Having trouble with older USB HID devices - 16" MBP, Catalina, Big Sur, Fusion 11.5 & 12

[RojoMojo]

Sorry if this is somewhat long-winded and vague. I'm trying to figure out where to even look for answers here, but I can not get some older HID devices to connect to a Windows VM (Win7 Pro 32bit).  Specifically older URC programmable remotes like the MX-900.  All other USB devices work just fine, hubs, flash drives, mice, etc..  I have added lines to the .vmx config file to connect generic USB and to allow HID and all that. 

Everything was working perfect on a 15" MacBook Pro running OS X 10.14. Running Fusion 10... Thunderbolt 3 ports were not an issue, provided the right cable/ adapter.  I upgraded to a new 16" MBP and I upgraded to Fusion 11.5 whatever at some point over the past several months.  Everything was working fine, but I'm not sure when these HID device remotes became an issue.  Did not need to program one until now...  Running a VM of Windows 7 32bit and like I said, everything works perfectly except older non-specific HIDs.

Not sure if there's a problem with the new MacBook Pro in that it has improved security/ USB restrictions.  Not sure if it's newer OS X revisions, namely 10.15 Catalina. Not sure if something has changed with Fusion in recent updates.  For grins, I tried Fusion 12 on my iMac Pro running OS X 11 Big Sur beta 6.  And once again just now after upgrading to Beta 7.  Everything works great, except these old devices.  ..Some graphics performance issues with Fusion 12, but I see a couple other threads on that.

This is a very difficult problem to diagnose.  These remote control units do not show in the hardware list in OS X system profiler when connected. They never did when working properly.  But Windows would pick them up and connect just fine.  Just not now with the latest hardware and software combination. 

If anyone has any idea where I could start diagnosing this.  On the OS X side of things, these devices never show in profiler or when going to the command line to print a device list.  And while they have worked for years, now my Windows VMs can't see them.  I'm doubting it's the hardware, as I'm pretty sure I've programmed them from the iMac Pro, which now is not seeing them.  So I'm thinking it may be possibly an OS X issue.  Maybe an issue with newer versions of Fusion.  I suppose I'll have to go set up a system with Fusion 10 that works and then upgrade to 11 and see if it breaks.

Anyone else having a similar issue?  Probably not...  Most people who still deal with these old remotes are using older systems for that.  Which I had to just do.  Spent half a day pulling my hair out over this and then had to drag out an old Dell laptop with Win7 to do actual work. 

[KamenGopin84]

Hi RojoMojo​,

Would you be so kind to collect a Fusion Support Bundle which demonstrates the issue.

1) Enable USB Verbose logging. Navigate to "Virtual Machine > Settings > Advanced" and make sure the "Enable Verbose USB Debugging" checkbox is checked.

2) Power-on the VM and reproduce the issue one more time

2) Generate a Support Bundle from "Help > Collect Support Information".

3) Upload the generated Support Bundle to VMware's FTP following the instructions in VMware Knowledge Base​​​ . Instead of an SR number you can use, say, community-2985456 to name the directory in the FTP.

Regards,

Kamen

[RojoMojo]

OK, I have uploaded a support bundle into the directory named "community-2985456"

After turning on the Verbose USB Debugging, I started the Windows 7 VM, attached one of the problematic USB remotes and waited several minutes... nothing.  Collected the support bundle.

[KamenGopin84]

Hi RojoMojo​,

... attached one of the problematic USB remotes and waited several minutes

Do you mean "attach the device to the host MacOS" or 'attach the device to the Windows 7 VM"?

In the logs you provided I see only one attempt to connect a USB device to the Windows 7 VM. This was a "Rainbow\ USB\ UltraPro" device:

2020-09-21T00:55:26.135-06:00| vmx| I005: USB: Connecting device desc:name:Rainbow\ USB\ UltraPro vid:04b9 pid:0300 path:4/1/2 speed:low family:vendor arbRuntimeKey:9 version:3 id:0x1000000904b90300

Is this one of the problematic devices? Apart from that I do not see any other attempts to connect a USB device to the Windows7 VM.

When you attach the problematic device(s) to the Mac host, do you see them listed in "Virtual Machine -> Settings -> USB & Bluetooth"? I am asking because you mentioned that these devices are not present even in the MacOS system profiler. If MacOS itself is not enumerating these devices there is no way for Fusion to connect them to the running VMs.

[RojoMojo]

Sorry about the oddball Rainbow USB device, that's not the one.  Just one of several older USB items I've plugged in to see what works and what does not.  Although, the only problematic devices have been these URC remote controls.  I have done some more testing on my end and this seems to be a Mac OS / USB problem to sort out.  If working properly, these devices show up with some variation of "URCHID" or "URC_HID" in the USB device list. Historically, they almost never post and show in OS X system profiler, however will show if we print an ioreg device list in a terminal window.  

I went back to the oldest Mac I have on-hand - a 2014 MacBook Pro. It's currently running OS X Catalina.  I connected one of the remotes and nothing.  Nothing in profiler, nothing in a manually pulled device list. Hmmm.  I grabbed an older bootable backup I had for OS X Sierra (10.13).  Booted the laptop from that and connected the remote.  Nothing in system profiler, but there it is in the device list in terminal.

Not sure about OS X 10.14 High Sierra, but 10.15 and now 11 (Big Sur) seem to be specifically blocking these older generic HID devices.  It seems that URC could fix this issue on their end with a firmware update to these remotes, assuming the USB data can be modified.  Unfortunately, they won't as they're considered obsolete. My theory is these remotes are being blocked by the OS, and probably by the T2 chips as well on newer Macs, because the USB identifier information is incomplete.  These older remote control units don't seem to report data for vendor or device ID fields, just a device name to head up a blank HID profile.

URC has a history of weirdness when it comes to their device connections. And a history of poor support and obsoleting products when many are still in service and still being actively sold.

Anyway, thanks for looking into this.  While the problem is not solved, I know that we can't even begin to test using them with the latest release of Fusion when current Macs/ OS X won't even let the devices be seen.

[Jeff-V]

For VMware Fusion Pro W10 Pro I had the same issue. In Finder go to your Virtual Machines folder (or where you keep your VM's) Right click (Alt click) the VM and click Show Package Contents. Right Click the VM .vmx file, click Open With TextEdit. If you look over the file contents you should see you are missing the following 2 lines:
usb.generic.allowHID = "TRUE"
usb.generic.allowLastHID = "TRUE"
If you are missing these lines add them. Save the file and close the window. Start your VM and you should see in the USB section URCHID or something similar now. Connect it to your VM and you should be able to talk to your URC remote.

2 Side Notes:
Be sure your VM is completely closed, not just suspended.
My remote I couldn't talk to was a new MX900.
I did this on 2 Mac's today and it fixed both.