No clipboard sharing with Kubuntu 22.10 guest

[HautDam]

Describe the bug

No clipboard sharing in either direction.
File drag-n-drop doesn't work, either.
Folder sharing and screen resizing do work.

Setup details:

• Win10 host running Workstation 16.2 Player.
• Fresh install of Kubuntu 22.10 guest.
• open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop installed and up-to-date.
• I set both isolation.tools.copy 'n paste.disable to false in the vmx file.
• Clipboard sharing does work in my Kubuntu 22.04 VM.

Reproduction steps

1. Fresh installation of Kubuntu 22.10 from ISO image.
2. Install open-vm-tools.
3. Reboot VM and attempt clipboard sharing between guest and host.

Expected behavior

Contents of copy buffer should paste in either Linux or Windows.

Additional context

No response

[dsouders]

Thank you for reporting this issue. I have filed an internal bug to track the problem.

[johnwvmw]

This appears to be another variation on the KDE / XDG autostart issues reported in other open-vm-tools issues such as #627. I have reproduced the problem with Kubuntu 22.10 installed on Workstation 16.2.4. After logging in on the KDE desktop, the "vmtoolsd -n vmusr" process is not running.

root@Kubuntu-22-10:/home/jwolfe# ps -ef | grep tools
root 591 1 0 14:16 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd
root 1183 1175 0 14:17 pts/1 00:00:00 grep --color=auto tools

The journal logs show that autostart did attempt to run the the "vmtoolsd -n vmusr" process.

root@Kubuntu-22-10:/home/jwolfe# journalctl -b | grep vmtoolsd
Jan 01 14:17:53 Kubuntu-22-10 dbus-daemon[1079]: [session uid=1000 pid=1079] Activating via systemd: service name='org.a11y.Bus' unit='at-spi-dbus-bus.service' requested by ':1.40' (uid=1000 pid=1534 comm="/usr/bin/vmtoolsd -n vmusr --blockFd 3" label="unconfined")
Jan 01 14:17:53 Kubuntu-22-10 vmtoolsd[1534]: gtk_disable_setlocale() must be called before gtk_init()
Jan 01 14:17:54 Kubuntu-22-10 at-spi-bus-launcher[1600]: dbus-daemon[1600]: Activating service name='org.a11y.atspi.Registry' requested by ':1.0' (uid=1000 pid=1534 comm="/usr/bin/vmtoolsd -n vmusr --blockFd 3" label="unconfined")

Work-around for now is to manually start the the "vmtoolsd -n vmusr" process after logging in to the desktop by running /usr/bin/vmware-user from a Konsole window.

root@Kubuntu-22-10:/home/jwolfe# ps -ef | grep tools
root 591 1 0 14:16 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd
jwolfe 1678 1062 1 14:18 pts/3 00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd -n vmusr --blockFd 3
root 1689 1175 0 14:18 pts/1 00:00:00 grep --color=auto tools

Copy - paste and drag -n-drop works at this point.

[HautDam]

I gave a thumbs up, but probably should have been more explicit: Running vmware-user manually got clipboard- and file-sharing working. Thank you @johnwvmw!

[ledroide]

I confirm that running either vmtoolsd -n vmusr or vmware-user solves the issue for me.
Configuration :
vmtoolsd -v -> VMware Tools daemon, version 12.1.0.37487 (build-20219665)
uname -a -> Linux cosmic 5.19.0-29-generic #30-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Jan 4 12:14:09 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
VMwar Workstation Player -> 16.2.5 build-20904516
session type : x11 (not wayland)

[lamskoy]

This stuff helped me
Run and reboot after:
kwriteconfig5 --file startkderc --group General --key systemdBoot false

[polarathene]

More appropriate workaround is detailed here: #568 (comment)

If no one finds an issue with it, then it would be easier to contribute upstream than relying on prior workarounds.

[lamskoy]

More appropriate workaround is detailed here: #568 (comment)

If no one finds an issue with it, then it would be easier to contribute upstream than relying on prior workarounds.

systemd 254 is available on my ArchLinux installation. Have removed ~/.config/startkderc and rebooted after systemd upgrade. Issue has gone away

[polarathene]

Issue has gone away

Yep, I pointed out that from the upstream bug report I raised, a fix in systemd v254 should resolve it: #568 (comment)

[liangqi]

My env is VMware Fusion 13.0.2 on macOS 13.5.2, neon(based on Ubuntu) unstable, KDE/Plasma 5.27.80 based on Qt 6.6.0. The workaround "vmtoolsd -n vmusr" works for me.

[courtarro]

vmtoolsd -n vmusr

For the record this does not work for me on a VMWare 17.5, Windows 10 host, KDE Neon guest

Edit: This was because I had not installed open-vm-tools-desktop (the desktop package). The command was silently failing because the vmusr plugin did not exist.

[marbaa]

VMware player 17.5, Guest Debian 12 KDE, Host Win11. Clipboard mostly doesn't work, open-vm-tools-desktop already installed. This bug is so annoying, probably it is long time existing KDE bug.
edit: Using Wayland.