How to fix virtualbox's copy and paste to host-machine?

Question

Sometimes while using VirtualBox, I have tried copying text from the virtual machine to the host machine but failed. Whenever that happens, I fix it by rebooting the virtual machine. Is there a solution to this because I don't want to keep rebooting again and again.

Note: It is always possible for me to copy text from the host to the virtual machine.

score 168 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 24 '12 at 12:13

168

If your guest OS is ubuntu then running following two commands in ubuntu terminal should help:

$ killall VBoxClient
$ VBoxClient-all

answered Aug 24 '12 at 12:13

Dmitry

2,229

score 44 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 04 '19 at 08:26

44

On a Windows XP guest, I can kill "VBoxTray.exe" using the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del), then restart it from "Program Files/VirtualBox Guest Additions".

edited Mar 04 '19 at 08:26

slava

4,085

answered Dec 19 '11 at 03:08

sam

6,921

score 36 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 14 '20 at 15:30

36

Install VBoxClient (requirement for next step):

sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-x11

Restart the VBox clipboard module:

pkill 'VBoxClient --clipboard' -f & sleep 1 && VBoxClient --clipboard

edited Dec 14 '20 at 15:30

Jumabek Alihanov

103

answered Feb 27 '15 at 12:44

DBedrenko

461

score 31 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 17 '12 at 22:05

31

In the Oracle virtual box setting go to

Settings > General > Advance

There is a an option Drag n Drop. Select the direction you want to copy the text.

answered Oct 17 '12 at 22:05

amjad

689

score 27 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 24 '18 at 16:27

27

For me, Windows 7 host and Ubuntu 16.04 guest, I had to install VirtualBox guest additions.

Start the virtual machine
Click Devices menu
Select Insert Guest Additions CD image
Change to the directory where your CD-ROM drive is mounted (typically /media/<user>/VBOXADDITIONS_x.x.x/)
Install it sudo sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
Reboot the virtual machine!

I found the complete steps in this link

edited Jun 24 '18 at 16:27

foobar test test test potato

105

answered Aug 23 '16 at 16:03

Ahmad Abdelghany

371

score 16 · Answer 6 · edited Mar 01 '15 at 07:06

16

In Ubuntu you may need to install virtualbox-guest-x11

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-x11

and then start virutal box client

VBoxClient-all

edited Mar 01 '15 at 07:06

Jossef Harush Kadouri

5,326
2
23
23

answered Jul 23 '14 at 15:18

Bala

161

score 8 · Answer 7 · edited Mar 16 '20 at 16:11

On Ubuntu 18.04 running on VirtualBox 5.2.22, I did the following:

On VirtualBox Manager, right click Ubuntu VM -> Settings -> General tab on left -> Advanced tab on right`.
Now choose Shared Clipboard as : Bidirectional
On Ubuntu, on the terminal run the following commands:
```
sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-x11
```

Now I had to restart Ubuntu to run the below command run successfully:

VBoxClient --clipboard

After this, the bi-directional copy started working.

score 6 · Answer 8 · answered Dec 20 '13 at 21:00

How to fix shared clipboard in VirtualBox (Windows Guest)

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

The bidirectional shared clipboard should work afterwards.

score 5 · Answer 9 · edited Mar 07 '19 at 07:46

5

In Ubuntu 16.10 I had to run following command to get it to work:

service virtualbox-guest-utils start

In addition to this, set the Shared Clipboard setting to Bidirectional in General/Advanced Virtual box settings.

edited Mar 07 '19 at 07:46

Dave Jarvis

991
2
12
26

answered Nov 09 '16 at 23:21

user617342

59

score 3 · Answer 10 · answered Sep 29 '11 at 20:36

3

If needed, upgrade VirtualBox to latest version, currently 4.1.2, they solved many issues. Then reinstall Guest Additions on the VM, as copy-paste is managed by guest additions drivers.

answered Sep 29 '11 at 20:36

Stefano

2,394

Gryu · Answer 11 · 2020-03-16T16:53:21.610

Enabling Shared Clipboard on Ubuntu 19.10 Host, Ubuntu 18.04 Guest, VirtualBox 6.1.

VirtualBox VM Menu ->
Machine ->
General ->
Advanced ->
Shared Clipboard: Bidirectional

is set

The guest's Ubuntu terminal commands:

sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-x11 --reinstall
VBoxClient-all --clipboard

I used --reinstall option because of I had virtualbox-guest-x11 package installed and before reinstalling it I had:

$ VBoxClient-all --clipboard
VBoxClient: error: No service specified. Quitting because nothing to do!

After reboot screen resolution jumps to its minimal value, so

VirtualBox VM Menu ->
View ->
Auto-resize Guest Display

clicking would be required if you want it.

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Jun 17 '20 at 03:29

1

As of time of this post,

In my case, I've noticed bidirectional copy/paste doesn't work when VM is started in detachable mode.

For bidirectional copy/paste to work, I had to start the VM in Normal mode.

Ubuntu 20.04, Virtual Box 6.1

answered Jun 17 '20 at 03:29

Wadih M.

392

tno2007 · Answer 13 · 2022-04-11T08:03:36.307

Copy and paste does work (provided you have installed VBoxGuestAdditions), but there is a few caveats:

There is text copy-and-paste and there is file copy-and-paste
If your VM is Windows, copy and paste should work for both text and file
If your VM is Ubuntu (or a flavor thereof, eg. Lubuntu)
- text copy and paste should work
- to copy files, you have to use the VirtualBox file manager...

To use File Manager...

In the VM window, choose file manager...
Log in using a linux user that exist on the VM to create a session
Then use the copy buttons

score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Jan 30 '15 at 16:05

I use a Mac Host OS, and Ubuntu Guest (with lubuntu desktop).

Dmitry's answer got me so close! But VBoxClient wasn't running when I looked for it with ps, and trying VBoxClient-all failed:

$ VBoxClient-all
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service

Then I found https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9332

Turns out, VirtualBox additions didn't launch automatically for some reason. Starting vboxadd manually allowed me to then run the VBoxClient with the clipboard enabled.

arin@arin-VirtualBox:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/vboxadd start
Starting the VirtualBox Guest Additions ...done.
arin@arin-VirtualBox:~$ ps -ef | grep -i vbox
arin      2687 22537  0 10:53 pts/1    00:00:00 grep --color=auto -i vbox
arin@arin-VirtualBox:~$ sudo /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard
arin@arin-VirtualBox:~$ ps -ef | grep -i VBox
root      2693 22100  0 10:53 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard
arin      2698 22537  0 10:53 pts/1    00:00:00 grep --color=auto -i VBox

And now copy/paste works!

Devon · Answer 15 · 2022-12-30T15:03:35.140

On the guest, apt gets the wrong version! On the host, verify with something like

VBoxManage --version
VBoxManage guestproperty get VM /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/VersionExt
VBoxManage guestproperty get VM /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Version
VBoxManage guestproperty get VM /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Revision

where VM is your Virtual Machine name or uuid. You may need to specify the path, e.g.,

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage" --version
⋮

On the guest, with VirtualBox > Devices > Insert Guest Additions CD Image… and privs (and headers) I mounted the CD and re-installed it. On the host, I verified the versions match. On the guest,

VBoxClient --version
VBoxClient --clipboard

fixed everything without rebooting. YMMV. I wonder what happens if you try

VBoxManage guestcontrol VM updatega --source=guest-additions.ISO

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Jan 22 '15 at 20:42

My configuration is Windows host, Xubuntu guest. I guess it doesn't hurt to restart everything, but this is the client that matters. (VBoxClient-all is merely a script that runs /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard and others.)

$ ps -fe|grep -i clip
tbc       1400     1  0 Jan18 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard
$
$ p=1400;kill -int $p;ps -fp $p
$ /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard
$ ps -fe|grep -i clip
tbc      30555  1281  0 13:01 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/VBoxClient --clipboard
$ pstree -sp 30555
init(1)---lightdm(1094)---lightdm(1261)---init(1281)---VBoxClient(30555)---{VBoxClient}(30556)
$

Note it runs in the background by default. It was owned by init(1), but when I invoked it, it got adopted through a tree I'm not familiar with.

score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Jul 23 '15 at 18:04

0

I was using VirtualBox 4.3.12. Once I upgraded to 5.0 the latest, the bugs were fixed.

No combination of reinstalling Vbox additions helped.

Solution: always try upgrading to the latest https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

answered Jul 23 '15 at 18:04

leroneb

3

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Jun 01 '17 at 11:59

0

Login to your guest machine and open the CD drive where "VirtualBox Guest Additions" should be inserted.

Open this CD drive and execute the file "VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe".

After the installation you have to restart, then it should work!

answered Jun 01 '17 at 11:59

Black

844

How to fix virtualbox's copy and paste to host-machine?

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