vmware 9 VMs won't run after installing linux kernel 3.6 on host

[matthewls]

The components compile and VMW starts, but neither windows nor linux guests start. they give a message "Unable to change virtual machine power state: Cannot find a valid peer process to connect to"

PS. And changing accelerated graphics to off doesn't help.

PPS. Updating from 3.4.11 to 3.4.12 works fine.

The host: AMD 8150, 32GB RAM, Linux Mint 13

[lakshya32]

Hi matthewls

Welcome to the forums.

I am sure there must be hardware compatibility issues with 3.6.

Please verify 3.6 HCL with your existing hardware.

"When you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

[matthewls]

I guess you mean virtual hardware compatibility? The physical host boots linux and runs everything else well with kernel 3.6 installed, it even compiles and runs vmware workstation 9. The guests fail when I try to run them. The same physical host boots 3.4.12 and runs the same virtual machines w/o problem.

[WoodyZ]

Just curious, are the Virtual Machine's shutdown or suspended when trying to run them with the 3.6 kernel and did you reboot after installing VMware Workstation?

[matthewls]

Both VMs were shut down before I tried to start them; after they failed to run after workstation's recompile I rebooted the host and tried again with the same failure message. Reinstalled 3.4.11: no problem. Upgraded to 3.4.12: no problem. There's something up with a kernel 3.6 host and workstation.

[mfelker]

It "could" be a problem with hthe Linux host OS.  I am running     Fedora 19 Rawhide with kernel 3.6 - no issues.  I have to  assume you   are using the patch

vmware9_kernel35_patch.tar.bz2   immediately  after you installed the WS 9 .bundle.  Have you tried to  completely uninstall WS 9?   The instaructions in kb 38 are incomplete -  there would be files left over if you just followed the file  removal  items listed in that document.

.

Run the WS 9 native uninstaller first !  (/usr/bin/vmware-installer -u Vmware-workstation

)

Then use these instead.

---------------------------------------

rm -rf /etc/vmware*
rm /usr/bin/vmware*
rm -rf /usr/lib/vmware*
rm -r /usr/share/doc/vmware*
rm -fr /var/run/vm*

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just double checked the files in the given directories with an installed WS 9 copy.  After uninstaalling

[matthewls]

Ah, a patch. My ignorance. I skipped kernel 3.5 and never looked. Thank you. As 3.4 is getting long term support I suppose I'll stick with it.

[pitonyak]

So, do I undertsand correctly, that it works with 3.5.4 and 3.6, but not 3.5.5? Certainly not able to use it with 3.5.5, but it does work with 3.5.4.

[mfelker]

There is   such a variance between the  way that  Linux   hosts deal with even  minor point  differences  in kernel versions  that  I am seeing that   WS will   probably never "offically" support kernel  >= 3.4 Minor upgrades in kernel 3.5 on Ubuntu  12.10  have no impact on WS You are   noticing differences in  Mint which   of course forks  from Ubuntu (many  of the   repos are  the same).  This behavior is quite a   bit  different  with VirtualBox.  Somebody might check with vanilla kernels in the  kerrnel.org  archives  - but  you still would have different host  machine specs as   well.  In  awhile  I'll   try WS 9 install on kernel 3.7 which  has been    released for Fedora Rawhide 19.    It is  posssible  the   patch  from    Artem S. Tashkinov  could work there   also!    

Also there  seems to be  no support  at all for any 3.x kernels  for "other Linux".