Mac OS X Server 10.5.6 VM becomes unresponsive

[MichaelLowry]

I have installed a Mac OS X Server 10.5.6 virtual machine. I have configured it to use bridged networking, and it has its own static IP address. I've noticed that the machine remains on the network for just a few minutes at a time. Then the machine drops off the network and becomes unresponsive. If I go into the VM's network settings and uncheck the "Connected" check box and then check it again, the machine starts responding again. Interestingly, when the problem is happening, it seems that it's not only a problem with the network. The whole VM seems unresponsive. For example, launching new applications results in the "spinning beach ball of doom" for minutes at a time, or until I disconnect and reconnect the network as described above.

I'm running VMware Fusion 2.0.2. The host operating system is Mac OS X Server 10.5.6 running on an Xserve with two dual-core 2.0 GHz Xeon processors and 6 GB of RAM.

Has anyone see this problem? I'd love to know what the solution is. Until I fix this problem, the Mac OS X Server VMs won't be very useful.

Thanks!

/Michael L.

[MichaelLowry]

I'm still seeing this problem with VMware Fusion 2.0.4. The 10.5.6 VM loses its network connectivity after about a minute. Turning the network off and back on in the VM settings window restores connectivity, but only for a minute.

Has no one else observed this problem? I would really like to find a solution, and welcome any ideas or suggestions.

Regards,

Michael

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Michael A. Lowry

mlowry.blogspotcom

[MichaelLowry]

I have some additional information that might help.

I left a ping going overnight. I observed that the network connection started working every 18 minutes or so. Each time, the network was accessible for one minute before becoming inaccessible again. So the network was up for one minute, down for 18, up for 1, down for 18, and so on.

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Michael A. Lowry

mlowry.blogspotcom

[pthomsen]

I am seeing what I think is the exact same problem. I have iMacs in 2 separate offices, where my XP VM on Fusion loses network connection very frequently. This kills any Windows apps that don't have robust network code (which is almost all of them).

Configuration:

• 20" iMac (Early 2008) 2.66GHz with 4G RAM

• OS X 10.5.6

• Fusion 2.0.4 (159156)

Anecdotally, I have installed Fusion on a 20" Early 2009 iMac, and I have not seen the problem.

Is anyone aware of any solutions for this? I have users that need to use their Windows Apps, and while they otherwise like Fusion, we can't use the system if the network disconnects every 15-18 minutes.

Please help!

Thanks,

Per Thomsen

[pthomsen]

Oops! Misread your post, MichaelLowry. My problem appears to be the opposite. Network works for some period of time (anecdotally 15 mins, trying to get hard data), and then stops working for 1-2 mins, and then is fine again.

Thanks,

Per Thomsen

[pthomsen]

Another Datapoint in this...

I was using the VM with bridged networking, and when I switched to NAT, the problem seems to have gone away. I can download large amounts of data (so far about 800M and still going strong). This was impossible before, as the connection would stall every few minutes.

Of course the problem is that there was a reason I was using bridged networking. Some apps on the network uses broadcasting to find the server. And since the client and the server are now on two separate networks, the multicast stuff doesn't get translated.

Thanks for any ideas you may have!

Per

[MichaelLowry]

This problem persists with a Mac OS X 10.5.7 guest VM running in VMware Fusion 2.0.5 on a Mac OS X 10.5.7 host system

Switching to NAT fixes it, but NAT won’t work for me. I need a static IP address that is reachable from the rest of the network. Using bridged networking causes the network of the VM to hang. Occasionally, the entire VM will become unresponsive and it must be restarted.

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Michael A. Lowry

mlowry.blogspotcom

[MichaelLowry]

The problem persists with Mac OS X Server 10.5.8 (host and guest) and Fusion 2.0.6 beta 2.

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Michael A. Lowry

mlowry.blogspotcom

[MichaelLowry]

I upgraded the host OS to Mac OS X Server 10.6.2.

I installed VMware Fusion 3.0 with a trial license.

I tried using the new advanced networking feature that lets you generate a dummy MAC address for the VM.

None of these actions eliminated the problem. The problem remains.

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Michael A. Lowry

mlowry.blogspotcom

[MichaelLowry]

The problem appears not to happen with the following configuration:

Hardware:

Xserve1,1 with 2x dual-core 2.0 GHz Xeon & 6 GB RAM

Host OS:

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server, version 10.6.2

Guest OS:

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server, version 10.6.2

I will perform additional testing soon.

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Michael A. Lowry

mlowry.blogspotcom