Black Desktop and Windows after Restart of Win

[mkummer]

After the last update of Fusion, I encounter regularly a black desktop after I start the program. I t is configured to shutdown Win after quitting Fusion. I can sometimes solve the „problem“ with a restart of Win 0r with changing the desktop picture. That may work or not. Sometimes app windows are black when opened in full screen.

Can anyone give me some advice to get rid of this?

Thx, Michael

[mkummer]

Hi again - the described problem persists and I don’t find any help. Really no one any idea on this?

[wila]

Ah.. guessing time?

Try in settings -> Display -> disable 3D

If you don't want/can do that then in the same settings area, select "Battery life" and set it to "Don't use High Performance graphics"

We don't really have much information, but

if your host is a macbook with both integrated as well as discrete graphics cards then it is possible that switching between graphics adapters is causing some side effects such as a black screen.

Of course there might be other reasons for this to happen well.

Is your VMware Tools up to date?

Does your graphics adapter under Display -> Settings have enough Shared graphics memory assigned?

--

Wil

[mkummer]

Hi and thanks for your message.

To provide further info: I use a 5K iMac late 2015 with 32 GB Ram and 1 TB SSD. VM Ware Tools are v. 10.3.10 build 12406962 - shared graphics (freigegebener Speicher) is 2048 MB.

The problem persist for a longer time now. I usually stop the Windows app. After waking up it runs OK for about 3-4 times. Then f.e. Chrome and other Apps start showing black app windows. After restarting Windows, all returns to normal. If I shut down Windows when quitting fusion, after restart Window behaves somewhat weird. Sometimes the desktop pic is black, sometimes not. I did not see any system in it.

Perhaps this message gives you a hint, what is going on. Thanks again and beste regards, Michael

[wila]

Hi,

No not really I'm afraid.

The black windows etc.. seems to suggest it is a problem that has to do with the virtual graphics adapter.

In your case I would first try if 3072MB graphics memory helps.

If that doesn't help then disable 3D

If that still doesn't help try uninstalling VMware Tools -> reboot -> Install VMware Tools again.

Note that the "reboot" step inbetween is mandatory as the reboot makes sure that all files marked for deletion are actually deleted.

--

Wil

[mkummer]

Looks like increasing the size of the graphics memory did the trick. For now, I got rid of the black screens.

Thanks for the help!

MK

[mkummer]

I come back to this thread: after some days, w/o any changes on the system, the black screens reappear after some days of use. It is really annoying.

MK

[mkummer]

Still, the annoying black windows in different apps appear again and again - at least Windows desktop itself is no more full black. Only help is to restart windows 10 - then the effect is gone for 1 or 2 days. After that same thing. I increased the graphics memory and reinstalled VM Tools - no change. Cant imagine, that it is not possible to fix it?

Thanks for the different advice. Perhaps someone has any more help...

MK

[wila]

Hi,

Well your problem is unique, not many people are reporting having these issues.

Which tells me that it likely is either a configuration issue or something in your VM triggering this.

If I remember it correctly then you only have this with one VM, so it might even be a problem with Windows in the VM.

A few steps back (correct me if I am saying something wrong)

At first you had the issue that the whole screen went black and now after tweaking and reinstalling the vmware tools you are only seeing it with certain applications.

It is possible that the 3D graphics controller (or driver) becomes instable after a certain time (or certain things in your workflow) triggers it.

Things to try and see if they help:

- disable 3D on the virtual machine configuration (this is a setting on the virtual machine you can change when shut down). Maybe not ideal, but if it doesn't happen with this turned off then at least you've been able to pinpoint it some more.

- you could try to see if the issue is in the metal renderer by switching it off

Disable the Metal renderer by adding the following line to your .vmx file (with VMware Fusion shut down)

mks.enableMTLRenderer = "FALSE"

- is your VM using the latest virtual hardware? (menu "Virtual Machine" -> Settings -> Compatibility)

--

Wil

[mkummer]

Thanks you for your message.

Perhaps some essential things should be considered resp. changed?

First of all - I use an iMac 5K with 32 GB of RAM. Since some apps are running all the time, I have about 13 to 14 GB free when starting Fusion. (I free up some space I f necessary.)

I have given Fusion 2 cores, 8192 MB for virtual RAM and 3072 MB for graphics.

The rest of the graphics settings you see in the enclosed screen.

The virtual machine uses hardware version 16.

Do you think, those things should be OK?

Thanks MK

[wila]

Hi,

Yes those settings look fine to me. (Just read back the thread as it was too long ago to remember it all)

Back up higher you mention that Chrome was one of the programs giving you trouble.

This is an issue that I have seen mentioned here before and the workaround that has been given for that is to disable the use of graphics hardware acceleration from within chrome.

See:

How to Turn Hardware Acceleration On and Off in Chrome

Not sure if you are using MS Office, but that is another one where you possibly want to turn off hardware acceleration.

--

Wil

[mkummer]

Thank you - I just changed the Hardware acc settings in Chrome - lets see, what happens in longterm.

I have similar effect in German Finanzmanager former Quicken. Here the app window goes black too. Resizing it and bringing it back fullscreen works at least after some tries. But then, some parts of the header of the main window are still covered black. Hovering with the mouse over it shows the „hidden“ buttons.

Another strange effect is the commercial videos in Microsoft Solitaire: they stutter massively or are black at all. This is in fact not of any importance but shows some graphic issues not working correctly.

The more I look in it, the more I get the impression those bugs are Win 10 related and less Fusions fault?

Michael

[wila]

Hi,

As much as I love blaming Microsoft, I think the real issue is due to some problems in the 3d implementation of the VMware graphics driver.

It is not like that we are seeing the same issues on physical hardware.

The applications are using that 3d layer in a particular way that triggers the issues you are seeing.

It might be due to bugs or even due to missing implementations of some parts of the driver.

The real issue is that the problem only shows up after a while.

Which effectively means that it is harder for VMware to track down what is wrong and fix it.

--

Wil

[mkummer]

Thanks again for your answer.

Practically this means: wait and hope resp. restart 🙂

Michael

[mkummer]

And yet another thing - if I try to disable 3D Acceleration with the virtual machine shut down as shown in my screen shot, the now active checkmark for it reactivates itself whenever I click to disable it. How so?

MK

[wila]

Hi,

I'm sorry, that's for VMware I can not reproduce what you are saying.

Eg. I click the checkbox "Accelerate 3D Graphics" checkbox to remove the tick in the checkbox.

The tick is removed.

I then click "Show All" and go back.

It still is removed.

--

Wil

[mkummer]

Hi again - that was as it seems only a temporary glitch - I tried it just now again, and the unchecking worked. As a result the graphics are rather slow. So I enabled it again. As I said, so I am obviously forced to restart Win 10 now and then.

MK