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sminar
Contributor
Contributor

Slow / Poor Mouse Functionality - Fusion 12.0, Windows 10x64

Hi All,

I've been a VMware user (mostly Fusion but Workstation now and then) for 12+ years.

I recently upgraded to Fusion 12.0, migrating an existing, perfectly operational Windows 10 Pro x64 VM that I use daily.

I'm running Fusion on a new iMac under macOS 10.15.7 (Catalina). The iMac is a 10-core i9 with 72GB of RAM.

I'm using a Logitech M510 mouse and K750 keyboard connected through their USB Unifying Receiver. This has worked well for me over many years without issues in macOS or Fusion.

I've assigned 4 cores and 8GB of memory to the VM.

I'm operating in windowed mode, not full screen or unity mode.

Since the upgrade, the VM is nearly unusable, primarily due to odd mouse behavior. When I mouse over the VM's window, the cursor is shown and generally tracks, although sometimes it seems to lag. The challenge is I can't get the VM to recognize mouse clicks quickly. If I click in the window, the mouse click doesn't appear to be handled by the VM. It's as if there's a shield protecting the VM from mouse clicks. If I click a bunch of times or sometimes through using the keyboard while the mouse cursor is within the bounds of the VM's window, I can get past the shielding and then function, but everything feels slow. Task Manager doesn't show any unusual processes/loads on the VM and the host is running well.

I've tried the following:

  1. Creating a new Windows 10 x64 VM from scratch
  2. Uninstalling and reinstalling Fusion 12.0
  3. trying all game state preferences for the mouse (Never optimize, Always, Auto)
  4. deleting Fusion from the preferences in accessibility and re-adding the permission
  5. uninstalling and reinstalling VMware tools in the VM

I migrated a copy of the VM in question to Parallels and it works perfectly.

I'm at the point where I may just give up on Fusion, but I thought I'd reach out and see if the community might have found a solution.

Thanks,

Steve

 

 

 

11 Replies
sminar
Contributor
Contributor

I'm not sure where to go from here.

Fusion is unusable for me in the current state. 1st time in over a decade as an active Fusion user that I've had an issue I couldn't overcome or get attention on.

I've tried several ways to negotiate the support maze to get actual attention from VMware support. No luck. Very disappointed.

It appears that my post in the community has garnered no attention as well.

If anyone has a suggestion about how to move forward, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise, I'll have no choice but to switch to Parallels.

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RickShu
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi, 

Have you checked the settings in System Preferences==>Security&Privacy==>Privacy==>Accessibility,  is VMware Fusion already in the list here? If not, please add it to the list, quit and re-open Fusion then give it a try.

Also, have you tried with gaming mouse? You can set it in VMware Fusion==>Preferences==>General==>Gaming

Regards,

-Rick

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sminar
Contributor
Contributor

Hi RickShu,

Thanks for your reply.

You may have missed the details in my opening post. I outlined that I had indeed checked the accessibility settings, removed, re-added and enabled, and also tried both of the gaming mouse settings with significant testing at each step. No luck. I also mentioned I created a clean installed Win10 client and experienced the same issues.

Despite the fact that I'm on a brand new, clean built (no settings migrated), iMac running Catalina, I also went to the trouble to add a partition, install Catalina from scratch on the partition, update the OS, install Fusion 12, copy my VM to the new partition and test in a pristine environment with no other software or settings potentially muddying the waters. No joy.

So the issue strongly appears to be between my hardware, Catalina and the version of Fusion 12 that I'm running. Since my hardware and worked perfectly with the previous version of VMware Fusion, I have to believe that the problem is with Fusion 12.0.

I've now spent many, many hours and lost a month or more of access to my client under Fusion. I've not been successful achieving any meaningful support. Disappointing after years and years of great experience with Fusion.

Yes, it "runs", but every time I bring the focus to the client and attempt to do anything, I have to click and wait anywhere from 15-40 or more seconds before the client acknowledges and responds to mouse clicks. Once the mouse is "seen" and responded to, I can function relatively normally until I need to move the mouse away from the client's window to work on macOS. This isn't truly functional. I had considered going back to the previous version of Fusion, but of course, I've made too many changes to the upgraded client that going back isn't feasible.

I couldn't wait any longer as I need a functioning Windows solution to operate at work and home. I migrated the VM to Parallels which runs the migrated version perfectly.

Perhaps someday I'll consider coming back to VMware Fusion but that will require that I learn how to reach and achieve a better support experience.

Hope VMware works out the kinks.

Best,

Steve

Bain
Contributor
Contributor

I'm with you. This is a colossal waste of time. Works well. Then Windows or VMware does an update. Boom. Back in search for a solution mode. A little QA would be a good idea. Can't coax mouse to work at VMWare layer. Tried everything. Reinstalled. Removed and added accessibility. Different mouse profiles. Tried to reinstall VMWareTools, but no mouse to click on the installer when loaded.  Rebooted VMWare. Rebooted Catalina. All combos. Still no joy.

[environment: 2013 Mac Pro, Catalina OS, VMWare 12. Windows 2019 Date Center Server, HyperVM Hybrid Cloud (Azure)]

I'll keep searching and am sure I'll figure it out. Hours wasted. Frustration mounting...and lasting longer and longer after solution found. I am starting to run out of patience. Parallels is starting to look like a good transition, so I can spend time on developing vs this frustration...

Anyone one if VMWare listening?

sminar
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Bain,

So sorry to hear that you're experiencing similar frustrations.

I'm disappointed with VMware. I've used and appreciated VMware Workstation I think as far back as the mid '90s and VMware Fusion since 2008. I'd always found their products pretty darn solid despite the obvious complexities underneath. I've used competitive solutions over the years at times, but always relied on VMware as my mainstay for virtualization.

Unfortunately, my experience has been quite frustrating for the last few years and this latest challenge forced me to switch to Parallels.

I'm using a 2020 iMac, Catalina OS, the latest version of Fusion and Windows 10 (either the latest or very close to the latest build). My mouse is a Logitech. (But I have the same problem when I use the Apple mouse). Pretty vanilla and mainstream. But it doesn't work and I can't achieve a workable connection to support.

On the bright side, Parallels has worked brilliantly.

I sincerely hope that VMware can improve its QA and support processes. I have plenty of VMware VMs that I'd like to continue using rather than rebuilding or converting them for another platform.

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Bain
Contributor
Contributor

I solved it!  It was a Windows issue.  The [Device Installation Service] got turned off. Not sure how. Once turned on, the Mouse became visible and I was able to install VMWareTools. Apologies to VMWare. Not their issue, although it would be good to check if the services is turned on, because if not, VMWaretools will not install. The error messages are opaque. 

sminar
Contributor
Contributor

Great find Bain!

That isn't likely the problem/solution for what I was experiencing. I can't easily go back and test at the moment, but when I was deep in the solution hunting mode, I was working with two different Windows 10 VMs:

  1. The primary Windows 10 VM that had been working fine. While I can't confirm the [Device Installation Service] was on, I was able to update, uninstall, reinstall WMware Tools without a challenge.
  2. I created two or more brand new Windows 10 VMs during testing using various versions of Windows 10. Again, I can't confirm the [Device Installation Service] was on, but logically it should be on for fresh installs and I didn't seem to have trouble installing VMware Tools into the fresh VMs.

I did also uninstall VMware Fusion completely and reinstall from scratch, then run through the upgrade an existing Windows 10 VM and create a new Windows 10 VM paths. No luck.

And yes, I double and triple checked permissions for VMware in System Preferences.

Wish my outcome was successful!

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Bain
Contributor
Contributor

This is not to say it's been smooth going, or that VMWare/Catalina has been stable. It hasn't. At least some of that could be my code that has not yet cured, although I don't think that should bring down the VM, and on occasion, the MacOS server. I am using Windows 2019 Data Center Server nested HyperV, creating hybrid cloud services, with SignalR Publish/Subscribe transactions, and generating Swarm Hyper Nodes (load-sharing VM cluster nodes, through IAAS Automation). I do get cursor freeze, where I need to reboot the VM to resolve. And sometimes, MacOS to stabilize. I am surprised that my code, which is NET managed code, can be that intrusive to VMware/MacOS integration, but there are a lot of layers - it's complex. I think there are stability issues with the VMWare's interfacing to MacOS UI GPU, which gets increasingly dirty until it locks-up. Lately my code has been more efficient on UI overload, and the VM cursor freeze has been much less frequent. As well, when using Screen sharing, the cursor can slow down to unusable. I resolve this by bouncing the shared connection. Clearly this will not do for a production server, and it can be frustrating on scalability testing. I would expect these issues to get resolved in future VMware versions. I can appreciate the amount of fresh code to keep up to Apple's OS transformations, and their reliance on GPUs to drive UI and OS processing. Interestingly, my most stable server is a Mac Pro 2009 running El Capitan. it never goes down. Rock Solid. It's the race to green fields that is causing the instabilities we all have to work through. So, at this point, I get the odd cursor freeze, when there is no UI load, and this I put down to VMWare Fusion 12 interfacing with Catalina to share the UI GPU. I develop on s 2013 Mac Pro, and a 2019 MacBook Pro. The 2013 Mac Pro is less stable than the 2019 MacBook Pro.

Hope that background can shed some light on your cursor issues.

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Bain
Contributor
Contributor

More on this. VMWare VM (Windows Server 2019 Data Center, nested HyperV, Hybrid Cloud, On Premise usage) has just locked up again. The mouse is visible, but no click action inside the VM. Not doing any heavy processing at the time. Debug session in Visual Studio 2019 Pro. Works well outside, in macOS Catalina. I tried Crtl-Alt-Del. Nothing. Then I tried Restart. After about 3 minutes, it responded with the Restart screen, which I cancelled. I got control back again. Before it locked-up, the screen flicked a couple of times, which indicates something not right with the GPU. However, it's a new GPU. Apple replaced it a year or so ago (another story. They bent one of the socket pins when configuring for delivery a few years ago - took years to figure out what was wrong - it's maxed out w 12 cores and 64GB memory). It's been working well sense. Hardware test shows no issues. Temperatures show no overheating (TG Pro). And VMWare has had problems with Apple's new GUI interface API in the past. I think this is where the issue might be. Certainly nor something I am doing. The MacBookPro, running a similar environment , has locked up too, but not as often, and not recently.

Can anyone suggest a configuration I can do to work around this issue? I am not using [Accelerate 3D graphics]. Mouse profile is windows 10.

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Bain
Contributor
Contributor

More.... hopefully this detail can surface what's happening, or help someone else.

VMWare Fusion (host: Mac Pro 2013, fully configured) continues to hang, at least once per day, on what looks like UI GUI overload. IDE is Visual Studio 2019 Pro. Debug sessions can hang for extended periods of time. Sometimes never return. And have to abort Visual Studio frequently on white-out hangs. On occasion, once every 2-3 days I find the Bluetooth trackpad looses connection. Bluetooth keyboard is OK. When I try to reconnect it in [Settings/Bluetooth/Trackpad], it hangs settings. Need force quit. The only way to get the Trackpad connection back is to reboot the Mac Pro. I am not sure if this is a side-effect of VMWare/Catalina integration, or a direct Catalina bug. Before the trackpad locks up, the mouse pointer can get very slow - similar to  the above issue. GUI flashes in VMWare seem to preface this side-effect. 

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Bain
Contributor
Contributor

More detail. Both the 2013 Mac Pro (Catalina) and the 2019 MacBook Pro (Catalina), running VMwareFusion 12, can hang the guest OS (Windows 2019 Hybrid Cloud Data Center Server with nested HyperV), when there is little if any processing load. If you wait for 1 minute+ it may come back, you have cursor control and all works. If not, then need to issue a CONTROL ALT DELETE, then CANCEL, and that will bring back control, It certainly points to a GPU UI issue between VMWareFusion 12 and Catalina MacOS. I can happen 1 to several times a day. There is no pattern that sets it up.

Another issue - possibly related. I have 3 web services running on LocalHost, and a domain service running an app, all running on different ports, cleared through the firewall and secured with self-signed certificates. Every few days, VMWare seems to get confused. On guest OS boot, It (appears) to assign the certificates to HTTP, vs HTTPS, and when I try to start the services, it says they are already assigned. I've been fighting this bug for a while. You can sometimes wait it out (5 minutes) and may give u back control so you can load your HTTPS services. Else you clear the HTTPS bindings and re-register them 

CLEAR:  netsh http delete sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:<port Number>

RE-REGISTER: netsh http add sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:<port number> certhash={<certificate thumbprint> appid={{<app no>} clientcertnegotiation=enable

Now you are good for a few days (hopefully) until VMWare does it again. I do not yet have a pattern which leads to this happening. 

The above instabilities increasingly make the Mac Hosts (Catalina) running VMWare Fusion 12, too unstable for long running dev work, scalability testing and certainly production. There are no hardware issues with the Macs. MacOS runs well. It's inside VMWare Fusion that the issue surfaces.

As before, any enlightenment for a workaround/solution is much appreciated.....

 

 

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