Upgrading from Workstation 14.1.2 to 14.1.5 breaks (at least) one guest VM; black screen problem.

[0WayneH0]

Hi all,

I just spent an afternoon trying to upgrade to Workstation 14.1.5, but ended up going back to 14.1.2. I thought that such a minor update would not be any problem, but it seems to cause significant problems for me.

One of my main VMs will not work with 14.1.5; it just has a black screen and cannot be interacted with. If I revert back to 14.1.2 the issue is gone.

Since they are both 14.1.x releases, I don't think the guest VMware tools are to blame. Also other VMs did seem to work in 14.1.5.

When running 14.1.5 and it doesn't work, it will generate an error message (if I do something else that generates a message box, like try to shut down the VM using the Workstation UI). In that case the error message is "Unable to connect to the MKS: Too many socket attempts; giving up.

I also managed to crash the Workstation UI.

2018-12-20T15:22:00.939+10:30| vmui| I125: MKSControlClient: Too many socket connect attempts; giving up

2018-12-20T15:22:00.939+10:30| vmui| W115: cui::MKSControlClient::OnMKSControlConnectAbort: MKSControlClient failed to connect (Too many socket connect attempts; giving up).

2018-12-20T15:22:00.939+10:30| vmui| I125: cui::MKSControlClient::OnSetAttachedErrorMKSControl (C44C030): Too many socket connect attempts; giving up

2018-12-20T15:22:00.939+10:30| vmui| I125: PANIC: VERIFY D:\build\ob\bora-10950780\bora\lib\mksControl\mksControlSocketPathName.h:113

Additional things I checked.

1. Permissions/security settings on the guest VM files.(Due to getting some file access error when trying to boot to firmware).

2. Status of Workstation services (all fine).

3. Uninstalling and re-installing multiple times. Every time 14.1.2 works fine, and 14.1.5 does not.

The host is Windows 10, x64 (10.0.16299.846).

The guest is Windows 7 x64 (6.1.7601).

For now I am just going to stick with 14.1.2, but was wondering whether the above has any obvious or well known solution/work around?

Similar kinds of issues that I could find on google were related (mostly) to upgrading from WS12 (to 14) and guests requiring updated VMware tools. This is not the case this time around.

Cheers.

[fruor]

I also have an affected machine, one works, one doesn't. The big difference between those is that one is running on virtual HDs, while the affected machine has a physical drive.

Also wanted to add that I still can reach the machine through network, I can also use the VMWare Toos to Shutdown/Restart the machine gracefully.

Also I sometimes got the Error "unable to connect to the mks: too many socket connect attempts", sometimes not.

In any case, thanks for the hint that downgrading to 14.1.2 solves the problem.

[MyongGyun]

I think this pb is similar to the issue on Problem with VMWare Workstation Pro 14.1.3

The issue had been indicated by VMWare with it but no responses any more. And the same pb is happen on the new version of 14.1.x.

I have already tried to upgrade from 14.1.2 to 14.1.5. The same issue was seen with 14.1.5 version.