Ubuntu keyboard poor performance after upgrade to 16.2.0 build-18760230

[jimsnab]

I took a VMWare upgrade today to 16.2.0 build-18760230, and now, my Ubuntu 20.04 VM (hosted also on Ubuntu 20.04) has poor keyboard performance. An initial keystroke has a delay, and sometimes I get several repeated keystrokes. If I hold down a key, as a key repeats, there will be short pauses after 10 or so characters - the repeat is not smooth.

In general this makes it very hard to use the VM and get work done. >:-|

Can I roll back this upgrade?

[peterjg]

in Settings/USB Controller - I turned off 'Share Bluetooth devices with the virtual machine'. 
Set 'USB Compatibility' to 3.1
Seems to have got rid of the lag for me.

Speculation: My wireless host keyboard may have had multiple paths through to the guest. Or choppy buffer access

[bahmanp]

My experience has been with 20.04. I have not upgraded 22.04, exactly because I am not mentally prepared for so many such headaches yet!

[bahmanp]

@JMA100 My experience has been with 20.04. I have not upgraded 22.04, exactly because I am not mentally prepared for so many such headaches yet!

[codemonkey82]

I've noticed a strange behavior on that.

For me, only the arrow keys are affected AND only if num-lock is on.

If num-lock is off, everything seems fine. Maybe coincidence but a tried it a few times now, it only happens if num-lock was on in the vm.

[dingetje61]

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@JMA100 wrote:

If you open a terminal and run glxgears the issue totally goes away as long as it runs.  It appears that keeping the display busy prevents the issue from happening.  

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Thanks for this "hack", it resolved the issue on my VM as well. Running glxgears in a topmost window (if it's in the background, the hack won't work) fixes the incredibly annoying keyboard lag.

Right after booting the terminal is OK too, but only for a minute or so. My setup: host W11, VMWare 16.2.4, client is RHEL7.

[Rtaylor]

I have the same issue running the latest Kali, fully updated/upgraded on Windows 11 with Intel graphics on the the host.

Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10900K CPU @ 3.70GHz 3.70 GHz

VMWare Workstation Pro 17.0.1 build-21139696

Running glxgears in the foreground on this latest Kali does seem to reduce the keyboard lag. Also manually manipulating the mouse as I type seems to make keyboard lag disappear. Running various software mouse jiggler scripts in the VM or on the host made no difference. Makes no difference if Accelerate 3d graphics is checked or not. Makes no difference if using VMWare enhanced keyboard driver or not. No printer is installed in the VM.

Core Isolation memory integrity is off.

Side channel mitigations is not enable for Hyper-V enabled hosts.

Kali VM with this version of the kernel is nearly unusable with keyboard lag: 6.0.0-kali6-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.0.12-1kali1 (2022-12-19) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Kali VM with this version of kernel is not as bad but still has a little keyboard lag: 5.18.0-kali5-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 5.18.5-1kali6 (2022-07-07) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Kali VM with this version of kernel has zero lag: 5.3.0-kali3-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 5.3.15-1kali1 (2019-12-09) i686 GNU/Linux

The same Kali VM that has the lag is usable when run on other hosts, same version of Windows host, same version of VMWare Workstation Pro, still slight lag at times but usable.

The same Kali VM that has the lag, when run on a Linux (Debian GNU/Linux 10 4.19.0.9-amd64 kernel) host on old wimpy hardware has zero keyboard lag. Same version of Vmware Workstation Pro 17.0.1.build-21139696.

I also run Windows 10 VMs with no noticeable keyboard lag.

Trying to keep glxgears in the foreground while penetration testing is not a solution. Having to manually jiggle the mouse while typing is not a solution either.

Thanks.

[Rtaylor]

I found another solution. Hook a 2nd keyboard up to the host computer and find it in the Removable Devices list of the VM menu and connect it directly to the Virtual Machine where you are experiencing the horrible keyboard lag. This second keyboard works perfectly in the VM. The original keyboard which is supposedly having it's keypresses passed through is still horribly laggy in this configuration so always switch to the 2nd keyboard when typing in the VM in question.

[sigmatics]

I can confirm this exact same issue and that it is related to Numlock.

- VMWare 16.2.5

- Ubuntu 22.04 VM

- Nvidia T1200 GPU

None of the other fixes here worked. Turning off numlock fixes the arrow key input lag completely

[jorik]

For me enabling IOVMMU helped with laggy keyboard on my Windows 11 Host PC, running VMWare Workstation 16.2.5 Pro and a Debian 12 VM.

activate: Virtual Machine Settings > Processors > Virtualize IOMMU

[presen1]

Do u get any solution im having the same problem im getting really mad hahahah.