Fusion GUI disappears after attachement of external monitor and post-suspend awakening

[sharkez]

Setup: MBP C2D (original) Mac 10.4.11 Windows XP SR2 Fusion 1.1 62573 (but this has been happening for a while). At my desktop I have the MBP attached to a 30" Dell External monitor and run both the laptop and Dell. I usually run Fusion on the Dell in Unity mode.

Problem: After running Fusion on the laptop while traveling, when return to my desktop config with a suspended fusion (and fresh boot of Mac OS); If move the fusion single window over to the Dell, when I switch to Unity the GUI window disappears. Fusion is still running but the View menu indicates it never changed to Unity. Can't send a Cntl-Alt-Del either. If I switch to full screen the Dell puts up the message on how to switch out of full screen but stays entirely black and does not display full screen. From there I can switch back to Single screen and everything is back to normal, but I can't make Unity work still. If I restart Fusion, all is well.

Is there any multi-monitor support coming?

[WoodyZ]

If when you travel you shutdown the VM before you go and before you return vs suspending it does the same issue occur?

FWIW IMO the best use practice when using a particular VM under multiple hardware scenarios is to always properly detach peripheral devices and shutdown the VM when the environment is going to change especially when the VM could be effected by those changes.

What you're doing is a good example of that especially because it is involving the Video Subsystem of the OS. What you're doing is analogous to hot swapping a video display on a running physical system and this can have its consequences. Not all devices are hot-swapable and even those that are there are scenarios when it's not advisable to do so. Knowledge, experience and commonsense need to be applied in those cases.

Just some thoughts.

[rcardona2k]

It's pretty clear your confusing Fusion with your multiple monitor changes due to lack of multiple monitor support. I think the only alternative is carefully going out of Unity/Full screen to single window mode (which suspend does) and restoring under the your new video configuration, i.e. avoiding issues manually. There are many requests for multiple monitor support -- which actually means different things to different people, part of the reason it's hard to implement "correctly"

[sharkez]

@ No I'm not confusing anything. The problem (I'd call it an error) occurs even when I'm using Fusion in single window mode on the traveling laptop then re-start the computer and awaken a suspended Fusion session and then attempt to go to Unity on the subsequently attached external monitor--this is exactly how you seem to be describing the "manual" work-around. My guess is a suspended Fusion session can not reognize the new external monitor in Unity mode (although it handles it in single window mode.) And I'm confused by your confusion about how external monitors "mean

different things to different people"--seems pretty straight forward to

me.

@WoodyZ I understand this was pushing the limit but unplugging external monitors has been done by everyone in corporate environments for many years without any problem. Particularly Mac laptops. And as I indicated above, Fusion even handles it in Single-window mode.

[rcardona2k]

I don't have a second monitor handy to test here, but I meant to make the second monitor the "main" monitor by placing the menu bar on it. Fusion should recognize the monitor in Unity mode properly then.

[sharkez]

@ rcardona2k --Ah, I see and yes, didn't think of that and don't want to do that. Just want the added real estate. But I might try to see if that fixes the problem as a test.

[sharkez]

Ok, I've continued to mess with this and still have problems:

1) Shut down completely and then disconnect external monitor

2) Boot up as a regular laptop

3) Run in unity while traveling

4) Suspend VM

5) Return home, boot up with external monitor attached.

6) launch VM. Works fine in single window

7) Try full screen or Unity on external monitor--no view.

😎 Cycle through views--no help.

9) try Unity on laptop screen, it works.

10) Restart VM from single view while on external monitor. Try full screen or unity on laptop screen--no view.

So it seem this is broken--there is no "manual" process that works if you suspend while not attached to an external monitor, EVEN restarting the VM will not get it to work properly on a subsequently attached external monitor. The only way to get it to work is shut down the VM completly and also reboot the MacOS.

Thoughts?

[sharkez]

One other interesting wrinkle. I've noticed that sometimes after re-boot of the VM, I get the VMware tools icon in the tools area (right lower toolbar), and sometimes it does not show up. I can never figure out why it's appearance is variable. With the prior re-boot (and no view in unity) the VM tools icon did not show up. After the last post i re-booted one more time and the VM tools DID show up--and views now work on the external screen.

Is it possible that VM tools are not loading when the icon is not visable (everything else seems to work well--this is relatively common and I work fine AND get unity to work, it's just that I've not switched monitor configurations so perhaps Unity "remembers" without tools??) and that is important when moving between monitor configurations?

Rob