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rakewell
Contributor
Contributor

Caps lock always turn on after switching from Windows 10 Virtual Machine to Host

I have a really annoying problem since I upgraded to vmware fusion 10 (10.0.1) (why oh why do I keep upgrading)

When I move to the virtual machine which is hosting windows 10, no matter what caps state the virtual machine is in, my caps always goes on when I return to the host. So no caps in host to virtual machine no caps = CAPS when returning to host, no caps on host to caps on virtual machine = CAPS on host. I continually move from virtual machine to host which means that I constantly have to turn CAPS off. Can anyone tell me how I can fix this?

52 Replies
vcarvalho
Contributor
Contributor

I have the SAME issue.

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rakewell
Contributor
Contributor

I raised this issue and started this over thread three months ago and this annoying issue has not yet been resolved.

Obviously this is not a priority for vmware and so the best option is to ask for a full refund (as I did, and received) and move to another option. Under Australian consumer law companies must give a full refund for faulty products and similar laws are present in other countries. Continually having to click caps lock every few seconds makes this product unusable for me. I have also spent about 6 hours of my time trying to resolve this issue with vmware support. For the most part they approached this issue as if something was wrong on my end and so we spent hours trying to find that (swap multiple keyboards, reset pram, support request to Apple, re-install, remove other software and on and on).

As consumers it is in our best interest to support companies that listen to us and take our needs and problems as priority. Whilst I commend their support team for trying to resolve the issue there is no doubt that it is an issue wth Fusion and not a configuration issue on the users end and there is no doubt that the issue arose from version 8 to version 10.

I am always amused when companies want our feedback when they've done something right but ignore our feedback when they've done something wrong. This is not acceptable vmware you obviously don't care about your customers.

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shkamath
Contributor
Contributor

So, I was having this issue with Fusion Pro 10.1.1 with host os 10.13.3 and guest os 10.13.3 (yeah, I run a Mac VM on a Mac. :-)).  I found I just had to log out, not reboot, to resolve the issue.

But I followed the steps in the KB article and it resolved my issue (and is actually the behavior I prefer, anyway).

I get the frustration with people who have this problem (I suffered from it for several months).  But I think it's a little unfair to paint VMware with the paintbrush of "they don't care".  Clearly, they care.  Folks from VMware have been asking for information and looking into the problem for some time, and now there is at least a mitigation for this issue.  I think it's fair to said that "they" (who do you really think you're talking about here?  The people who work for the company and are looking for a solution?  Really?  They don't care when they say they've found the issue and it will be released?  Do you mean the release folks who are certainly running whatever release tests they run so that they don't release crappy code?  Do you mean the marketing people who abhor the negativity that can snowball if they don't address issues?  I'm just unclear who "they" are here) care.

As for trying to identify the problem, when I read the thread, your second post three days later said VMware acknowledged this was a bug.  Yeah, companies often try to figure out if it's some configuration error or hardware thing.  Unless they have a ton of people report the same problem, the first assumption is that it's localized to an individual user.

Finally, I'm unclear why this isn't marked as resolved, since the Fusion 8 behavior is trivially restored with a single file creation and restarting the app.  OK, yeah, you shouldn't have to do anything, but, gees. . . I've spend WAY more time typing up this response than I did simply applying the workaround.

bigpawed
Contributor
Contributor

Zongmin, I tried the workaround in the Knowledge Base article but it didn't help. What does fix the problem, however, is unplugging my Logitech M510 dongle and using my Magic Trackpad instead. Will the fix you describe cover this case? Thanks.

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dcmorrow
Contributor
Contributor

A good call - always jump to the end of the thread.

The KB article​, did the trick....

Thank you - shkamath

Everyone else, I have been running FP 10.1.1 and 10.3.4, and the problem only showed up very recently. I mean a week or so.

I don't know what triggers CAPS LOCK to switch on every time FP gains focus, but it was driving me nuts.

Is this a feature feature, or a feature gone wrong? I don't mind if FP can track CAPS LOCK and make sure each session guest and host maintain their status. However, maybe a setting, the opposite way, ALWAYS OFF this would be better. :smileysilly:

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Mikero
Community Manager
Community Manager

VMware Fusion 10.1.2 is available now with a fix for this particular caps lock issue.

Release notes: bit.ly/2KLbxiD  Download: bit.ly/2xa49eP

-
Michael Roy - Product Marketing Engineer: VCF
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HeiderSati
Contributor
Contributor

Hi VMWare Support,

I'm on Fusion 8.x, no updates about this yet, is there?

This problem is giving me the worst nightmare possible..

I tried:

1) Switching CAPS off and on from Host/Guest

2) Sending "CAPS KEY" from the VM menu, solves it but then comes back 10 seconds later

3) Suspend VM, Wake up, same problem.

Why has this stopped working suddenly!?

As a machine code developer, the VM should be reading from low-memory 0x0000:0x0417 and respect the status bits in there, this is not happening causing the CAPS lock to act all by itself using your own buffer. Please remove the buffer and only use the original 0x417 status bits.

Regards

Heider

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi HeiderSati,

The problem in this thread is about an early release of VMware Fusion 10.

There's no logic in Fusion 8.x where it tries to sync inconsistent capslock states.

If the behavior suddenly changed then look at what has changed on your host or VM.

Also note that VMware Fusion 8.x has been EOL for quite a while.

--

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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wila
Immortal
Immortal

FYI, just bumped into this issue Fusion 11.0.3.

Super annoying as I switch between guests and hosts continuously.

I applied the workaround in the config file to regain my sanity.

--

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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RGulde
Contributor
Contributor

Editing the <VirtualMachineName>.vmx file and adding

mks.keyboard.setHostLEDs=FALSE

To the end of the file fixed my issue. Thank you so much!

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shkamath
Contributor
Contributor

Hahaha.  Nothing like having an issue, searching for it because you have vague recollections about the issue, and finding this thread and seeing in it someone thanking yourself for helping them fix it! 🙂

I note that the KB article that says how to fix this issue is no longer there (but Google cached it on July 11, 2020, so you can still find it if you google "vmware kb 52589" and select the cached version).

This issue came back with Fusion Pro 11.5.5, running macos 10.15.5 on both the host and the guest, on a 2018 15" MBP.

The original KB article said to create the file "~/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion/config" with the one line:

mks.keyboard.setHostLEDs="FALSE"

As RGuldestated, you can add this to the individual VMX files for a VM.  I assume that putting it in the file called 'config' in the preferences folder enables the setting for all VMs, not just the one the VMX file controls.  On the otherhand, you don't have to create a new file, just edit an existing one (and you don't have to shut down VMware Fusion.

Anyway, time will tell if this fixes the issue I'm having with 11.5.5.

utunbu
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks! I encountered this exact issue on 12.2 and can resolve it after following your post. 🙂

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utunbu
Contributor
Contributor

Oh! Although the LED indicator is no longer activated, the VM is again in the CAPS mode 😞

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