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HenryAZ
Contributor
Contributor

Fusion 8.x and Sierra issues, Internal Error

I have two Macs, a 2015 MBP, and a 2013 Mac Pro.  Both were running Fusion 8.1.1 on El Capitan, with nary a problem.  I have a total of 6 VM's of different varieties, two on the MBP (OSX 10.10.5 and Debian 8), and four on the Mac Pro (OSX 10.9.5, 10.10.5, 10.11.6, and Windows 10 with the new edition upgrade).  All of these were working flawlessly on El Capitan, with Fusion 8.1.1.

Now I have upgraded both machines to Sierra, and installed Fusion 8.5.0.  Every one of my virtual machines gives the "Internal Error" message when I try to run it.  I completely uninstalled 8.5.0 on both machines (tracked down every little file that VMWare leaves behind and deleted it), and then installed Fusion 8.1.1 on both machines.  I get the same "Internal Error" when trying to run any of my VM's.  It seems there is some issue between Fusion 8.x and Sierra.  Strange that the behavior is identical on two different pieces of hardware that I have here.

While I still had 8.5.0 installed, I also tried creating a new VM, from an OSX installer app bundle (10.11.6).  This went through the motions of setting up a VM, options and all, but when I click the run button, again the "Internal Error".

Searching for help on this leads to lots of reports of 8.5.0 crashing on Sierra, and lots of old (some very old) reports of the "Internal Error" and what was done in those cases to solve it.  It is not 3D Acceleration.  That is already turned off on all of my VM's.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I might try beyond what I have done already?  There don't seem to be enough reports of just a general failure of Fusion to run on Sierra to indicate it is widespread, but it is happening to me on two different machines (different in many ways, hardware-wise).  Thanks for any suggestions.

--

henry

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36 Replies
bob_perez_utah
Contributor
Contributor

Thomas,

Did you ever find an answer to your issue.  I have the same issue, can't find a solution.  Have the trial version of Fusion 8.5 Pro.

Thanks,

Bob Perez

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Thomas_McKane
Contributor
Contributor

No, still happens.  Guess VMWare isn't ranking this problem as a very high priority to fix.

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philmoz
Contributor
Contributor

After two weeks, Sierra 10.12.1 beta 2 and beta 3 have been stable for me. No more internal errors from VMware.

Now if they would just fix the broken camera...

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Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

Well we haven't released any update yet for a variety of reasons which the public isn't privy to, but it's certainly at the top of our priority list. (crashing = bad) We always make crashes our top priority but sometimes it involves going back and forth with Apple and that can take longer than some folks might expect/want.

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Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

Many times a bug is actually Apple's fault. They change stuff, and we're not at the top of their 'make sure you don't break X' list.

The camera thing as an example... we didn't change our code here at all but Apple changed thing with respect to the software backend of the camera in 10.12 on older hardware, and that breaks us wen we try to do 'USB' things with it.

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Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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HenryAZ
Contributor
Contributor

Fusion is still crashing after a thorough update to 10.12.1 (16B2657).  It still reports the RawCameraSupport Queue as the crashed thread.  I have attached a single crash log.  This is on a saved VM of 10.10.5 that *used to* work just fine under Fusion 8.1.1, running on 10.11.6.  I have tried both Fusion 8.1.1 and 8.5.0 on Sierra, and both yield the same result.  The crash occurs randomly, though there seems to be some relationship between returning the focus to the VM window and the crash, though not every time.  I have disabled the sound card and removed the camera from all VM's, and 3D acceleration is set to (the default) of OFF.  This behavior is seen identically on two pieces of different hardware, MacBookPro12,1, and MacPro6,1, both updated to 10.12.1 using the latest .dmg updater given out Thursday.

Perhaps it is VMWare's turn to take a stab at this?

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HenryAZ
Contributor
Contributor

Well, I just checked and noticed that Fusion 8.5.1 was released Thursday, same day as 10.12.1 for Sierra.  Unfortunately, on one of my machines, at least, it is a step backwards.  Now the same VM mentioned above won't even start.  It throws an "Internal Error" right off the bat, the same issue that started this thread, and the VM never even gets off the ground.  I installed the Fusion update and rebooted before trying any VMs.  Both VMs that I have saved on this machine toss the "Internal Error".

There is nothing new reported in Console's System Reports, User Reports, system.log, ~/Library/Logs/VMWare*, or /Library/Logs/VMWare, other than the record of installing the updated version.  At least when the VM starts up and then crashes, we get a crash report.  Nothing logged for the "Internal Error".  I won't bother updating my other machine, or even attempting to use Fusion any more until there is something new from either party.

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HenryAZ
Contributor
Contributor

Attached is my support info, using the Help menu Support tool.

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philmoz
Contributor
Contributor

Unbelievable!!!!!

My VM's have been completely stable with 8.5.0 and Sierra 10.12.1 for weeks now.

Updated to 8.5.1 and they are all crashing again with the same 'internal error'.

Reverted to 8.5.0 and, thankfully, they are working again.

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Skovian
Contributor
Contributor

Good day VMware!

Since I  loaded macOS Sierra and found that I have this problem, I've posted on a couple of these threads and have been keeping up with several more.  I'm sure that others have the same questions I have so I will ask:

1.  Has any singular, or combinational, cause been found?

2.  Is it a VMware or Apple issue?

3.  Is a patch at least in an alpha status?

Thank you

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Corund
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

Do you have any work around to stop this disaster of resuming VMs until the fix will be released?

Thank you in advance.

ps. 16 crash logs are attached (Crashed Thread:        0  Dispatch queue: RawCameraSupport Queue)

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hanaan
Contributor
Contributor

So I had that same annoyance and I figured a rather simple reality:
1. There were changes in Mac OS Sierra that broke VMWare Fusion

2. Instead of releasing a patch for version 7, VMWare conveniently fixed it only in version 8

So the good news: it's fixed in VMW 8

The bad news: It costs $50

It's super shitty of VMW (Unless I'm missing something), to use an unrelated Mac OS change to force paying customers to a paid upgrade, just to make their product useable.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi Hanaan,

That's one way to look at it.

Another one would be to look at it from VMware's perspective.

Nowadays almost all software has a life cycle, including macOS, but also VMware Fusion.

The lifecycle of each VMware product is published in their life cycle document matrix, which is a public document.

As you can see on there VMware Fusion 7 was End Of Life (EOL) on 2016/03/03

MacOS Sierra was released on 2016/09/20, which is about a half year after VMware Fusion 7 was EOL already.

Virtualisation software unfortunately is very closely tied with the operating system and if there's big changes in the OS then that might mean having to make big changes to the virtualisation software.

In this case VMware chose to make those changes in the version of their product that was current and not in the version that was already end of life.

Note also that nobody forces you to do anything. There's alternatives such as: not upgrading to macOS Sierra, OS X El Capitan is not end of life yet, even Yosemite still receives security patches (no fixes though), Any OSX older as that is also EOL. There's also alternatives for VMware Fusion.

I'm sure VMware rather keeps customers use their products, but you are welcome to vote with your wallet, if you are unhappy with their life cycle policy.

Also please note that I'm not affiliated with VMware, just a happy customer who's not having a problem with VMware Fusion 7 for reasons mentioned above. (Yes I also run Fusion 8.x)

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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HenryAZ
Contributor
Contributor

Well, it has been almost a year now since my original post in this thread, and the problem of the "Internal Error" still persists.  I just did a fresh (wiped disk) install of 10.12.6, and Fusion 8.5.8, and yet my saved VM's still refuse to start, throwing the vexing "Internal Error", and with no clue as to what to do yet provided.  No I don't have video acceleration enabled, nor a sound card. One VM is Debian, and the other is macOS 10.12.6.  Logs have been provided.  No effective solution has been offered.  Supposedly the kexts are not loading, so how do we fix that?

In the meantime, over the past year, I have run El Capitan, at least to get VMWare functionality, and because it was a stable and mature OS.  Now it is time to move on.

Over the course of the past year, I have managed, on an occasional upgrade (to an external disk with 10.12.x), to get the VM's to work, but there is no lasting consistency, nor is VMware or Apple apparently doing anything to solve this.  So it is time to say good bye to a long standing relationship with Fusion (been using since the very first version).  I will adjust my workflow so I can just use external disks to provide access to OS's.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

If the reboot did not help then the following might.

It was suggested by a VMware employee to somebody who reported the same issue last week and there it helped.

(from this post: https://communities.vmware.com/thread/568461#2690072 )

1. Remove Fusion completely

2. Execute below commands:

   xattr -l ~/Downloads/VMware-Fusion-8.5.8-5824040.dmg 
   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ~/Downloads/VMware-Fusion-8.5.8-5824040.dmg 

3. Reinstall VMware Fusion from the dmg

--

Wil

edit: found the original post

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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HenryAZ
Contributor
Contributor

That did indeed solve the issue.  Thanks

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David_VietnamVM
Contributor
Contributor

I had the same issues, and I I have an additional step to fix beyond what was written recently about xattr

I have two fixed disks in my mac mini, and although the Mac OS X upgrade of course handled all the permissions on the boot disk, it did not handle the permissions on the second fixed disk, which is where my VMs reside.

Changing the permissions and propagating them from the folder where the VMs were located did not work.

BUT, what did work was removing the orphan user permissions, deleting myself and readding my new user username to Read/Write permissions on the fixed fdisk itself. 

1.  "GET INFO" on the disk icon,

2.  at the bottom unlock the Sharing and Permissions,

3.  "-" to remove all orphans and yourself, then

4.  "+" add yourself back, and then

5.  using the "gear" icon, "Apply to enclosed items."  (this takes a while)

restart VMware fusion, if you have trouble starting because its trying to use a VM image that no longer exists, keep the fusion icon in the dock, right click, and select "Virtual machine library", you can then delete the offending entry/entries.

Viola!  Working on Sierra.

Cheers,

David

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