Solved VirtualBox host, FreeBSD/Plasma guest black screen

[vmisev]

Host(s): Win10&11, VBox 7.1.10 (VBoxSVGA, EFI boot)
Guest: FreeBSD 14.3, Plasma 6.4

For some time now I had a problem with VirtualBox (on Windows host) starting KDE/Plasma in FreeBSD guest. X is starting okay, Plasma as well (up to the point), but screen is black with only plasma mouse pointer visible and moving around on mouse move. Sometimes, immediately after 'pkg upgrade' if KDE pkgs are upgraded, Plasma starts okay and desktop is fully usable, but in most cases that is not the case, it starts as described above. I'm logging into vt console and starting X with 'startx' from the shell (I do have sddm installed, but it's commented out in rc.conf).

Only solution I found is to comment out in /etc/rc.conf

# vboxguest_enable="YES" 
# vboxservice_enable="YES"

And then to add in /etc/rc.local

kldload /boot/modules/vboxguest.ko 
service vboxservice onestart

With changes above, Plasma starts reliably every time.

IDK what is causing such behavior and is it there more elegant solution?

 

[freethread]

Most the same here.

Host: Win11, VBox 7.1.6 /VBoxSVGA, EFI boot)
Guest: FreeBSD 14.3, LightDM + XFCE

LightDM (at boot) starts ok, I normally log in. When start XFCE the screen sometimes is black, or wrong resolution. I have to press HOST+F twice to set at right resolution. Now I have a shell script to change resolution (added in XFCE config->startup/session):

#! /bin/sh
sleep 3
xrandr --output VGA-0 --mode 1600x1050
sleep 3
xrandr --output VGA-0 --mode 1920x1080

The sleep delay is necessary and adjusted to make it works, less than 3 secs does not work. However if I switch to ttyvN I cant't back to XFCE, the screen is black and there's no way to restore DE, but perhaps my xorg screen configuration is wrong (in /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/)

 

[vmisev]

However if I switch to ttyvN I cant't back to XFCE, the screen is black and there's no way to restore DE, but perhaps my xorg screen configuration is wrong (in /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/)

AFAIK, that’s the problem with Virtualbox video driver/drm, nothing wrong with your X settings, it’s been like that for years now - once X starts, there is no going back to the other vt console ttys (ctrl+alt+Fn) - their screen is black.

Also, please check my older post on similar subject:
“VirtualBox with FreeBSD guest black screen - possible solution”

 

[vmisev]

Heads Up - word of caution:
If you are running VirtualBox 7.1.10 on Windows 10 host, please be cautious about upgrading to the 7.1.12 / 7.20-beta. I didn’t notice any problems on Windows 11 vbox 7.12, but on Win10 both preexisting FreeBSD and Linux VM’s refused to start up.

P.S. Fully updated Win10, with applied consumer ESU.

 

[freethread]

I have Win11pro, upgraded VirtualBox to 7.1.10, the only difference is a notification popup in the bottom right of the screen (I do not know if it is XFCE or VirtualBox host itself, perhaps is the last one) that say the OSE additions of the guest is not updated to match version of VirtualBox host (virtualbox-ose-additions version 6.1.50), no matter, it works.
I don't usually update Windows applications often unless the application itself tells me to (it never seems to, I do not know why, I set it to check every weeks). I updated to version 7.1.10 when I read your post. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

 

[vmisev]

Nothing to do with our beloved FreeBSD, this is a VirtualBox on Windows 10 issue – other people have similar problems after upgrade to 7.1.12 on Windows 10 hosts. Someone opened an issue about it on VirtualBox github, I confirmed, and another user also confirmed.
As I said, I didn’t notice any problems after upgrade to 7.1.12 on Win 11 host (on both hosts I have active Hyper-V for WSL)

If someone else is running FreeBSD in VBox on Win10, smart thing to do will be to put a pin on Oracle.VirtualBox in winget ( winget pin add --id Oracle.VirtualBox) until/if issue is resolved, that will prevent unwanted upgrade and let ‘winget -u --all’ to do its job on other software.

As for the message about updating guest additions, it can be ignored (for now, at least), AFAIK porting 7.x guest additions to FreeBSD is much harder than porting VBox itself. Maybe because they depend on VBox extension packs, and they are proprietary?

 

[vmisev]

Update: VirtualBox-7.2.0-170228 (+Extension_Pack-7.2.0) now works okay on Windows 10 hosts, my FreeBSD 14.3-p2 guest starts and works okay (graphics, X11/KDE, all works).
It’s safe now to winget pin remove Oracle.VirtualBox
Thanks to VBox devs, they listened to our complaints and fixed it.

 

[vmisev]

Update 2:
In FreeBSD 15-STABLE loading from /etc/rc.conf

vboxguest_enable="YES" 
vboxservice_enable="YES"

works okay with X/Plasma6 again, no need for using /etc/rc.local for vboxguest