Keep getting vmware tools warning when trying to share a folder

[fargalaxy1]

Hi,

I'm running VMware Fusion Player on MacOS Big Sur. I've installed a VM running Ubuntu 18.04.

Now I'd need to share a folder between the two OS.

As far as I've understood. VMware Tools is a must if you want to share a folder. 
With my VM running, from the top menu bar, I navigate to Virtual Machine and I get a disabled link "Reinstall VMware tools". So, I thought the tools were already installed but when I go to Virtual Machine -> settings -> sharing (with Enable shared folder checked), add a folder on mac OS, I don't get the Apply option but the following warning

"Shared folders will not be available in the virtual machine until VMware Tools is installed and running."

What shall I do?
Thank you in advance for your help.

[ColoradoMarmot]

I seem to recall that using open-vm-tools is the preferred method on Linux guests - have you tried that?

[Mikero]

yah, we stopped shipping Linux Tools with Fusion last year.

The solution is to install open-vm-tools with apt:

sudo apt-get install -y open-vm-tools

followed by:

sudo apt-get install -y open-vm-tools-desktop 

Then reboot... should be good to go after that 😃

[fargalaxy1]

Unfortunately that did not work.

The packages you suggest to install are already present

martina@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install -y open-vm-tools
[sudo] password for martina:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
open-vm-tools is already the newest version (2:11.0.5-4ubuntu0.18.04.1).
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
gyp javascript-common libc-ares2 libhttp-parser2.7.1 libjs-async
libjs-inherits libjs-jquery libjs-node-uuid libjs-underscore libssl1.0-dev
libuv1 libuv1-dev node-abbrev node-ansi node-ansi-color-table node-archy
node-async node-balanced-match node-block-stream node-brace-expansion
node-builtin-modules node-combined-stream node-concat-map node-cookie-jar
node-delayed-stream node-forever-agent node-form-data node-fs.realpath
node-fstream node-fstream-ignore node-github-url-from-git node-glob
node-graceful-fs node-gyp node-hosted-git-info node-inflight node-inherits
node-ini node-is-builtin-module node-isexe node-json-stringify-safe
node-lockfile node-lru-cache node-mime node-minimatch node-mkdirp
node-mute-stream node-node-uuid node-nopt node-normalize-package-data
node-npmlog node-once node-osenv node-path-is-absolute node-pseudomap
node-qs node-read node-read-package-json node-request node-retry
node-rimraf node-semver node-sha node-slide node-spdx-correct
node-spdx-expression-parse node-spdx-license-ids node-tar node-tunnel-agent
node-underscore node-validate-npm-package-license node-which node-wrappy
node-yallist nodejs-doc python-pkg-resources
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 283 not upgraded.

and

martina@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install -y open-vm-tools-desktop 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
open-vm-tools-desktop is already the newest version (2:11.0.5-4ubuntu0.18.04.1).
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gyp javascript-common libc-ares2 libhttp-parser2.7.1 libjs-async
  libjs-inherits libjs-jquery libjs-node-uuid libjs-underscore libssl1.0-dev
  libuv1 libuv1-dev node-abbrev node-ansi node-ansi-color-table node-archy
  node-async node-balanced-match node-block-stream node-brace-expansion
  node-builtin-modules node-combined-stream node-concat-map node-cookie-jar
  node-delayed-stream node-forever-agent node-form-data node-fs.realpath
  node-fstream node-fstream-ignore node-github-url-from-git node-glob
  node-graceful-fs node-gyp node-hosted-git-info node-inflight node-inherits
  node-ini node-is-builtin-module node-isexe node-json-stringify-safe
  node-lockfile node-lru-cache node-mime node-minimatch node-mkdirp
  node-mute-stream node-node-uuid node-nopt node-normalize-package-data
  node-npmlog node-once node-osenv node-path-is-absolute node-pseudomap
  node-qs node-read node-read-package-json node-request node-retry
  node-rimraf node-semver node-sha node-slide node-spdx-correct
  node-spdx-expression-parse node-spdx-license-ids node-tar node-tunnel-agent
  node-underscore node-validate-npm-package-license node-which node-wrappy
  node-yallist nodejs-doc python-pkg-resources
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 283 not upgraded.

Maybe have I the wrong versions of both the packages?
Thank you

[fargalaxy1]

Hi and thank you for your reply.

The package you suggested is already installed in my ubuntu machine...

[wila]

Hi,

I recall that earlier Ubuntu versions had issues with open-vm-tools.
Can't really remember if that was Ubuntu 18.04 or earlier...

Have a look at the following thread and see if any of that helps.

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Pro/Shared-folders-not-available-on-Linux-guest...

--
Wil