Workstation 10 crashing

[tim11pop]

Hello All,

Wondering if somebody might be able to provide some advice. I've been using VMware for some time and have a pretty decent number of VMs, today I noticed that version 10 was available so I decided to give it a trial and updated from Workstation 9. Once I installed it however it would load the first Home page, plus the list of VMs I have and I tried to do pretty much anything and VMware crashes. Every single time. I tried going to About and it crashes, create new VM, crashes. Even loading up a VM crashes.

I've tried uninstalling other VMware products, uninstalling Workstation 10, repairing Workstation, and cleaning everything using CCleaner. I have also tried rebooting after the first installation.

After the reinstallation it crashes before the home page even loads.

Does anyone have any suggestions at all? Maybe some log files I might be able to investigate?

I'm running Windows 7 with 16GB RAM and an AMD FX-8150 CPU.

[xindayu]

Hi tim11pop,

Thanks for your trying Workstation10. We are really sorry you ran into this issue!

Could you please follow the below steps to collect logs for further investigation?

1. Open the installation folder of Workstation, for example, the default folder is : “C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation”.

2. Run the “vm-support.vbs”, it will create a zip log file.

Please upload the log and we will get back to you asap.

Thanks!

Xinda

[tim11pop]

Thanks for the reply Xinda. I've attached the zip file to the original post.

Hopefully some suggestions can be made.

[admin]

Exactly what happens when it crashes?  Is there an error dialog?  If so, what does it say?

[tim11pop]

No error message. Crashes and Windows does the (Not responding) in the window.

Here's a screenshot: http://puu.sh/4nkgO.png

[admin]

Okay, so actually Workstation freezes (which is different from a crash).

This sounds a little similar to a freeze that we discovered very late where Workstation might freeze if another application on your system is also frozen, although since it happens to you after you reboot, it might be a different problem.

The only other things I can think of are to try:

1. Temporarily removing/renaming %APPDATA%\VMware\preferences.ini
2. Modifying %APPDATA%\VMware\preferences.ini and setting:

pref.autoSoftwareUpdatePermission = "deny"
pref.componentDownloadPermission = "deny"

[tim11pop]

Hm, interestingly once I rename the preferences,ini file I get to this part: http://puu.sh/4nlyh.png. However I think it may have crashed my ExpanDrive process which is running at 15% CPU. If I add those two lines to the preferences.ini it makes no differences.

I'll give this a further try out after a restart as that's the only way to kill off the ExpanDrive process for some reason.

[tim11pop]

Right, rebooted. When renaming the preferences.ini file I get slightly further in that it loads up the Home tab but then freezes again.

When trying the second option it makes no difference.

Any other thoughts at all? Seems like a bit of an odd issue!

[admin]

I don't have any other ideas right now.  While Workstation is frozen, could you open the Task Manager, right-click on the vmware.exe process, choose "Create Dump File", and attach that (probably zipping it first)?

[tim11pop]

I've attached the DMP as requested. Had to do it as a 7z file as it is 140MB.

[admin]

Thanks.  Unfortunately, since vmware.exe is a 32-bit process, you'll need to generate the .dmp file from the 32-bit Task Manager (argggh).  Could you run C:\Windows\SysWOW64\taskmgr.exe (make sure Task Manager isn't already running; you can make sure that you're running the right one if taskmgr.exe*32 is listed in the Processes list) and do it again?  Sorry for the trouble!

[tim11pop]

Sorry about that. I've attached the version created by the 32bit taskmanager.

Thanks again.

[admin · Accepted solution]

Yeah, this is indeed the same problem that we unfortunately discovered too late.  It should be fixed in the next release, but I can't comment on when that might be.

I've attached a test program that should be able to identify which program we're conflicting with (just run it through a command prompt).  I'd be curious to know what it reports.

[tim11pop]

Ah, thanks for the information, very helpful. I ran the program and it gave me the response of:

Trying message: 0x8400

Conflicts with window (error: 0x5B4): HWND:00030402: PID:4524 "Native KiesPDLR"

Trying message: 0x8401

Conflicts with window (error: 0x5B4): HWND:00030402: PID:4524 "Native KiesPDLR"

etc

So looks like it's an issue with the Kies Samsung software for my phone. Once I kill of that process I can get into VMware with no issues at all.

Thanks for taking the time to go through the troubleshooting with me, it's great to have a resolution and know that there will be a permanent fix in the next release.

[MichaelDarnell]

Just bought VMware Workstation 10 this past week and encountered the same freezing issue as the OP. At that time, I tried rebooting, repairing, etc. to no effect. The only culprit I could think of was that I had recently connected my Android phone to recharge, yet disconnecting it resulted in no change.

After un/reinstalling, everything seemed to be fine again until just now when I plugged in my Motorola phone again. Sure enough, while my VMs were still operational, any actions in Workstation itself would cause a freeze. Upon running the conflict script, it indicated "deviceupdate.exe" was the problem:

D:\>conflict_test

Trying message: 0x8400

Conflicts with window (error: 0x5B4): HWND:001B0A12: PID:3080 "Device Software Update"

[snipped identical results for 0x8401-0x8412]

Trying message: 0x8413

Conflicts with window (error: 0x5B4): HWND:001B0A12: PID:3080 "Device Software Update"

After killing that process, everything started working just fine.

Thanks for the work-around, and look forward to a patch!

[GJE1]

I have a similar issue, although I can actually start VMs - problem is that then WS10 freezes and my VMs are toast !  For reference, I'm running WS10 on Server 2008 R2

Ran the conflict tester and nothing came up, so not even a process that I can kill to get going again.

Have to say, this is pretty poor from VMWare - have ugraded through 8 and 9 and they were fine, but this problem with WS10 is really stuffing my work.

Please fix soon !

[admin]

GJE1 wrote:

I have a similar issue, although I can actually start VMs - problem is that then WS10 freezes and my VMs are toast !  For reference, I'm running WS10 on Server 2008 R2

Ran the conflict tester and nothing came up, so not even a process that I can kill to get going again.

Have to say, this is pretty poor from VMWare - have ugraded through 8 and 9 and they were fine, but this problem with WS10 is really stuffing my work.

Please fix soon !

What you're describing sounds like a different problem, especially if the test program didn't detect any conflicts.  Even if the UI freezes, the VMs should continue running (and Workstation should be able to reconnect to them when run again).  Exactly what do you mean by "your VMs are toast"?  Are vmware-vmx.exe processes killed?  Are the VMs frozen?  Do they crash?

It would help if you could provide a .dmp file as described in posts #8 and #10.

[GJE1]

Thanks for the quick response - I'll run it up again and attach a dmp file when it next happens

Can't remember the message, but restarting Workstation didn't reconnect to the VMs, so the only way I could get them back was to reboot my machine.

[directpath]

I wasted nearly 2 hours trying to work out why Workstation 10 crashes on my PC. I should have come to these forums sooner. Why hasn't there  been a fix for this bug yet? I have Samsung Kies installed and killing its processes allows Workstation 10 to run.

[gkriggs]

I'm also running into similar problem.  VMWare Workstation 10 crashes on me about once an hour and the only way I've found to recover is to reboot the host machine.  It won't let me take ownership of the files if I just restart VMWare workstation.  I noticed it seems to most often happen when I'm trying to switch between virtual machines.  I'm getting really tired of it crashing all the time and starting to seriously consider switching to using some other virtualization product.

--Greg