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DIRIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Fusion 12 Big Sur - Screen going black for a few seconds

While using windows 10 within VM Fusion 12 on Big Sur, screen goes black for a few seconds then will come back with a few flashes.  Sometimes requires some input in order to prompt this.   Almost like it has to redraw the screen.   Sometimes occurs in close succession sometimes can be quite a while.  When happening in close succession it becomes unusable.  This was created to seperate out my problem from that of the “flickering” problem also mentioned in this forum.  This problem does exhibit a flickering as it redraws from black and could be considered a flicker but realised the issue mentioned elsewhere is a constant monitor flicker rather than a flicker while redrawing.  Not sure redrawing is what it is doing but not sure how else to describe it.  I’ve seen this sort of thing occur when there is a memory leak but I have not confirmed that is the case.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

First make sure that your VM is using the latest virtual hardware.

With the VM shut down, not suspended, go to menu "Virtual Machine" -> "Settings" -> "Compatibility" and set it to the latest available.

If that was already the case then have a look at  the following thread for a few possible workarounds:

Fusion 12 w/ Big Sur Display Flicker

You might already have seen the thread (not sure, but your post suggested that you did)

If that still does not help then make sure the VM display has enough RAM set for the display under menu "Virtual Machine" -> "Settings" -> "Display" -> "Shared graphics memory".

hope this helps,
--
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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DIRIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Tried all work arounds from Big Sur Flicker.  I was previously working under that one but then saw a video of what was meant by flicker.  Mine is a slow flicker like windows is trying to constantly redraw because of a change in resolution.  Latest version latest VM hardware.  Today it stopped flickering logged my out of the windows CM and decided to stick with XGA on a 4K monitor.  So Restarting the VM.  Only time I have seen this kind of behaviour was in Fusion and I believe it ended up being a memory leak.

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DIRIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Ramped the GPU memory all the way.  No change regardless of Nvidia or Intel Iris Pro.

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robkersey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hey @DIRIT ,

I think I see similar issues to you.

I use Windows 10 in my VM and I ma quite a heavy MS Teams user, the majority of the time the VM behaves it's self, but if I have outlook teams and chrome running, the screen begins to go on and off, it's about 500ms off then back on. It's enough to become frustrating while working. This slowly gets worse and becomes more regular, before the VM then resizes the desktop to 800x600, and then I am logged out of windows automatically!! No warning.

I've just been looking through the Event Viewer in my VM and I can see a lot of errors relating to dwm.exe

Faulting application name: dwm.exe, version: 10.0.19041.508, time stamp: 0xcd97c98b
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.19041.572, time stamp: 0x1183946c
Exception code: 0x8898009b
Fault offset: 0x000000000010b65c
Faulting process id: 0x2778
Faulting application start time: 0x01d6c8837e511994
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\system32\dwm.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: 4d0df138-3332-43d7-b3fd-b6669efb3e05
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

DWM is desktop windows manager,: https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/what-is-dwmexe-and-why-is-it-running/ and I suspect maybe it's used for rendering MS Teams and the screens being be presented some how? I don't know.

Anyway, I just did the following:

  1. Open Device Manager, locate display driver and remove driver and delete.
  2. Reboot machine
  3. Re-Install VMWare tools

So far things seem better, but it's early days.... I will know buy the end of the day if it has worked for me.

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robkersey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

That didn't fix it, but I'm pretty sure this is somethign to do with the problem as I am seeing a lot of these errors when things start to go bad!

WIll keep looking!!

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DIRIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Interestingly enough when playing sound from the VM, my screen goes black and starts flashing on and of (looks like it is constantly trying to resize) then if the piece of sound is particularly long it goes to 800x600 then logs me off and logs back settles at 1152x864.

@robkersey Is there a link between sound and your problem?  I thought that if teams is setting it off for you it might be sound related.

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DIRIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Interesting!  Before I logged out after being moved to 800x600 I did catch site of a message saying that the GPU driver had failed.  I have tried reinstalling tools.  Not sure of there is a different driver I can use with VM Fusion.

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DIRIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

New development that makes me suspect the VMware tools display driver.  I tried reducing my resolution to solve this problem.  When the screen flashes it resets to the maximum supported screen resolution.  Most odd.

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pgeremia
Contributor
Contributor

I have the EXACT SAME PROBLEM.

And I need to use my Windows VM for work.  I am in the middle of typing something and then the screen going black for a few seconds happens.

WHERE IS VMWARE ON THIS?!?!?!?

I need a FIX!  I just paid a lot of $$ to upgrade and expect my software to work!  So much for QA these days!

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi pgeremia,

I'm not from VMware, but a few things to try.

- Turn off 3D under display. Does it still happen?

- Turn off automatic resizing. Are you on full screen? If so, go to settings -> display -> under the "Full screen" drop down choose either "stretch...." or "center..."

--
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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DIRIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I'm trying these again as I have not tried them since 12.1.  

@pgeremia I would suggest whatever you do, do not update windows.  Or as least do a snapshot before updating as my update made the VM unbootable.  Have you logged a support ticket with VMWare?

 

@robkersey Any changes in your environment ?

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DIRIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

All combinations tried.  No effect for me.

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pgeremia
Contributor
Contributor

I have tried many things and have not come up with a solution.  Thanks for those suggestions they did not help.

I am working with a VMWare tech support person.  I actually sent them this thread because he claimed they did not know about it.

This is a really serious issue and I rely on the VM for work and it is making my life pretty miserable.

When I do Google Hangouts is when it gets really bad to the point that the display driver stops working and it drops me down to a tiny

box in the center of the screen.  Eventually it gets so bad that it terminates my login.  This clearly is Big Sur related because I was running 

fine before it.

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pgeremia
Contributor
Contributor

This happens every time the screen blanks out.

 

pgeremia_0-1608690436221.png

 

pgeremia
Contributor
Contributor

The other thing I noticed that is with Chrome running with a lot of active tabs makes the situation worse.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

@pgeremia did you disable google chrome hardware acceleration?
It has always caused trouble in VMs and is generally recommended to turn off.

See:
https://www.lifewire.com/hardware-acceleration-in-chrome-4125122

for steps.

edit: BTW, same for firefox (and I suppose now also with Microsoft Edge) and also Microsoft Office.

--
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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robkersey
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Same as I get on my VM, running win10. is this is a VMware tools/ vmware display driver issue??

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DIRIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Would this matter if I do not run any chromium based software in my VM nor do I run office.  I run those in my MacOS.  (BigSur)  Upgrading to Fusion 12 Pro and Big Sur was the worst mistake I have made so far.

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pgeremia
Contributor
Contributor

Seems to me that the FLICKER problem and SCREEN GOING BLACK are related.  And there is NOTHING I can do to stop the problem, only make it not as bad.  For example not using Chrome will make it not as bad, but it is still there.

 

VMWARE NEEDS TO FIX THIS!  I pay a GOOD CHUNK of $$$$ to stay up to date every year.  This I quickly becoming a waster of $$$$ and my time!

Peter Geremia

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