I have a regular crash in my automated production VM host, and I would like to troubleshoot it and either apply a fix or work around it.
Symptom
When I shutdown my guest VM, VMware Fusion notifies me that the VM crashed. When I start the VM again, about half of the time it boots normally while the other half of the time it gives me the Windows Safe Mode prompt.
Changes
- I upgraded from VMware Fusion 4 to VMware Fusion 6.0.2.
- I upgraded the guest VM when I started it for the first time, as prompted by VMware Fusion.
- I upgraded the guest VM's VMware Tools when it booted, as prompted by VMware Fusion.
Information
Host
- Machine: Mac Pro 5,1
- OS: OS X 10.7.3
- CPU: Two 6-Core Intel Xeon @ 2.4 GHz
- RAM: 16 GB DDR3 ECC
- VMware Fusion 6.0.2 (build 1398658)
Guest
- OS: Windows 7 64-bit Enterprise Service Pack 1
- Allocated cores: 1
- Allocated RAM: 1024 MB
- VMware Tools: 9.6.1.1378637
Support Information .zip archive available upon request.
Research
Search filters
- "6.0.2"
- "Fusion 6"
Selected threads
Title: Fusion 6.0.2 Maverick has Win 7 VM freezing
Link: https://communities.vmware.com/thread/463152
Takeaway: Check VM settings, host specifications.
Title: VMWare Fusion 6.0.2 won't load Windows 7 64 Bit "The system cannot find the file specified"
Link: https://communities.vmware.com/thread/462817
Takeaway: Use "Help > Collect Support Information"
Title: Fusion 6.0.2 XP Windows crash report
Link: https://communities.vmware.com/thread/462831
Takeaway: No responses.
Title: VMWare Fusion 6.0.2 Freezes Windows Guest after nap/idle.
Link: https://communities.vmware.com/thread/463919
Takeaway: No responses.
Title: Fuison 6 won't shut down
Link: https://communities.vmware.com/thread/462438
Takeaway: No responses.
Title: Sometimes getting a shutdown error
Link: https://communities.vmware.com/thread/463484
Takeaway: No responses
Hi, and thanks for your response 
These are all great suggestions, and I'm still curious what other information readers need/want to know.
I'll answer your questions in-line since there are many and I don't want to mix-up my responses.
First, I'd like to say that I still consider my problem to be in 'information gathering' and 'understand the problem' mode. Since my production host is affected, I am reluctant to try changes until more root-cause and influencing actors have been identified. Trying any changes is both expensive in time and effort, and trying under-informed changes adds risk that other problems are unintentionally introduced.
Coach300 wrote:
This may not be a complete answer, but I'm curious if you had completely shut down (not suspended) the VM in Fusion 4 prior to the upgrade to Fusion 6.
Yes, I did shut down the VMs before I upgraded VMware Fusion. I followed two Knowledge Base articles [1] and [2], but in summary:
- I shut down the VMs and quit Fusion,
- Manually uninstalled VMware Fusion 4 and all of its metadata files,
- Installed VMware Fusion 6.0.2,
- Used File » Open to add my VMs to the library.
It might all lie in the older Mac OS installed. How new of an OS would your Mac Pro handle?
The Mac Pro supports Mountain Lion and Mavericks.
Have you kept the guest OS fully updated (Windows Update)?
The Windows guest VM has Service Pack 1, but no newer updates.
Does the VM launch, at least temporarily, if you do Windows Safe Mode? (hold down F8, and possibly having to hold the fn key to get it to function as such)
The Windows guest VM always launches successfully, whether or not the Safe Mode prompt appears.
I'm wondering if it might have been beneficial, retroactively, to have upgraded to Fusion 5 first, instead of skipping it.
Reading/searching the Release Notes [3] and Knowledge Base, I did not see any known issues or recommendations for upgrading from Fusion 4 to Fusion 6. One choice quote being "There is no upgrade path between versions of Fusion" [2].
[1] Manually uninstalling VMware Fusion (1017838)
[2] Uninstalling, reinstalling, and upgrading VMware Fusion (1014529)
[3] VMware Fusion 6 and VMware Fusion 6 Professional Release Notes
http://www.vmware.com/support/fusion6/doc/fusion-60-release-notes.html