KB 84273 in macbook pro M1

[rasikara]

macOS Monterey V 12.0.1
Chip Apple M1

When I was trying to install

(1).

VMware-Fusion-e.x.p-18656771_arm64.dmg,

I got this error message

This virtual machine cannot be powered on because it requires the X86 machine architecture, which is incompatible with this Arm machine architecture host.   (See KB-84273.)

(2) Next, 

VMware-Fusion-12.2.1-18811640_x86

I got this error message. 

This version of VMware Fusion is for Intel-based Macs, but is being run on an Apple silicon based Mac via Rosetta-2.

(See KB-84273)

Could you please anyone help me to install this in my M1 MacBook. 

[aweisman]

Sorry, Jvictoriano, but I have NEVER gotten any help with this issue. Ever since I got an M1 macbook Pro in 2022 I've been unable to use VMware, even though I've long has a license.  Occasionally some techno-whiz offers some arcane discussion of how I might get it to work, but I don't have the time or techno-confidence to try.  Why VMWare hasn't made it easier or available is a mystery, since their whole business plan is to serve Mac users, which are increasingly M Apple-chip users, and soon will be the majority (and the majority of VMWare's customers are like me: civilian users, not pro geeks). If anyone feels I'm in error because some new release has in fact solved this, please do tell, as VMWare hasn't.  

[jvictoriano]

Hi,

That's unfortunate. I see other folks are running into the same error and there's no solution.

see this post:

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Fusion-22H2-Tech-Preview/This-virtual-machine-cannot-be-powered-on...

How can I modify my VMware Fusion app to the correct machine architecture when I cannot get into the back end? So weird.

[Technogeezer]

Here’s the cold hard unvarnished truth about the “error” that you reference.

If you are expecting Fusion to run VMs created on ANY of VMware’s products that run on Intel Macs or PCs then you have the wrong expectations that in no way shape or form match reality.

There is nothing for VMware to fix. You are going to have to rebuild those VMs with Linux or Windows 11 operating systems that are built for ARM architecture CPUs. And you can forget running any macOS on the new Macs released before Monterey  Won’t work or the same reasons  

Apple made the decision to build its Macs introduced starting in late 2020 with a CPU chip that is incompatible with VMs that run on Intel chips. VMware and Parallels built their products on M1/M2 Macs to use these chips to virtualize operating systems that run on ARM architecture chips present in these Macs. They did not build their products to emulate an Intel chip so those old VMs could run. If they did, you would not be happy with the performance.

[aweisman]

Technogeezer, I appreciate you taking time to respond, and I bow to your deep knowledge, but there's nothing in your reply that tells me if there's a VM product that will work on my Apple M1 Pro machine. I currently have Player Version 12.2.5 (20904517).  It tells me that "This version of VMware Fusion is for Intel-based Macs, but is being run on an Apple silicon based Mac via Rosetta-2, See KB-84273" followed by "Transport (VMDB) error -14: Pipe connection has been broken."   Please understand that I'm not an idiot: I'm at the top of my own profession and I've used personal computers for decades, but I don't know much about technical innards -- such as what Rosetta-2 is, or how to "rebuild those VMs with Linux or Windows 11 operating systems that are built for ARM architecture CPUs." I don't even know where to look for KB-84273, whatever that is.  I'm dazzled and humbled that you know what all that stuff means, but, sorry, I don't.  So: When I installed a VM Player almost 15 years ago, it simply worked.  Yes, I understand that Apple changed chips in 2021, but non-tech consumers like me (ignoramuses, true -- but without us there wouldn't be enough sales to keep most software companies afloat) we naturally assume that the third-party software for Mac that we use will adjust accordingly, as nearly all my others have.  So please, just tell me this: VMWare is now offering me an upgrade to VM Player Version 13.  If I buy it, will it work?  Anything special I have to do? Thanks.

[Technogeezer]

Fusion 13 is the first release that will work with M1/M2 Macs. Fusion 12 is documented as not compatible with Apple Silicon Macs. Unfortunately it appears to install and run, but only its GUI will run under Rosetta. But (and this an important but) the Fusion 12 core hypervisor Intel aware code does not work as it’s not coded to virtualize ARM operating systems. Thats the reason why the Transport (VMDB) error gets thrown. Apple also notes that Rosetta can’t be used by virtualization apps to run Intel operating system code, so that effectively eliminates any possibility of Fusion 12 running a VM on Apple Silicon  

You will need to upgrade to Fusion 13 to run a VM.  If you have a purchased license for Fusion 12 you can get discounted pricing for a version upgrade. If you are using the personal use license of Fusion 12, you will need to sign up for a new free Fusion 13 personal use license. 

You still won’t be able to run VMs that run an Intel chip OS on Fusion 13 on a M1/M2 Mac. It will throw the message about the VM requiring an x86 chip if you try to power on a VM built on an Intel Mac on an M1/M2 Mac. 

[Technogeezer]

There is additional info that might help you on the journey along the way to Apple Silicon.

see the following 2 articles 

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion-Documents/Running-Fusion-on-an-Intel-Mac-and-upgradi...

and

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion-Documents/The-Unofficial-Fusion-13-for-Apple-Silicon...

[jvictoriano]

I think the best solution, along with updating Fusion to 13 Pro, is to rebuild the VM OS using the ARM architecture over X86. Start from scratch. It can't hurt that much to yield an old VM from an x86 Intel build.

[Technogeezer]

Definitely use the Companion guide as your guide to rebuilding your Windows VM with Windows 11 ARM. If you have the old VM you can attach its virtual disk as an additional disk to your new VM if you have to move files over. 

[aweisman]

Thanks for all these replies.  I'm slammed with work and don't know when I can test out all your advice.  I don't really work in Windows; just use it to access old files in programs that don't run on Macs, and fortunately I don't need them again anytime soon.  I'll post again if/when I need more advice.  

[Technogeezer]

Please post again if you need help. But make sure your post is to a new thread in the main VMware Fusion forum https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion/ct-p/3005-home and not to a thread in this Tech Preview forum. Since the Tech Preview ended, this board doesn’t get a lot of attention. Posting to the main Fusion forum will get you a lot more attention a lot more quickly than posting here. 

[DLSieving]

Same thing happened to me.

I don't know what happened to the thread, but one thing you could try is to export your data from the old VM running on the old hardware, then import it to the new VM running on the new hardware. If the VM provider (Windows, Linux, CentOS/Rocky, RHEL, Ubuntu, etc) has not yet provided an upgraded version that runs on Apple Silicon, then you would have to wait until they do, or switch to a different VM.

Ideally, VM providers should promptly update their VMs to run on Apple Silicon (M1/M2) and add a migration capability that works like the MacOS Migration Assistant. That means the new VM should know where in the old VM to find the user data and be able to draw it out into the new VM.

In this "perfect world", as soon as you boot up the new VM on Apple Silicon, it should prompt you for the location of the old VM and offer to import the data for you. You would have to make the old VM accessible on an external volume, such as a backup volume from your old computer. The new VM should be able to do the rest, including attaching to the backup volume, navigating (with your assistance) to the old VM and importing the data from it.

Just my opinion.

David

[DLSieving]

Yes, people keep confusing the VM hosting platform (in this case Fusion) with the individual VMs. It's the individual VMs that people want to recover. They need an upgraded VM and a way to import their data from the old VM.

[henryec33]

VERY Sad.  Fusion sued to be able to run Windows.  alas, upgrade to new mac and old fusion  images break.

Very bad programming.  

[Technogeezer]

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@henryec33 wrote:

VERY Sad.  Fusion sued to be able to run Windows.  alas, upgrade to new mac and old fusion  images break.

Very bad programming.  

---

It's not bad programming at all. I don't know where you're getting your information, but it's sorely out of date. Fusion does run Windows quite nicely. On both Intel and Apple Silicon. I've been doing it for a year and a half now - and many others have as well.

What you seem to be expecting is that your old VMs that were built on Intel Macs will run on Apple Silicon Macs. Not happening. If you have to blame anyone, start with Apple for changing the CPU chips in the new Macs away from Intel.  Virtual machine compatibility between old and new Macs is an unfortunate side effect of that change. 

VMware had nothing to do with that. And Parallels has the same issue.

You're going to have to leave those old, unsupported, obsolete versions of Windows behind and use Windows 11 ARM if you are migrating to a new Mac. Your data can be transferred - just like you'd do for a new PC. Your old applications may very well run (they'll have to be reinstalled) on Windows 11 ARM using Microsoft's x86_64 to ARM translator that's similar in concept to Apple's Rosetta 2. 

Unfortunately neither Parallels or Fusion implements emulation of Intel CPUs so that Windows for Intel VMs can run on M1/M2 Macs. QEMU (and its user-friendly open source derivative UTM) does allow Intel Windows versions to run on M1/M2 Macs.  But please note that you will NOT be happy with the performance.

[henryec33]

Appreciate your sentiments.  I've used Fusion for many years; many iterations of apple pc's and windows OS's  Twas sad that such a fine virtual machine software company could not program its software to work in this new environment.   I am now aware that VMWare is Intel-centric.  

[RDPetruska]

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@henryec33 wrote:

Appreciate your sentiments.  I've used Fusion for many years; many iterations of apple pc's and windows OS's  Twas sad that such a fine virtual machine software company could not program its software to work in this new environment.   I am now aware that VMWare is Intel-centric.  

---

Again, absolutely NO idea where you get that idea.  Plus, you are posting on a thread in a forum for a beta version of the product which is more than a year old (GA was released last Fall, and a NEW beta for this year was released earlier in the Summer).

[DLSieving]

It's the old virtual machines (e.g. Ubuntu, CentOS, Windows) that are incompatible with Apple Silicon, not Fusion.

[Technogeezer]

---

@henryec33 wrote:

Appreciate your sentiments.  I've used Fusion for many years; many iterations of apple pc's and windows OS's  Twas sad that such a fine virtual machine software company could not program its software to work in this new environment.   I am now aware that VMWare is Intel-centric.  

---

While VMware gets the majority of their business on Intel/AMD CPUs, note that there's a lot going on behind the scenes with ARM CPUs. 

• They have invested the time and money to develop and release Fusion versions to run on Apple Silicon (ARM) Macs. There's another version coming. That's a non-trivial task.
• They have invested to port  ESXi on ARM architectures - they've had a version of it available as a "fling" for quite some time now.
• They have ported VMware Tools for Windows and open-vm-tools to run on ARM architectures.
• They have donated code to the open-source community to fix bugs on the Linux kernel - both Intel and ARM architectures.

"Programming" does not fix:

• virtualization solutions do not (for the most part) "emulate" CPU architectures that don't match the hardware the hypervisor runs on.
• emulation that would allow a VM to run on a different hardware architecture doesn't perform well. It may work fine for older slower CPU emulation, but not for today's Intel x86 or x64 CPUs. And Rosetta doesn't count, because it solves a much simpler problem of running Intel Mac apps on an Apple Silicon CPU.

Apple made the decision to switch away from Intel, for a variety of reasons that are a benefit to the vast majority of their users. Users that expected their VMs created on Intel Macs to run forever on Macs are a casualty of this decision, given the prior 2 points. Viewing a Mac as "yet another Intel CPU machine" is turning out to be a very flawed view - one which Apple really doesn't prioritize.

Couple those facts with 

[haobo0528]

Who can tell me why I downloaded the Vmware fusion for M1 Mac, and Ubuntu server for ARM, I'm still getting this error when start up???

[Technogeezer]

You shouldn't be seeing that.

Please tell us:

The exact name of the Fusion installation ISO that you used

The exact name of the Ubuntu Server ISO you used

And, please post the vmware.log and mksSandbox.log files that are found in the virtual machine's bundle foder. You can find them by finding the virtual Machine in the Finder and right clicking on it, and selecting "Show Package Contents". A Finder window should open and display the files that make up your VM. Zip up those files and attach them to a reply to this message.