[Spice-devel] Spice stops working when host uses multi-monitors

[Christophe Fergeau]

Hi,

On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 02:17:44PM +0100, Diego COSTE wrote:
> On 13/11/2013 12:09, Christophe Fergeau wrote:
> > 'don't work' is awfully unspecific, the first step in getting some
> > help would be to give more details about how you are using spice
> > (which client, ...), and what 'don't work' means. Is something
> > crashing? Is the display corrupt? ... Christophe 
> 
> and thank you for your quick answer.

Thanks for the detailed explanation, this is very puzzling, but at least
it's possible to try to help ;)

> As a real pure-flavour rookie, I use virt-manager to create/start the VM.
> I followed the IBM tutorial referenced in linux-kvm.org:
> http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/lnxinfo/v3r0m0/index.jsp?topic=/liaai/kvminstall/liaaikvminstallstart.htm
> 
> The VM is configured with 2GB memory, 1 CPU out of the 4 of the host,
> config cloned from host (=Sandy Bridge)
> Network, storage and serial drivers use virtio mode.
> Network uses the default NAT mode.
> Storage is my raw /dev/sdb, a disk encrypted by my company's IT with
> McAfee endpoint encryption (previously named SafeBoot).
> At VM creation the display is automatically configured by virt-manager
> in Spice mode with QXL video (64MB).
> 
> In the working case the graphics view of virt-manager first shows the
> McAfee end-point encryption login screen (this is pre-Windows) and
> eventually the normal windows display. Cut/paste work fine, etc... and
> the performances are good.
> 
> In the non-working case, the graphic display remains uniformly grey,
> exactly as when the guest is not started at all.
> Still virt-manager reports that the machine is running and the power
> control switch lets me force power-off (mcafee login does not support
> acpi shutdown command).

Could you check on the host if qemu is running (it's probably named
qemu-kvm or qemu-system-x86_64)? As virt-manager reports that the VM is
running, I expect it to be running, but better to check ;)
The next thing I'd look at is libvirt logs (located in
/var/log/libvirt/qemu on the host).
You can also try to connect to the VM using remote-viewer, and get some
logs from remote-viewer (SPICE_DEBUG=1 G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=all remote-viewer
--spice-debug spice://localhost:5900 or so).


> I would have liked to post screen shots, but, well, these experiments
> are for my spare time and I have to work with that Windows machine, so I
> have now booted directly from this HDD.
> 
> I have also started re-installing host Linux OS to restart from a fresh F19.
> This time I will try to install kvm and create the VM with the system
> already configured in multi-screen mode (need to bring the docking
> station and a monitor back to home for the test).

Something which would be interesting would be to also try with a basic
virt-manager VM if that is an option. What I mean by 'basic' is to create
the VM using virt-manager defaults (don't try to tweak CPU, network, ...)
using a raw or qcow2 image (rather than a raw /dev/sdb), no company
encryption if that's an option, ... Just set the display to SPICE, and add
a QXL device and SPICE agent channels (the latter is optional).
Testing this would help narrow down a bit what can go wrong.

Christophe
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