f

Logged out and back into cinnamon and... problem manifested again.
White screen.


Conclusion:

Neither of the two PPA's and updated driver versions worked for me in 3D acceleration mode within VirtualBox.
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by rockadile »

The Kisak-mesa PPA graphics drivers did not work for me either.
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by rsail »

how do you change the session to software render
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agtiger
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by agtiger »

rsail wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 4:04 pm how do you change the session to software render
I've been doing it by shutting down the Linux Mint guest image, then adjusting the display settings for that image in virtualbox.
Settings, Display, uncheck the last checkbox: "Enable 3D Acceleration"

Then start the image back up and it forces it to use software rendering.
(version 6.1.26 of virtualbox)
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by Erusman »

I had same issue on my Linux Mint 20.2 UMA VirtualBox VM. White screen with 3D acceleration on. Hopefully, you have a snapshot of your VM available. If so then just put the packages on hold for now and continue to use 3D acceleration without that MESA driver update. Otherwise, you will have to force a downgrade to previous versions of those packages and put them on hold.

Code: Select all

sudo apt-mark hold libegl-mesa0 libgbm1 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 libgl1-mesa-dri libglapi-mesa:i386 libglapi-mesa libglx-mesa0 libglx-mesa0:i386 libxatracker2 mesa-va-drivers libegl1-mesa libgl1-mesa-glx libgles2-mesa libwayland-egl1-mesa
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by rockadile »

I tried to downgrade but it is telling me it is gonna delete a bunch of software if I do...what a pain in the ass.
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by rsail »

Don't do it! I just did and really screwed up my system. I now just get a tty screen and NOTHING else. Anyone know how I can restore my system? If I use timeshift will that undo my files that I have been working on ?
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agtiger
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by agtiger »

rsail wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 6:12 pm Don't do it! I just did and really screwed up my system. I now just get a tty screen and NOTHING else. Anyone know how I can restore my system? If I use timeshift will that undo my files that I have been working on ?
By default, Timeshift excludes files in /root and /home so if you restore your system, it shouldn't touch or alter your personal files in /home/{youruserid}

From the tty command line, while logged in as a user that can issue sudo commands:

sudo timeshift --restore

Pick the number corresponding to your most recent timeshift snapshot, and just take the default options from that point forward. The system will reboot after the restore is done.
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by rockadile »

This is assuming Timeshift is setup and taking snapshots...mine is not.
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agtiger
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by agtiger »

rockadile wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 10:32 am This is assuming Timeshift is setup and taking snapshots...mine is not.
Unfortunate. Set that up in future to give yourself an easy way to recover from an unexpected bad update.

Use VirtualBox to take a snapshot of the image you have (even if it's damaged) so you preserve the data you have in /home and are sure you can switch to this image to get access to this data, even if you have to use a TTY command shell to do it. At least it's there, and it's snapshotted (preserved.)

Then you can either restore a previous snapshot you took earlier, or you can just build up a brand new (and separate!) Linux Mint 20.2 image in VirtualBox. Using that, patch everything except the Mesa driver that's caused the whitescreen problem when 3D Acceleration is turned on in VirtualBox, then blacklist that update in the update manager, and then tackle the problem of how to export your data out of the damaged image and import it into the working image.

Just take it slow and careful so you can get your data back. Also we're way off in the weeds here from the original question about the Mesa driver and the white screen problem when 3D Acceleration is turned on in VirtualBox. New threads for new problems, and all that.
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by andrewpayne1912 »

Hi - this affected me too and thought it was my host machine's GPU driver at first. Found this Topic and now watching to see if the updated MESA has been released yet, hopefully won't be too long. Running my Linux Mint 20.2 'Uma' in Software Rendering mode isn't brilliant, but could be worse I guess. Thanks
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by micksulley »

I just tried that fix and it didn't work for me either. I am running Mint 20.2 guest on Mint 20.2 host.
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Re: 3D acceleration Virtualbox no longer working

Post by micksulley »

Just tried something else.
Host system Linux Mint 20.2 fully updated
Installed Mint Mate 20.2 client in VirtualBox
enabled 3d acceleration - working
installed updates except mesa
still working
install mesa update, also needs libllvm12
still working
reboot
still working fine!

So it seems it is a problem for Cinnamon but not for Mate.
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