VMware

This Question is Answered

1 "helpful" answer available (6 pts)
1 2 Previous Next 17 Replies Last post: Sep 28, 2009 1:44 AM by BillyVassilia…  

Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours posted: Oct 14, 2008 2:05 PM

Click to view Spicoli75's profile Novice
Spicoli75
4 posts since
Oct 14, 2008
Hi All,

I am running the most current Mac OS and version of Fusion on a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac. I have the latest version of XP running on my Virtual Machine with all updates currently available. Thus far, I have been really impressed with Fusion. However, there is one really annoying bug that I cannot seem to fix.

After about 2 hours of having the VM box running, the network/internet connection is lost on the XP VM machine. It still works great on the Mac environment. Further, the only way to get the Virtual Machine to regain connectivity is to re-start the whole system. I have tried to just send a ctrl+alt+del to the virtual XP box but that does not work.

Any suggestions?
Tags: networking, crash, internet, network, connection

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

1. Oct 14, 2008 3:46 PM in response to: Spicoli75
Click to view WoodyZ's profile Guru
WoodyZ
10,110 posts since
Apr 22, 2004
Saying you are running the latest version etc is somewhat meaningless when trying to troubleshoot issues and as such you should always provide explicit and specific information whenever possible so have a look at HOWTO: Ask (and Answer) Questions as a guideline.

You said "I have tried to just send a ctrl+alt+del to the virtual XP box but that does not work." so why are you trying to send CAD to the VM, which by the way can be done from the Virtual Machine menu? Why not just click Start > Turn Off Computer (or Shut Down if applicable) > Restart? Or are you? It's not clear from what you said other then you're restarting the Host (assuming that what you mean by "re-start the whole system".

In addition to omitted version specific info what type of Mac is this and how is the Mac connected to the Internet and if Wired vs WiFi or visa versa have you tried switching and see if this makes any difference and in that same respect how is the Network on the Virtual Machine configured, the default NAT or custom set to Bridged and have you tried switching that as well?

Is the Host or Guest hibernating or sleeping prior to loss of network connectivity in the Guest? If yes have you tried disabling hibernating or sleeping on either/both to see if that makes any difference?

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

2. Oct 14, 2008 3:36 PM in response to: Spicoli75
Click to view sdakin's profile Novice
sdakin
3 posts since
Sep 16, 2008
I am having the same problem on my MacBook Pro (latest model) with Mac OS 10.5.5. I'm using NAT networking in my Vista VM. My network connection seems to drop before 2 hours have elapsed however. I've tried changing NAT/Bridged but that doesn't affect it. Also, I've found that "tickling" the network settings for the VMWare virtual network interface (don't change anything, just open up properties for the TCP/IP protocol and OK the properties dialog) can sometimes get it to work again. This is very annoying. I am otherwise very pleased with VMWare Fusion and really hope I can find a suitable solution to this problem.

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

3. Oct 14, 2008 4:04 PM in response to: WoodyZ
Click to view Spicoli75's profile Novice
Spicoli75
4 posts since
Oct 14, 2008
Hi Woody,

Thanks for the reply. Further, thanks for the link to "HOWTO."

I am sending the CAD from the VM menu. I have also powered off and restarted the machine from the start menu. No matter which way I shut down or restart the VM network connectivity is not restored until after I restart the host.

2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac (aluminum) connected wirelessly via an "airport express." I have switched between/used both default NAT and custom set to Bridged, but the problem persists.

Only my monitors sleep/hibernate on the host. The guest however does hibernate. I will try to disable to see if this helps. Nevertheless, it is quite annoying.

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

4. Oct 14, 2008 4:23 PM in response to: Spicoli75
Click to view WoodyZ's profile Guru
WoodyZ
10,110 posts since
Apr 22, 2004
Spicoli75 wrote: Only my monitors sleep/hibernate on the host. The guest however does hibernate. I will try to disable to see if this helps. Nevertheless, it is quite annoying.

Yes. I'm sure it quite annoying however until a pattern with enough information emerges it makes it hard to diagnose.

Next time you loose network connectivity in the virtual machine give the following a try to see if this enables reestablishing network connectivity without having to reboot the Host. Note that this is not a solution just a test to help see where else to look.

Shutdown or suspend the VM and close Fusion and then In a Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal) copy and paste the following command, as is, and then press Enter and type in your password and the press Enter.

sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/boot.sh --restart

Let the command complete and then start Fusion and the VM and see if you have connectivity and then post back the results.

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

5. Oct 14, 2008 5:46 PM in response to: WoodyZ
Click to view sdakin's profile Novice
sdakin
3 posts since
Sep 16, 2008
WoodyZ,

The boot.sh --restart tip you gave worked for me. I'll keep monitoring it and let you know if this command continues to prove effective (or not).


Thanks!

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

6. Oct 15, 2008 10:50 AM in response to: sdakin
Click to view Spicoli75's profile Novice
Spicoli75
4 posts since
Oct 14, 2008
Woody Z,

The boot.sh restart tip for me worked as well. I suspended the guest and then entered the command in terminal. Then, I resumed the guest and regained network connectivity.

Last, I wanted to adjust the power settings on the guest as you suggested. I went to START --> Control Panel > Power Options and the only option selected was to put the monitor to sleep after 20 mins. The hibernate feature is not enabled and neither are "hard disk" or "system performance" as they are both set to "never."

I will keep monitoring and using boot.sh in the meantime.

Your assistance is much appreciated. Thanks!

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

7. Oct 15, 2008 11:12 AM in response to: Spicoli75
Click to view WoodyZ's profile Guru
WoodyZ
10,110 posts since
Apr 22, 2004
Another thing to consider trying if you haven't already would be to uninstall/reinstall Fusion and see if that makes any difference. Note: This does not remove your Virtual Machines as they are separate from the uninstall/reinstall of Fusion however the VM's do need to be shutdown and closed.

Other then that it appears that because restarting VMware Fusion's Network on the Host works to reestablish connectivity in the Guest that is were the issues lies and a uninstall/reinstall may help to correct the issue. Anyway if I had this issues I'd give it a try.

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

8. Oct 15, 2008 11:17 AM in response to: WoodyZ
Click to view sdakin's profile Novice
sdakin
3 posts since
Sep 16, 2008

WoodyZ,

Your uninstall/reinstall suggestion is a bit drastic :-) but I wanted to share one more anecdote here. I had this problem with Fusion 1.x and upgraded to Fusion 2.0 and regained network connectivity. I optimistically thought that it was just a bug in 1.x that was fixed in 2.0. No such luck as 2.0 exhibited the problem a couple of weeks later. For now I'll use the boot.sh suggestion, but hopefully the Fusion engineers can get to the bottom of this one.

Thanks again for your help!

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

9. Oct 15, 2008 11:54 AM in response to: sdakin
Click to view etung's profile Guru
etung
11,086 posts since
Oct 15, 2006
If anyone who sees this behavior knows how to take packet traces, it would probably be helpful to track this down. Not being able to observe it ourselves makes it hard to diagnose or fix.

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

10. Oct 15, 2008 12:01 PM in response to: sdakin
Click to view WoodyZ's profile Guru
WoodyZ
10,110 posts since
Apr 22, 2004
sdakin wrote: Your uninstall/reinstall suggestion is a bit drastic :-)

I have to admit that I personally don't like the idea of having to uninstall/reinstall an application however I do not look at it as as drastic step. As a professional in this industry I know all to well that even when an application is installed and even if there were no errors thrown in the install process or even a message stating the install was successfully that it does not mean that there will not be any issues and as such unfortunately having to uninstall/reinstall an application does at times make a difference. One thing to consider is to always check the published md5sum or sha1sum against the .dmg downloaded to ensure the image is valid before installing. I've seen corrupt images install without apparent errors only to find out that issues do crop up in use and then a uninstall/reinstall fixes the issue. Not saying it will fix this issue and considering the number of issues surrounding Fusion 2.0 it would not surprise me if this is a bug that needs to be tracked down and fixed.

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

11. Oct 21, 2008 9:04 PM in response to: etung
Click to view Spicoli75's profile Novice
Spicoli75
4 posts since
Oct 14, 2008
Here is another interesting piece to the puzzle. I have not shut down or re-started the host for 3 days now (typical for me). However, I have been running the guest in "unity" mode and did not lose network connectivity once during the past three days.

Just recently, I exited "unity" mode and again had the same issue of network connectivity loss after 2 hours. Instead of opening terminal, I went back to running in "unity" mode in hopes it would fix the issue, but network connectivity did not return. I am not sure if this helps, but thought that I would share nonetheless.

Another interesting note - while in unity mode I can copy and paste freely between Win and Mac applications using cmd+c and cmd+v. However, once I exit unity I lose copy and paste functionality between the guest and host and have to use ctrl+c and ctrl+v to copy and paste within the Win environment. One thing that is never lost is the ability to drag and drop files between host and guest.

I am totally open to doing packet traces, however I would not know where to start. If you could provide a link to a tutorial or instructions on this - I would gladly perform a packet trace and post the results.

Cheers,
Spicoli

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

12. Oct 22, 2008 4:52 PM in response to: Spicoli75
Click to view mykmelez's profile Hot Shot
mykmelez
220 posts since
Jul 29, 2007
This sounds like the same as DNS resolution via NAT breaks intermittently (beta3).

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

13. Oct 23, 2008 6:27 AM in response to: mykmelez
Click to view mkilgore's profile Novice
mkilgore
4 posts since
Mar 31, 2008
I would like to add that I am also seeing the timeout after 2 hours (approx). The same work around, shutdown running boot.sh and restart, works for me as well

Re: Internet/Network Connection is Lost after 2 or More Hours

14. Nov 10, 2008 12:17 AM in response to: Spicoli75
Click to view iith096's profile Novice
iith096
8 posts since
Oct 8, 2007
Found out something.

I do not use DHCP on my network to assign IPs to the various computers but rather use static IP addresses.


Before booting up my Windows XP Pro VM, I switched over to "Bridged" instead of "NAT" and manually assigned an IP and dns server(s). I went ahead and booted up and so far it has been working just fine. Rebooted several times to make sure and it goes right back onto the network with no issues.


I will run it for a few hours and see if it holds.


Hope this helps someone out there.


Good Luck.

Message was edited by: iith096

1 2 Previous Next Go to original post

Actions

VMware Developer

SDKs, APIs, Videos, Learn and much more in the Developer community.

Learn More

Developer Sample Code

Increase your developer productivity with VMware API sample code.

Learn More

VMworld Sessions & Labs

Online access to the latest VMworld Sessions & Labs and online services.

Learn more

Purchase PSO Credits Online

Purchase credits to redeem training and consulting services online.

Buy Now

Community Hardware Software

View reported configurations or report your own.

Learn More

VMware vSphere

Come witness the next giant leap in virtualization.

Register Today

Communities