Kernel panic in OSX guest on Fusion 10.0.1 when configured for 3 or more CPU's

[raiford]

I have had a lot of kernel panics when booting OSX guests if I configure 3 or more cpus.  It never panics with 1 or 2 cpus, rarely happens with 3 cpus, and almost always happens with 4 or more cpus.  Stragely it does eventually boot after many failed attempts.

I don't see the problem on an ESXi server so I'm guessing it may point to a hardware problem on my laptop (Late 2016 15" MBP w/ touchbar), but the machine passes all Apple hardware diagnostics.  Is it possible this a known problem with Fusion?  Is it possible to set cpu affinity to prevent Fusion from using certain cpu cores?  I believe I have a directory full of boot failure logs but I forget where they are written.  Should I attach a bunch of them?

Thanks in advance!

Edit:  The same behavior occurs on Fusion 10.1.0 as well as 10.1.1.  It appears that several other people experience the same issue, so it may indeed be a bug in Fusion.

[alexlissy]

Maybe, but given the lack of feedback on the real issue here and any informations on where / when it's being fixed or worked around, we can only hope and guess.

[raiford]

Mikero said that Fusion 10.14 should have the real fix, so I'll hold out hope for that.  I agree it is a shame there isn't much visibility into what is really happening here.

[alexlissy]

Are you sure? My understanding was that it's macOS 10.14 that will bring the real fix, not Fusion 10.1.4. At least, that's how I read the comment.

[raiford]

Oh, right.. My mistake.  This is why he suggested trying to download the beta.  The version numbers are too close to each other

I know that I tried most OSX/macOS versions when I first identified this problem and I believe that included High Sierra.  Since I'm now able to reliably boot a High Sierra guest, maybe Apple rolled the fix into it as well.  I've been holding off the upgrade to High Sierra on my laptop, but maybe I'll give it a go and see if other guests boot reliably. It probably won't be until next weekend but I'll update this thread when I have something to report.

[alexlissy]

Upgraded the VM to macOS 10.14, and I can boot with 8 vCPUs.

[tombsb]

Dear all,

any news on the subject? Tried to create a Yosemite or El Capitan VM with Fusion 10.1.3 and Yosemite says there is a problem, while El Capitan goes into a reboot loop with a kernel panic.

All later macOS versions work fine.

I really need this to work ...

Thanks

Tom

[raiford]

I have Fusion 11.0.2 installed.  I'll load up both a Yosemite vm and an El Capitan vm and see how they do.  Will post results shortly...

[raiford]

Ok, I've installed Yosemite and it seems to work great.  I can boot with any number of cpu cores and it seems quite happy.  I did keep it at 2 cpu's until after I installed all os updates and until I installed the vmware tools (which I had to track down a set that works with Yosemite).

I'll blow away this vm and load up El Capitan but honestly I bet it will be fine.  It seems this issue has finally been resolved.

[raiford]

El Capitan also works as expected.  I don't know when this problem was resolved but I'm guessing it was with Fusion 11.  I'm going to mark this as resolved at this point.

[tombsb]

Thank you very much, raiford. This would imply that obviously Fusion 10.x causes the problem and that it might work with version 11. Hmm, will check if I can find a demo online prior to updating, because everything else works okay.

Kind Regards,

Tom

[tombsb]

After purchasing the update to Fusion 11, there is still no way to install with my OS X Yosemite Installer from the Apple App Store.

Fusion launches, shows the white apple on black ground and then goes into a reboot loop, displaying kernel panic messages. Any ideas what this could be? That´s really absolutely frustrating ...

Thanks
Tom

[wila]

Tom,

AFAIK, the problem was not just Fusion 10, but also apple. Are you on the latest macOS Mojave?

FWIW, as another data point I have no problem booting a Yosemite VM with 3 vCPU's.

--

Wil

[raiford]

If it helps, I created iso files for each of the OSX versions from each of the App Store downloads.  This iso is what I used to install Yosemite.  Also, I'm running Fusion on a 15" MacBook Pro (2016) running macOS Sierra (10.12.6).

Also, if you are getting kernel panics with 2 cpu's configured you are running into a different problem than what we are discussing in this thread.  If you are getting the kernel panics with more cpu's configured, I suggest dropping the cpu's to 2 until OSX is fully installed and patched.  There was definitely an Apple component to this fix.

[Mikero]

Not the same issue as this thread. Please start a new one.