53

I am installing the above mentioned vm on my windows 7 system. While trying to install linux on the vm during the installation, after I press enter once and the installation begins, keyboard stops working in the vm and hence I cannot complete the installation (asks for root password and stuff).

I tried to google and find solution, but the various troubleshooting tips didn't help.

Gryu
  • 2,102
  • 2
  • 16
  • 29
Rndm
  • 6,710
  • 7
  • 39
  • 58
  • 2
    try restarting the computer and try again if you have not done that. – r4. Jun 14 '12 at 18:41
  • I have tried that but it doesnt work for me! – Rndm Jun 15 '12 at 02:21
  • I tried to disable automatic mouse integration on the vm but was not successful in doing so , could someone help in that direction as the very few times the vm indicated that automatic mouse integration is not supported , the keyboard was working fine. – Rndm Jun 16 '12 at 18:26
  • Have you tried an en-US keyboard on a different main USB port, not a hub? Does the VM have access to that device? – Cees Timmerman Oct 20 '15 at 14:50
  • I had a similar problem while installing a ubuntu 19.10 VM guest. I could navigate dialogs with Tab, Space, Enter, but text entry didn't work. Rebooting the install image and enabling on-screen keyboard in the boot manager's options got me through it. I didn't even have to use the on-screen keyboard; once it was enabled, the keys worked normally. Maybe related: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/548891 – ʇsәɹoɈ Aug 31 '20 at 20:52

13 Answers13

77

Power Off the VM and change the "Video Memory" under the Display module to 128 MB. In mine, I forgot to increase it and it was just 12 MB but after increasing it to 128 MB. It worked!

Neel
  • 915
  • 6
  • 7
29

For me it worked when I followed below steps:

  1. settings
  2. user Interface
  3. Input drop-down
  4. uncheck and check again the keyboard checkbox
  5. click OK
Fabulous
  • 2,393
  • 2
  • 20
  • 27
Ravikiran
  • 299
  • 3
  • 2
16

I had same issue, I was able to type after right-click on textbox then clicking on "Insert Emoji"

TsunamiCha
  • 179
  • 2
  • 9
  • 3
    Weirdly enough that worked for me as well. I also enabled USB3 so I cannot be sure if you need to do but definately working now – relief.melone Aug 20 '20 at 12:01
12

I solved it this way:

  1. install the correct Extension Pack for your VirtualBox version
  2. enable USB 3 in your VM
  3. close all VirtualBox instances
  4. open a shell and run

    VBoxManage setextradata "$NAME" VBoxInternal2/EfiGraphicsResolution X

    where $NAME is the name of your VM.

Source

PS: the source is for Windows, but I'm on Ubuntu and it works as well

Marco Sulla
  • 15,299
  • 14
  • 65
  • 100
  • This is what I needed to do. After upgrading VB from v5 to v6, my keyboard/mouse stopped working inside a MacOS VM. Needed to install the extension pack, which I forgot or didn't know about, and restart the VM. – Artem Russakovskii Apr 29 '19 at 18:58
10

I also got this kind of problem on MacOs as host and installing Ubuntu as guest. I think that increasing the available RAM to the VM did the trick (I had only 1GB at the beginning and I set it to 4GB).

Hope this helps

Vincent Pazeller
  • 1,448
  • 18
  • 28
  • Thanks for this tip. Surprised mine was the first upvote :) – Chris A. Mar 25 '19 at 16:38
  • Sure enough 19.10 needs waaay more install RAM: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/686227 – rogerdpack Nov 25 '19 at 21:08
  • Thanks - I don't know why but it helps – Erab BO Apr 03 '20 at 12:19
  • @ErabBO My understanding is that it's simply because the OS needs more RAM to work properly. So, the moment at which the problem arises will depend on what is the OS you are installing. Of course installing multiple VMs locally is costly in RAM and we forget sometimes that OSes have minimum requirements. – Vincent Pazeller Apr 22 '20 at 12:26
3

I wasted a lot of time in solving this. my mouse and keyboard both were not working and I was installing MacOS Mojave on virtual Box on Linux. All you need to install is Virtual Box Extention pack from their official website-> double click and install it -> then from settings->USB-> select USB-3. restart the OS and this should be it. for more info follow this nice doc: http://www.professionaltutorial.com/install-macos-mojave-virtualbox-windows/

patel dhruval
  • 1,002
  • 10
  • 12
2

For anyone coming here in 2020 and installing Virtual Box for the first time. If you have Windows 10 as the Host-System you have to disable all the Hyper-V Stuff. The Problem might not be that the Keyboard and Mouse don't work and instead this could be the Problem. The System runs really slow and then just stops without crashing.

Referencing Virtual Box Support https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=93800

1

(I'm using Windows 10 as host and Ubuntu as guest) I solved it this way:

  1. Downloaded the older version of VirtualBox (My keyboard did not work in VB 6.1.12, after reading some posts I downloaded VB 6.1.10)

  2. Increase Memory Size(Ram) to 2048 MB (default size is 1024 MB)

  3. Keyboard works!

seekerJackson
  • 41
  • 1
  • 9
0

I have experienced this on various builds of Ubuntu (Ubuntu being the host system) - the fix is to disable screensaver/lockout on the host. Hope it works for you!

steve
  • 11
0

in windows 10 laptop.

Increasing Video Memory did not work for me. Increasing System Ram worked.

and changed my pointing device to multi touch input.

0

I tried all of the above to no avail. The host had been up a long time and had run several VMs. So I rebooted the host machine and restarted VirtualBox. After that the keyboard worked properly.

Den-Jason
  • 2,395
  • 1
  • 22
  • 17
0

Fixed this problem:

1. Click `apple` logo, select "`System Preferences`";

2. Chose "`Security & Privacy`", click "`Privacy`";

3. Click your locked `lock` logo, just input your Mac password, 

4. Add "`VirtualBox App`" to "`Accessibility`" and “Input Monitoring”. 

5. Then, restart mac.
Vittore Marcas
  • 1,007
  • 8
  • 11
-1

you can check for the selection of pointing device.you migh have selected a wrong pointing device