Kernel panics on macOS 13 and 14 guests browsing network shares or VMware's own shares

[Steven_Michaud]

These have been happening for years. But with  Fusion 13.5 they've become much more common. They happen mostly in macOS 13 and 14 guests. I'm running Fusion 13.5 on a macOS 13.6 host -- Intel, of course.

To trigger them, just browse around in a network share or VMware Shared Folders. They seem to happen when double-clicking. I work around the problem by doing a network share to the guest from the host -- which requires turning on bridged networking and file sharing in the guest.

[Technogeezer]

VMware has deprecated support for macOS guests https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/88697.  You'll find no macOS guests listed on the supported guests compatibility list for Fusion 13 and later.  VMware Tools for macOS is no longer being actively developed (development is frozen) and according to VMware's own statements bug and security fixes may not be provided.

macOS guests may run (they've done nothing (yet) to stop the guests from running, but things may not work.

[Steven_Michaud]

Yes, I know.

But I'm hoping these kernel panics are bad enough (happen often enough) that they'll attract the attention of a VMware developer.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Something is odd in your setup, or you have an intermittent hardware failure.  Fusion can put a heavy load on systems, so if there's flaky RAM that can cause this.  How old is the machine?  (and of course, if it's opencore, then all bets are off).

I wouldn't count on any support of any kind for MacOS guests, especially on Intel - they're focused on getting Windows ARM support fully baked.

[Steven_Michaud]

I'd also like to see VMware open-source VMware Tools for macOS, now that it's been deprecated.

If they did, I'd probably be able to fix these kernel panics. I'm certainly qualified for that kind of work -- see my HookCase (https://github.com/steven-michaud/HookCase).

[Steven_Michaud · Accepted solution]

I just discovered something interesting:

Today VMware released VMware Tools for macOS 12.1.1. This is an update on the version 12.1.0 ISO that's included with Fusion 13.5, and is supposed to be only a security fix (since feature updates are frozen). You need to download the ISO directly from VMware (https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/downloads/details?downloadGroup=VMTOOLS1235&productId=1259&rPI...).

I just installed it in a macOS 14.1 guest (running in Fusion 13.5 on a macOS 13.6.1 host). It seems to have fixed these kernel panics 🙂

https://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2023-0024.html

[Technogeezer]

I guess you can never say never. Especially when security updates are involved.

Whodathunkit?

Amazing how quickly security updates come out but some bugs take forever to get fixed (or never get fixed)...

[Steven_Michaud]

Actually, these kernel panics were one of those forever bugs. I've seen them for years. But I've never reported them before now because they were intermittent. Fusion 13.5 made them happen with almost 100% frequency. Which seems to have gotten people's attention, like I'd hoped.

macOS guests still seem to have friends among VMware's developers. Long may that last! 🙂

[Technogeezer]

I think that there are some Mac and ARM friendly folk within VMware. It's the rest of the "Battleship vSphere" that keeps them dragging their feet. I get the feeling that the Intel inertia of 20 years is ingrained in VMware, and that's not an easy thing to row upstream against. 

As far as unfixed bugs, I guess we're lucky on this one. I for one am glad I'm not a Workstation user with a 12th Gen or newer Intel Core chipset. Workstation has been a disaster on those chipsets from day 1 (not letting Microsoft off the hook on this because Apple seems to have gotten p-core and e-core scheduling working well while Windows is still fumbling around with it) and VMware has offered zero responses to the hundreds of posts complaining about it. 

If you believe what @Mikero has said recently, there's lots of interest and maybe even work going on for macOS virtualization on Apple Silicon. If that is indeed true and they can do it with full "VMware features" and not just the useful-but-restricted feature set of Apple's high level Virtualization Framework (and get it out the door before Parallels), that will be quite the feat.