Situation: When you try to use any virtual machine through the remote console plugin in Firefox the mouse cannot be focused - it toggles very quickly grab input and release input so you cannot work. This will also freeze your Ctrl, Shift and some other keys on the host.

Configuration: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala 64 bit, VMware remote console plugin for Firefox version 2.5.0.122581. The virtual machines are powered by a VMware server 2.0 on Ubuntu 9.10 and Ubuntu Server 8.04. This issue is reported for VMware Workstation, too, but its latest release has a fixed for this.

Solution:

Put this code to the wrapper-gtk24.sh file, somewhere at the top:

# Clean GTK setup for VMWare
VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK='force'
export VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK="force"

The wrapper-gtk24.sh file is locate here:

/home/username/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxx.default/extensions/ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it /plugins/lib/

To solve the issue with the frozen keyboard keys on the host run this command in the terminal:

setxkbmap

You can also add to your panel a custom application launcher with this command.