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Thomas_McKane
Contributor
Contributor

Fusion 8.5 on MacOS Sierra Crashing Often

After any of my Windows VM's boot up, they freeze more often than not and I get an error that Windows has stopped responding and needs rebooted.  I sometimes have to reboot 3 times before it will actually boot up and be usable.

This NEVER happened with previous versions of Fusion.

PLEASE FIX THIS BUG

101 Replies
Darcyz
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Thomas,

Welcome to Fusion Community.

We are tracking this issue, Could you provide me more information? like what application are you using  when crash happen? do you use the Unity mode?

Regards

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issaco
Contributor
Contributor

Also happening for me,

This is unusable, crash on paste or crash on resume from suspend - very frustrating.

Note: If you are running 8.5 on non-sierra don't upgrade as this only happens on sierra.

Thomas_McKane
Contributor
Contributor

For me it's at boot-up of all my Windows VM's.  When it gets to the ctrl-alt-del login screen, it locks up and says windows must reboot due to crash.  Sometimes it does this 3-4 times in a row before it comes up and is usable.  Every time it crashes I get the Windows stopped unexpectedly option where you can boot to safe mode or normal mode.

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mriffey
Contributor
Contributor

Also happening to me. Hangs the entire Mac. Ive seen this 8-10 times today. Productivity down to zero on that mac. Had to stop using it. VMs experiencing this are all Win10 (so far). Happens on all of them, not just one of them. 16 gb Mac Book Pro, Sierra, retina, mid-2014 model. Not using unity mode.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

This is also the same for me.  I have an open case with apple and I internally filed a bug.  The issue is simple with Fusion 8 and sierra (was not an issue with El Capitain) . It also appears to happen with non SSD based mac's more than SSD based

Start up Fusion VM's.

After some idle time and mac sleep system is completely frozen

Apple confirmed in the "Capture Data" tool there is a sleep issue being affected by Fusion

We thought it was the Disk sleep option so we disabled that to prevent the disk from trying to sleep

The problem persists.

The ONLY fix I have found is to COMPLETELY disable sleep on the mac effectively keeping it running 24x7 or suspend and close VMware Fusion every day.  That seems to work, so I can tell you without a doubt this is a Fusion with running VM's and Sierra Sleep problem.  I can supply the Apple case number that has been escalated to apple engineering, but this is a huge problem.  The only way to release the mac is to hard boot which has also resulted in some data loss doing it 4-5 times a day.

I have even rebuilt clean on Sierra with nothing else but Fusion installed and if fusion it NOT running active VM's this is not a problem and the capture logs show it is directly a Sleep/Fusion issue on sierra.

admin
Immortal
Immortal

Does not appear to matter what guest OS is running, it's the simple fact the VM's are powered on and it's related to the sierra sleep protocol.  Apple has confirmed that with me via logs.  see my post below.

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IlDavo
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I arrived here via Google search as VMware Fusion 8.5  running on MacOS Sierra 10.12 froze and no longer responded to any GUI interactions.

Prior to discovering this, I'd been away from my Mac for over 24 hours.

Historically, these 2 Windows 10 guest VM's ran just fine under VMware Fusion on prior MacOS releases -- including VMware Fusion 8.5, to which I'd upgraded prior to upgrading MacOS to Sierra.

2 Windows 10 guest VM's that I'd left running could not be accessed via VMware Fusion 8.5 GUI.

I was able to access the Windows 10 guest VM's via Microsoft RDP from a separate workstation, where I was then able to properly shut them down. When I did so, nothing changed on VMware Fusion 8.5 GUI screens that I still had open on my Mac.

I then force quit VMware Fusion 8.5 and found that all other MacOS applications still functioned. I re-started my Mac, checked all affected disks with DiskWarrior, started up Fusion 8.5 and my 2 Windows 10 VM's, logged into those VM's and ran Windows checkdisk -- no Windows-reported errors.

Left running VM's in identical state to above. 24 hours later, I found VMware Fusion 8.5 and my 2 guest VM's frozen and unresponsive as before.

ChrisColotti(VMware): Thank you for your latest report, indicating that this problem is related to "sierra sleep protocol." Unfortunately, I can find no "post below" that you reference in order to read further.

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Thomas_McKane
Contributor
Contributor

Mine freeze at bootup, probably on average 40% of the time.  Sometimes they freeze 2 or 3 times in a row before working.

Not sure how that could be related to sleep.

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_matt_
Contributor
Contributor

The same thing happens to me every time I resume my Windows 10 vm after suspending it and putting macOS to sleep.  This needs to get fixed, but my workaround for now it to completely shut down the vm before putting macOS to sleep.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

This actually sounds like some slightly different issues that could vary with apple hardware, but seems to all be related to Sierra

Mine specifically is on an iMac with an Apple Fusion 1TB drive.

After multiple ways to reproduce it in my case, there is no VM only crashes, the entire iMac becomes frozen unresponsive, fans are cranked, and it needs a power button reset.  I have reproduced this ONLY when Fusion is running active VM's AND if the iMac is set to sleep normally.  If I enable the option to NEVER allow the system to sleep....then things continue to run fine.  Also the apple logs collected and sent to Apple engineering indicate IN MY CASE that there is a failure with sleep/wake operations flagged along side fusion.

So it seems there is a few variations of this problem but they are clearly related to Sierra and VMware Fusion, but not sure if it's affecting SSD's or spindles only.  Also on my MacBook I always suspend VM's I'm not using which I cannot do on the iMac, so I have yet to see the issue on my MacBook which is also set to never sleep when on power adapter.  Not sure why I just have always had it set that way since it sleeps when you close the cover anyhow.  Different options on the iMac power settings.

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IlDavo
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Update: Disabled "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" in Apple->SystemPreferences->EnergySaver ("Computer sleep" was already "never" and "Display sleep" was already 45 minutes before Fusion issues arose -- I've not changed them).  Made no other changes.

Both of the Windows 10 guest VM's I'd left running are unresponsive, again, on Fusion 8.5 GUI.

Given that my Sierra Mac's sleep is already "never" and I've disabled "Put hard disks to sleep," I don't know of any other settings I can adjust to eliminate factors suspected to cause this error.

Makes VMware Fusion entirely-unworkable, now.

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nikhilcdac
Contributor
Contributor

Installed Sierra update 10.12.1 today. After that powered on VM several times without any crash Smiley Happy.

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Skovian
Contributor
Contributor

Hello everyone,

I would like to add to this.  I have a 2013 Mac Pro that I got in 2014, 1TB drive, 12 core processor, 64 GB RAM, dual D700 video, OS X Sierra; Fusion 8.5, both have all updates, etc.  The only guest OS machines I have are XP Pro, Win 7 Pro x64, and Win 8.1 Pro x64.  I have the same problem.  I noticed that just after I loaded the guest OS and before the first login, I had to let it sit for about ten minutes.  Then I could log in.  After the VMTools were loaded it would still crash.  If I let it sit for ten minutes, I could log in.  I just wait for about five minutes out of habit now, but all three guest OS loads seem to be more stable after getting all of the MS updates.  I don't know if there is any one update that helps, but even XP is much better.  However, on all of them, if I log in as soon as the guest OS is up, it will crash.

If I can think of anything else, I'll add it.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

I just saw that Sierra pushed an update so I will try my issue again later this week.  I have submitted the OS Locking to someone in engineering to try and re-produce on 10.12 but have not heard back.  These could be similar issues but unclear at this point.

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Skovian
Contributor
Contributor

I would like to add that I applied the OS X 10.12.1 update and then tried all of the guest OS computers.  They all came up without any difficulty.  I tested by logging in to them as soon as they became available.  Perhaps this update fixed it.  I use my VMs a lot so if this happens again, I'll post.

Thanks

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Skovian
Contributor
Contributor

Wow, that was fast!

My Windows 8.1 guest, onto which I logged in immediately as soon as it was available and which appeared stable, froze and gave the same error when it's screen saver came on.

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Darcyz
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Skovian

Welcome to Fusion Community.

There is a thread from a while back about sleep/wake failures. I am not sure whether related to the screen saver.

See: Fusion 6.0.2 and OSx Mavericks 10.9.1 - Sleep Wake failure unless I shutdown or suspend my Win7Pro V...

Could you try to set as follow:

VM Settings -> Advanced -> Pass power status to guest

If it is still doesn't work, please let me know.

Thanks and Regards

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Luke_H_NYC
Contributor
Contributor

I have what I believe to be this same problem (Windows VMs crash at the login screen -- as soon as you click into the VM to try to grab mouse control) on Sierra with Fusion 8.5


I have reported this issue to VMware and submitted crash reports, but the responses trailed off and never got a resolution.

I have upgraded to 10.12.1 and am sad to say that the crashes still happen, so NO this does NOT fix the bug, at least in my case.  Host machines where this is happening are a Core i7 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM and a 500GB SSD and a Core i5 MacBook Pro also w/ 16GB RAM + 500GB SSD.

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Thomas_McKane
Contributor
Contributor

Same for me, Sierra update hasn't changed anything.

It isn't anything related to power sleep settings.  I don't understand why this bug is so hard to find.

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