KDE 4.10 black or white panel VirtualBox 4.1.24
 

Since I updated from KDE 4.9.5 to KDE 4.10 I've had a problem with the panel in KDE. It is supposed to be a silver color. When I re-size the virtual display, the panel turns solid black or solid white. Sometimes I can get it to temporarily go back to the correct color (silver) but it usually is wrong the next time I log in or slightly re-size the display. The problem happens with KDE 4.10.1 and 4.10.2.

I'm using the release 4.1.24 of VirtualBox. I have not tried the 4.2 release. VirtualBox releases have not been very stable until they get into the last few releases of a series. I'm reluctant to update to VirtualBox 4.2 unless I find out that it actually fixes KDE 4.10 display problems. So far very few combinations of KDE and VirtualBox have displayed things correctly. Since both are released frequently I am not really sure how to deal with these problems.

I guess I should also mention that the problem happens on different computers, running different host operating systems. The problem happens with VirtualBox running on Windows 7, Windows XP, Slackware 14 (32-bit and 16-bit).

Has anyone tried KDE 4.10 with VirtualBox 4.2? Does KDE work with VirtualBox 4.2, or does it have the same panel color problem?

Any information will be appreciated.

By resizing do you mean going from windowed mode to full screen and vice-versa?

In your VM do you have compositing enabled? How about other desktop effects? Have you tried disabling all desktop effects?

I'm sorry for not being more explicit. I mean resizing a VirtualBox guest window in windowed mode, with the entire KDE desktop in a single guest window. Seamless mode is disabled and full-screen is disabled. Scaled mode is also disabled. Resizing does not cause the problem, but it sometimes fixes the problem. The panel temporarily displays the correct silver color until the display is next updated. Most of the time the panel is the wrong color. The panel is usually solid black or solid white, and only sometimes silver. Switching to seamless or full-screen mode does not fix the problem. The panel stays black or white.

In the guest OS (Slackware 14 + KDE 4.10.2) I have compositing disabled using a file "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-disable-compositing.conf".

I also have the KDE desktop effects disabled in the guest OS. I've never been able to get desktop effects to work in VirtualBox, so I don't use the experimental 3D graphics driver at all. I'm using the normal VirtualBox Guest Additions graphics driver.

I have tried deleting the KDE cache under "/var/tmp" and also creating a new user account with no previous KDE settings. Neither of those affected the problem.

The host OS running VirtualBox also does not matter. It happens with a Windows 7, Windows XP or Slackware + KDE host OS.

I haven't tried any other Linux guest operating systems or Linux desktop environments. Windows 7 and Windows XP running as a guest OS do not have the display problem. Also, a Slackware 14 guest running KDE 4.9 does not have the problem.

Still a problem with KDE 4.10.4
 

This is still a problem with KDE 4.10.4. I have not been able to get KDE 4.10 to display the panel correctly in VirtualBox.

Fixed in KDE 4.11.2 with Slackware 14.1 rc1
 

I tested this again with VirtualBox 4.2.18, KDE 4.11.2 and Slackware 14.1 rc1. It is now working correctly. I have not tried to determine which versions of Slackware, Virtualbox and KDE exhibit the problem. This is the first combination of versions that have worked for me.