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killerdemouches
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Panic with VMWare Fusion 5.0.3 and Mac OS X 10.8.4

I had a perfectly fine working VMWare fusion setup with OS X hosts, for development and testing. Since I upgraded from Mac OS X 10.8.3 to Mac Os X 10.8.4, my computer panics as soon as I start a virtual machine.

I am attaching the panic logs. Is there an update of VMware fusion planned?

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dariusd
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Hi killerdemouches,

The Mac OS 10.8.4 update did not apply fully to your system, which is almost certainly the cause of the crash.  Your panic logs show:

   Mac OS version:

   12E55

which is Mac OS 10.8.4, so I can see that you have attempted to install the update, however the same panic logs show:

   Kernel version:

   Darwin Kernel Version 12.3.0: Sun Jan  6 22:37:10 PST 2013; root:xnu-2050.22.13~1/RELEASE_X86_64

which is the Mac OS 10.8.3 kernel.  Fusion cannot run while the system is in this inconsistent state.

Here's how to resolve this problem:

1. Launch Disk Utility and use the First Aid tab to verify all of your disks.

2. If your Mac has multiple hard disk drives using software RAID, use Disk Utility again to verify that your RAID set is not degraded.  If it is degraded, rebuild it.

3. If VMware Fusion still fails, download the Mac OS 10.8.4 Combo Updater and apply it again, which should restore the system to a consistent state if the above steps have been followed.

Let us know if that resolves the problem there!

Cheers,

--

Darius

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WoodyZ
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killerdemouches wrote: I had a perfectly fine working VMWare fusion setup with OS X hosts, for development and testing. Since I upgraded from Mac OS X 10.8.3 to Mac Os X 10.8.4, my computer panics as soon as I start a virtual machine.

I'm just curious, since you say "I had a perfectly fine working VMWare fusion setup with OS X hosts, for development and testing." why would be so quick to update the Host as soon as the update was released and not wait a while to see how it's affecting the masses?  I'm assuming that as a developer one would know better then to apply updates like this immediately when released! Smiley Wink

killerdemouches wrote: Is there an update of VMware fusion planned?

There probably always an update/upgrade planned however the usual answer to questions of this type is something like... it's against company policy to discuss unannounced features, time lines etc., etc...

VMware is currently working on the next major version release, VMware Fusion Technology Preview 2013, and this is where the developers are focused, so unless there is a major issue with OS X 10.8.4 and VMware Fusion 5.0.3 that is affecting lots of Users it may be a while before we see VMware Fusion 5.0.4 (if at all). 

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dariusd
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Hi killerdemouches,

The Mac OS 10.8.4 update did not apply fully to your system, which is almost certainly the cause of the crash.  Your panic logs show:

   Mac OS version:

   12E55

which is Mac OS 10.8.4, so I can see that you have attempted to install the update, however the same panic logs show:

   Kernel version:

   Darwin Kernel Version 12.3.0: Sun Jan  6 22:37:10 PST 2013; root:xnu-2050.22.13~1/RELEASE_X86_64

which is the Mac OS 10.8.3 kernel.  Fusion cannot run while the system is in this inconsistent state.

Here's how to resolve this problem:

1. Launch Disk Utility and use the First Aid tab to verify all of your disks.

2. If your Mac has multiple hard disk drives using software RAID, use Disk Utility again to verify that your RAID set is not degraded.  If it is degraded, rebuild it.

3. If VMware Fusion still fails, download the Mac OS 10.8.4 Combo Updater and apply it again, which should restore the system to a consistent state if the above steps have been followed.

Let us know if that resolves the problem there!

Cheers,

--

Darius

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killerdemouches
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I did not noticed the kernel version number but you're right. This is probably because my RAID set is degraded (it's a shame that Mac OS X doesn't nag the user until you open disk utility).

WoodyZ, I've been testing 10.8.4 beta without problems, I've not seen any major problem reports before installing, and for I prefer installing the latest OS on my development computer because I want to be in the same situation on most clients.

I know than most companies don't public release information about future release, but my question was more about a minor update fixing things with Mac OS X 10.8.4.

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dariusd
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Yeah, unfortunately the Mac firmware isn't cognizant of degraded RAID sets.  If the system boots from a degraded RAID set where the "kicked" disk is still readable, there is a chance that the firmware will load the bootloader and kernelcache from the "kicked" disk.  Once the kernel is running, the OS correctly handles the RAID set and uses only the "live" disk(s).  Should an OS update be installed while the RAID set is degraded, the kernelcache on the "kicked" disk will not be updated, leading to the scenario you encountered: The running kernel (loaded from the "kicked" disk) is pre-update, while the rest of the installed OS is updated.

Fusion doesn't handle that situation well at all, with the inconsistency promptly triggering a host kernel panic.  We do have an open feature request to make Fusion detect this and ensure we don't trigger a panic.  I can't say for sure when that will make its way into a public release of Fusion, but I'm hoping it's not too far away.  Smiley Happy

Now that we've figured out the cause of your system's panic, are you aware of any other issues with Fusion brought about by the 10.8.4 update itself which might warrant a Fusion update?  I haven't heard of any, but if you have, please be sure to let us know!

Thanks,

--

Darius

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killerdemouches
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With a clean 10.8.4 system, everything seems fine.

I just hope that VMWare will be able to run OS X 10.9 virtual machines, but that's another story. 

Thanks for you help!

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AndyBonomo
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I'm having the exact same problem but it appears the 10.8.4 update was applied properly according to the attached log.

Is anyone having the same issue? I'm kind of a Mac newbie. Is it possible to safely back out the 10.8.4 update until a fix is available?

Regards,

Andy

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dariusd
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Hi Andy,

Your panic log shows that your machine does not have an inconsistent installation in the same way as that of killerdemouches, but it also does not implicate VMware Fusion at all, and strongly suggests either a hardware problem with your MacBookPro6,2 or a problem with the Nvidia display driver in Mac OS 10.8.4.  In fact, your panic log looks very similar to that in the thread "My MacBook Pro keeps crashing" in the Apple Support Communities.  You may wish to follow the advice posted by Linc Davis in that thread.

I'm not aware of any safe way to back out a Mac OS update.

Cheers,

--

Darius

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Aplawrence
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I was fine with the previous Fusion, but since the  5.0.3 upgrade, it panics my machine consistently - not instantly, but after a few minutes working with a vm.

Admittedly I have a lot of other stuff going on, but Fusion is the only thing that causes me to crash.

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dariusd
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Hi aplawrence, and welcome to the VMware Communities!

Do you recall which version you upgraded from?  Was it 5.0.x, 4.1.x, 4.0.x, or older?

Unfortunately, the Apple Developer website is down right now and I don't have the kernel debug kit (from that site) which would allow me to decode your panic trace.  The panic log doesn't directly implicate Fusion, rather it seems to be Citrix's Deterministic Network Enhancer (DNE) that's crashing... although it is quite possible that we're doing something unusual (or incorrect) which confuses DNE into crashing, so I can't immediately draw any conclusions about who's at fault.

I'll try to get back to this when I manage to simultaneously obtain the kernel debug kit and some free time.  Smiley Wink

Cheers,

--

Darius

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Aplawrence
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Well, I don't need Citrix, so I'll try getting rid of that.

I think it was 5.0.x that I had previously.

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