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avanpelt
Contributor
Contributor

Using mouse in a VM makes top menubar go crazy since Mountain Lion upgrade

I've been using Fusion 4.1.3 and Mountain Lion together for about three hours now.  I can run a VM, but when I do strange things happen in the Mac environment.

One of the first things I noticed was that when I move the mouse inside the VM, the top menubar (File, Edit, View, etc.) on the Mac side goes crazy like it's hyper-cycling through the other open programs on the Mac side.

Also, if I do a Command-Tab to cycle between open programs on the Mac side, the switcher flickers on the screen and sometimes won't disappear until I quit VMware Fusion completely.

Note that I'm observing all of this happening on my primary laptop screen while working inside a Windows 7 VM on an external monitor.  Also, open windows like Chrome and Safari on my main laptop screen jump up and down slightly when I'm moving the mouse inside the VM on the external monitor.  I'm guessing Apple must have released new graphics card drivers with Mountain Lion and Fusion 4.1.3 isn't optimized for them.

I am running Mountain Lion and VMware Fusion 4.1.3 on an early-2011 i7 MacBook Pro with 8 GB of RAM.

Anyone else seeing these problems?  I hope 4.1.4 is released in fairly short order.

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14 Replies
gcthompson
Contributor
Contributor

I have the same issues. VMWare 4 is pretty unusable on ML for me 😞

I hope this gets fixed soon

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gcthompson
Contributor
Contributor

Turning off 3D acceleration seems to fix the problem. That's something at least...

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avanpelt
Contributor
Contributor

That seems to help a little, but the problem still persists for me.

For example, as I type this on my main laptop screen while Fusion is running a Windows 7 VM on my external monitor with 3D graphics acceleration disabled for the VM, the text I'm typing in this window is jittery and jumping around like crazy.  When Windows finished loading, the text in this window stopped jumping.

Also, while the VM was booting on my external monitor, the top menubar on my laptop screen continued to go crazy like it was hyper-cycling through all the open applications running on my Mac side.  This has to be a bug with VMware Fusion because I have yet to experience a problem like this with any of the other apps running in Mountain Lion.

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nkahootz
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

I, too, am having the same issue.  I have the most recent build of VMWare Fusion installed (4.1.3) and just installed Mountain Lion.

I have the 27" iMac with a second monitor (an LG 22") and am getting the flashing on my primary monitor anytime I run VMWare on the second monitor (this is my standard layout)...  I notice the flashing the most when I have Office open on the primary monitor. 

I just upgraded Office 2011 with the latest patches from Microsoft hoping that would solve the issue and it did not either.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Shawn

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avanpelt
Contributor
Contributor

The problem seems to only manifest itself when you have multiple displays and run your VM on a dedicated screen and have other content on a different screen.

When I drag a Chrome browser window onto the same display that my VM is on, the Chrome window stops being jittery and stops ghosting.  The minute I drag the Chrome window back to my laptop screen, it starts jumping around and ghosting all over the place.  The minute I shut down the VM and quit VMware Fusion completely, the ghosting and jittering of other windows stops immediately.

VMware, PLEASE fix this!!  It's completely unacceptable that you have had access to a GM copy of Mountain Lion for weeks and didn't release an update to VMware Fusion to address this issue before today.

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jon3060103
Contributor
Contributor

Hear hear...I hvae encountered the same problem too. The virtual environment works fine, but the rest of the OSX GUI goes crazy!

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cpatch
Contributor
Contributor

The problem seems to be related to full screen mode on an external monitor. I've tried turning off 3D acceleration but to no avail. For now, the only workable solution is to switch to single window mode, hide the toolbar, and maximize the window. It's almost as good as full screen...you still have the title bar at the top of the window but that's it. This will at least tide me over until VMWare fixes the flickering issue.

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gcthompson
Contributor
Contributor

Incidentally, those of you who haven't logged a bug with VMWare support I suggest you do so, the only way that this'll get fixed is if you let them know through the proper channels.

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joebabbo
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Same problem.  Workaround working for me so far until patch addresses this permanently.

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avanpelt
Contributor
Contributor

I called VMware Wednesday evening to submit a bug report.  The phone rep said they were already aware of this problem and were working on a patch.  Hope it comes soon.

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mudaltsov
Expert
Expert

For anyone experiencing issues with flickering when using Full Screen on multiple displays, please try this temporary workaround:

1. Choose View -> Full Screen Minibar -> Always Show

2. When in Full Screen, drag the Minibar to the secondary display (the one that doesn't have the Mac menu bar).

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avanpelt
Contributor
Contributor

In my case, the minibar solution doesn't seem to work.  I want to run the VM on my 2nd display (my external monitor).  I like keeping my Mac OS visible on my primary laptop display and running Windows full-screen in VMware Fusion on my external monitor.

When I tried dragging the minibar over to my laptop display, all it did was move the VM over to that display.  It also left a ghosted image of the VM on my 2nd display (my external monitor.)  I was able to get rid of the ghosted image by left clicking and dragging over my entire external monitor -- almost like I was painting over the ghosted image.)

What finally seems to have worked for me is switching all of my VMs out of "Full-screen" mode and into "Single Window" mode.  I then re-size the VM so it more or less takes up my entire external display.  I can't get rid of the button bar on the top of the VM window if it's in Single Window mode; but for me, at least, I can have an (almost) full-screen VM without any of the crazy visual artifacts on my main laptop screen that I get if I actually switch the VM to true "Full-screen" mode.

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gcthompson
Contributor
Contributor

I don't think this is actually a VMWare bug, it's a general bug in Mountain Lion when you enter full screen with multiple displays. Many people have reported it for parallels + other full screen apps.

Smiley Sad

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clayglad
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks! that work-around is working for me. (Minibar always shown stops flashing.)

iMac 27" with 24" external second monitor with Win7 x64 VM running full screen on the secondary monitor.

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