Upgraded to Fusion 10.0.1-Pro and now getting "Cannot find a valid peer process to connect to" error

[amuir2k]

Prior to posting this, I looked at a lot of the solutions posted for the issue.  I've tried multiple variants of full uninstall-reboot- reinstall and I've tried Wila's trick to make sure Gatekeeper hadn't crippled the installer DMG, but all to no avail.

I'm on a a 2013 Mac Pro  running OS X 10.12.6.  I'm not getting any message in the Security & Privacy center.  Prior to upgrading to 10.0.1, I was running Fusion 8 with no issues.

I saw a technique mentioned regarding booting into Recovery mode and then using the terminal to set the kext-consent status to disabled, but hoping this isn't required.

I can upload a Fusion problem report if that would help.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance . . .

[wila]

Hi,

If you didn't see the kernel extension consent popup and haven't specifically been able to approve the kernel extensions then that probably still is your issue.

Did you also try the trick where you move the install to another folder (say Desktop) - using Finder (mandatory to use Finder) - and back to the Applications folder?

FYI, I summed up the known workarounds/solutions at a blog post here:

VMware Fusion on macOS High Sierra - System Extension Blocked - PlanetVM

Rich Trouton also has an interesting article on the topic with a bit more background information over at this blog.

Kernel extensions and macOS High Sierra | Der Flounder

You should normally not have to disable this extra protection, but there are quite a few people where the consent dialog is not being displayed and where no "Allow" option shows up, so you are certainly not alone.

edit: Wait.. wait... you are seeing this on 10.12? Aka Sierra, instead of High Sierra? There is no "Allow System Extension" button in Sierra... so that at least is not your problem.

It might still be the gatekeeper issue where the downloaded file is tagged in quarantine  (and so the move folder using Finder trick might still work)

Do you see that the quarantine flags are removed after removing them with xattr -dr ?

Eg: Does "xattr -l ~/Downloads/VMware-Fusion-10*.dmg" still show "com.apple.quarantine" or is that gone?

--

Wil

[amuir2k]

Hi Wil,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, this is on 10.12.6 (Sierra) so, unexpected.

I did not see  com.apple.quarantine after running xattr -l, where in the output text would I expect to see that?  I tried searching for "quarantine"in the terminal window after the xattr -dr, but didn't get any hits.

Any thoughts for confirming the issue is kext not loading?  - or - perhaps I am better off upgrading to High Sierra?

Thanks,

Art

[wila]

Hi Art,

When you download a file gatekeeper will add a special tag so that it is known that the file was downloaded from the internet.

This is for extra protection of not running malware on your system.

The xattr -l command displays the details for that.

Here's a -shortened- output of a VMware Fusion setup file that I just downloaded.

xattr -l VMware-Fusion-10.0.1-6754183.dmg

com.apple.metadata:kMDItemDownloadedDate:

00000000  62 70 6C 69 73 74 30 30 A1 01 33 41 BF B5 04 DA  |bplist00..3A....|

00000010  D1 BE 6E 08 0A 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 01 00 00 00  |..n.............|

00000020  00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|

00000030  00 00 00 00 13                                   |.....|

00000035

com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms:

00000000  62 70 6C 69 73 74 30 30 A2 01 02 5F 11 02 89 68  |bplist00..._...h|

00000010  74 74 70 73 3A 2F 2F 64 6F 77 6E 6C 6F 61 64 33  |ttps://download3|

00000020  2E 76 6D 77 61 72 65 2E 63 6F 6D 2F 73 6F 66 74  |.vmware.com/soft|

00000030  77 61 72 65 2F 66 75 73 69 6F 6E 2F 66 69 6C 65  |ware/fusion/file|

00000040  2F 56 4D 77 61 72 65 2D 46 75 73 69 6F 6E 2D 31  |/VMware-Fusion-1|

00000050  30 2E 30 2E 31 2D 36 37 35 34 31 38 33 2E 64 6D  |0.0.1-6754183.dm|

00000060  67 3F 48 61 73 68 4B 65 79 3D 32 36 32 31 37 66  |g?HashKey=26217f|

snip

00000390  00 02 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00  |................|

000003A0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 85                 |...........|

000003ab

com.apple.quarantine: 0083;5a04cd5a;Safari;D66AC338-8337-456B-840D-DBBC309A02CD

The xattr -dr command helps you to remove the extra tags.

There can be other reasons for the kext not loading, but you can certainly try and upgrade to High Sierra, but it should not be needed.

I'm not sure, but I get the feeling something else is going on.

Perhaps your host has run out of character devices, although I would have expected to see a different error, see also Fusion 5 - Could not open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory.

Perhaps it is best to open a support case with VMware?

To get official support please go to: Fusion Support and open a ticket at File a Support Request

--

Wil

[amuir2k]

Hi Wil,

Thanks so much for your further sleuthing.

I ran xattr -l again just to confirm and indeed, there is no com.apple.quarantine string in the output.

I took your advice and opened a support case with VMWare, hopefully they can figure it out.

If I get a solution, I'll let you know as you seem to be a keeper of arcane VMWare knowledge.  😉

Art

[timmerk]

Ever figure this out? I had the same problem in 10.12, so I upgraded to 10.13, and same problem. I've tried everything. And I've never gotten the blocked message in the Security pref pane even once.