Screen goes black when capturing image when running on VM Fusion

I just made some tests with my Mac OS X 10.6 using Parallels 6 running Windows 7:

I can't even get the IDE to display it's app window - all black.

Running a script shows, that there are many problems with screen handling and the Sikuli overlay windows, that makes scripts not useable. e.g. Region.highlight() does not work and makes the virtual machine hang.

To be clear, I'm running 10.6.2 as the guest OS, not Win7.

I have not tried Sikuli on Windows as a guest OS in Fusion, but Sikuli works fine on VMWare Workstation with Win7 host and Win7 guest.

Actually 10.6.2 Server (since that's all the Apple allows to be virtualized)

Might there be a configuration to adjust the dimming?

No adjustment for dimming currently available. If you think you need it, post a request bug.

When I posted my comment about Mac/Parrallels/Win7 I knew, what you where talking about ;-)

But what you report about Win7/VMwareWS/Win7 could mean, that if Mac is involved on one or both sides of virtualization there might be problems with Sikuli.

It's not that I want to adjust the dimming - I was just thinking this might be a way to workaround the black screen issue. I was really just hoping to be able to run Sikuli via VM Fusion since a number of our test teams uses this configuration.
I have not yet tried developing the script on a native Mac and then run it on the VM Fusion. But, ideally, I'd like to be able to do dev and execution on VM Fusion.

Any news on this bug? Is there any additional info I can provide? I'm pretty new to Sikuli, but get log files or run test builds if needed. thanks.

I read all comments but something is not clear to me.

Does the the image captured when you are seeing this black screen is also black?

If so, this seems to be the same problem I've reported on Bug #802690, but extended to the hole screen.

If not, please just ignore this comment.

This issue doesn't seem to happen on Mac 10.7 VM (Not Server)image.

It was performed under following platform.

VM Host: Mac 10.6
VM Guest: Mac 10.7
VM fusion 4

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the datapoint. My understanding is that Apple only support the Server OS in virtualization mode. Running the client (not server) OS may violate the license. It's especially important not to do this in a corporate setting. Have you tried 10.7 Server as the guest?

On XP SP 3 the screen also goes completely black, leaving only the cross hair mouse cursor. This makes the tool unusable which is a great shame as it looks exactly what I was looking for for GUI testing.

I experienced the above black screen issue on release x1.0-rc3

I can now also confirm that this issue does not occur running 10.7 server on VM Fusion 4.0. I also heard Apple allows 10.7 client OS to run in a VM. I'm not sure what piece led to the problem going away: OS version, Fusion version, or Sikuli version (moving to rc3).

I have experienced similar - All using x1.0-rc3 of Sikuli.

Since I use this for work I've been investigating the extent of the issue.

Host Win7 and guest Ubuntu 12.04, VMWare Player and Virtual Box default setting - screen goes black on capture.
Host Win7 and guest Ubuntu 12.04, VMWare Player w/ 3d acceleration - screen goes black on capture but text area of xterms is visible with masking by any other windows (eg Firefox)
Host Win7 and guest KUbuntu 12.04, VMWare Player and Virtual Box default setting - screen normal on capture - SUCCESS.
Host Ubuntu 12.04 and guest Win7, Virtual Box default setting - screen normal on capture - SUCCESS.
Host Ubuntu 12.04 and guest Ubuntu 12.04, Virtual Box default setting - screen goes black on capture.

I suspect the slight variation when 3d acceleration support is enabled leads me to think the screen going black is the interaction between Sikuli screen capture, a specific style of compositing window manager and para-virtualization of the graphics hardware - so Sikuli is unable to access or accesses the incorrect frame buffer for capture.

I'm seeing this on a Windows 7 host, running Oracle/Sun/(blah) VirtualBox 4.1.6, and a guest Ubuntu 12.04, *without 3D acceleration* passed to the guest, but of some note, the unity task bar/launcher is the only part of the screen that's *not* black.

I resolved this issue by installing java update 11 for mac which changed my java from 1.6.0_15 to 1.6.0_37

I am having a similar issue(Host:Win7 ,Guest:Ubuntu 12.04).What is the solution ????

Host ubuntu 12.04 guest ubuntu 12.04, same problem unity bar/launcher is the only stuffs that are visible, even with 3d acceleration.

I installed kde to see (kubuntu-desktop) and log in to kde/plasma, and now, it is working.

I had exactly the same problem with a Ubuntu 12.04 guest running in VirtualBox.

In the end it was extremely simple to resolve:

- Install gnome classic desktop "sudo apt-get install gnome-panel", I personally prefer this to Unity anyway so win win!
- Logout and login using "Gnome Classic (No effects)

As if by magic Sikuli was happy and so was I!