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wintensive
Contributor
Contributor

So Wait....you're kidding me right? Fusion simply does not work with DHCP/Bridged

So everyone hates Windows and has to have a Mac...because "they just work". So my wife gets one and I've spent the last month in forums like this learning how to fix Macs. Turns out they are just PC's themselves, complete with poorly written software, written by companies with AWFUL technical support.

For instance, I have Fusions for $80. For that, I get no support, except for email. I have seen how that works for everyone just by looking at the responses on this board...no thanks.

So I have the same issue as hundreds of others: my MacBook Airport simply does not work once you use Bridged Mode in Fusions. I don't care where I take it or what router I connect to, it does not reliably work. Sometimes it will work WITHOUT ANY SECURITY, but who the #$^ does that! I've had to teach everyone how to figure out a static IP. ( =By the way, none of these users ever needed to know how to do that when they were just regular old PC users) But this is the wonderful simplicity of Mac I guess. I've heard more Mac techs suggest reinstalling the OS with this thing in the first month we've owned it than I have heard from Dell techs in a year about my PC!

VMware works excellent on all my Windows Hosts.

So my question is simple. Has VMware fixed this issue, or is it time to download virtualbox.org, maybe pay for parallels, and then watch me go through the pain of trying to get my money back. ( I can see it now: VMware - "Sir, you've gone over 30 days with this. Me - " It's taken me that long just to get an email back from tech support!", VMware - "Sorry I can't help you, there's no button for that on my console here?! - "swoosh" - the sound of my money going down the toilet...

I don't mean to be so sarcastic, but seriously, people have been asking about this for over a year and it appears that all VMware has to say is that they have never recreated the problem....OK, it must not exist. I'm just crazy then.

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gbullman
Expert
Expert

Well, I fairly regularly run my Virtual Machines on a MacBook Pro connected to my secure wireless network & the Virtual Machines get their DHCP configuration just fine. So this is not a universal problem. There has to be something unique for those individuals having a problem.

I recently had one day where one of my VMs was not getting DHCP configed, and restarting my router solved that.

Is what you're reading about specific to the MacBook Air?

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wintensive
Contributor
Contributor

No its a new MacBook (not Pro) with the aluminum body. I already reinstalled the OS on Mac and the DHCP worked fine again. Then I install VMWare and run a machine, and poof...no more DHCP. I have found various methods of changing the NAT mode on the VM and shutting down and restarting the mac, etc, and at one point got DHCP to work again. Soon after it began to fail DHCP again. Most of the time it works with static IP....but I need DHCP for obvious reasons.

search these forums for "DHCP bridged mode" and you'll meet many people with this problem. On the other hand, many people have never had this problem at all.

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

I have a MacBook Pro and have never had a problem getting a DHCP Served IP Address on the Host or the Guest however while I believe I'm in the majority there is no doubt however a small percentage of Users having a problem in this area and in some cases has absolutely nothing to do with Fusion yet in even smaller percentage there is the very real possibility that Fusion could be in some way responsible. Even when the Fusion application isn't running that are a few Kernel Extensions and several VMware Virtual Network Services running so I believe the potential it there and someone is going to have to diagnose specifically what is the cause and come up with a fix.

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wintensive
Contributor
Contributor

So I changed the VM to Host Only mode, ran it, shut it down, then shut down the Host (my macbook)

When I started the Mac again later, it was able to receive DHCP, as long as I did NOT run Fusions

So basically as long as I don't use Fusions, I can connect to most public/private networks without much trouble.

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wintensive
Contributor
Contributor

To be fair....

I ranted in my original post. To be sure, email only support for this product is ridiculous. But in general VMware stuff is great when it works right.

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wintensive
Contributor
Contributor

Wait....Host Only mode offers no internet connection to the guest OS. So that won't work....duh If I do the same thing in NAT mode, start and stop the VM, shut it down, shut down the MAC, and then restart everything. Then before starting VM I get a DHCP IP address in the Mac and then start the VM in NAT mode. Mac gets the DHCP IP address, and the VM in NAT mode works good. So in this way it works fine. I haven't tested this in depth to see how relible it is, but if I get anything new I'll post it.

I'll also ask again: Does tech support for VMWare have a patch for this problem so that I can use my VM's in Bridged Mode?

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

I'll also ask again: Does tech support for VMWare have a patch for this problem so that I can use my VM's in Bridged Mode?

VMware does not typically issue patches per se and only typically releases the full version as incremented maintenance releases and or incremented added feature releases so you can check the release notes at the web site for resolved issues on each release.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

As far as I know this is not a known bug (in the sense that we've never seen a similar problem that wasn't caused by a router; it is obviously problematic for you). If we're not able to observe the problem, there's no way we can fix it or have any clue what's happening. For what it's worth, although I typically use NAT, all the times I've used Bridged it's worked.

Packet traces as described in would be a good start.

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wintensive
Contributor
Contributor

OK, I have the 2.01 update so I have the best there is. On my MacBook and many others who report the same problem, this is happenning. For these people there is no solution. I have reformatted and reinstalled my MAc to find that DHCP works fine until you install VMWare and run a VM in Bridged Mode.

So I need new software. Most people with this problem just use Paralles to solve their problems. Who can tell me if Parallels will support multiple monitors?

Lastly, thanks for the help from everyone, I appreciate the attempts to fix the problem. Can any of the moderators point me to who I speak with about the product satisfaction guarantee so I might be able to get a refund? IF we can get that taken care of without too much hassle, I'll consider VMWare again in the future as development continues.

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gbullman
Expert
Expert

The steps you are stating would seem to be pretty conclusive, but yet not everyone is seeing this behavior. It struck me that there might be other software in the mix that is causing or contributing to this. After re-installing Mac OS is there any other software you installed before or after Fusion and running a VM then losing your DHCP capability on the Mac? (That is what is happening, right?). If not some other software, can anyone speculate on potential Mac hardware differences that might contribute?

Do you have access to a physical Windows PC that you could consider VMware Player and try to run that same Virtual Machine on it with bridged mode on the same wireless network?

From what you described if it were strictly a Fusion, or Fusion + Mac OS X problem we should all run into this issue. I do not use a wireless connection that frequently, but when I have it was worked fine with both the Mac & Windows XP VMs for multiple hours. My configuration is Linksys BEFSR41 wired router serving as DHCP server, Linksys WRT54g Wireless router being used as a switch + access point (DHCP server disabled), MacBook Pro (late 2007) running Leopard 10.5.6, Fusion 2.0.1 and VMs running Windows XP SP3.

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K-MaC
Expert
Expert

Hello Wintensive, Etung had mentioned that some people with this problem have issues with their routers. While I am not familiar with your problem I would suggest trying to update the firmware on your router.

I personally run dd-wrt(www.dd-wrt.com) it basically turns crappy routers in fully functioning routers. You could also try tomato(www.polarcloud.com/tomato).

Both are a great addition to any router. I wish you the best of luck.

Cheers

Kevin

Cheers Kevin
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wintensive
Contributor
Contributor

I have tried the VM on a windows XP host and the exact same VM runs fine on the PC host running from VMWare player/Server and Workstation. No DHCP problems.

I did reinstall Mac OS from scratch, and DID NOT INSTALL anything but VMware to make sure that the problem was isolated. Then I tried adding any Mac OS updates and that didn't change anything.

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Piggy
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I work for a software company and can be found at a different customer sites almost every week. I've used NAT, Bridged and Host Only modes hundreds (thousands?) of times and assure you they work. Sometimes I even switch modes during engagements. I have mostly Windows XP, 2K3, RHEL 3 and 4 virtual machines.

What I've found is that sometimes Windows is persnickety about obtaining IP addresses via DHCP. This is something I've experienced repeatedly on Windows running natively on PCs. Sometimes disabling and re-enabling networking through Fusion solves this, sometimes using Windows' network repair does this, and sometimes Windows IPCONFIG /RELEASE followed by IPCONFIG /RENEW. However by far the easiest way to resolve this is to just drop to a DOS prompt and execute 'vmip -release' followed by 'vmip -renew'.

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools>vmip -?

Usage: VMip.exe -renew

VMip.exe -release

VMip.exe -get

This is not to say that during my career I haven't found some really odd bugs that most people never encountered, nor is it to say I haven't ranted about a problem which.... ultimately turned out to be user error. Sometimes I am too smart for my own good. Smiley Sad

A MacBook Air seems awfully lightweight to expect to work with Fusion running Windows, IMHO.

Cheers.

Bob_Zimmerman
Expert
Expert

As a point of clarification, are you having these problems with the host, the guest, or both?

Like ETung mentioned, every time I've seen a problem like this, it has been a misbehaving router handing out addresses to the clients based solely on the MAC address of the directly connected adapter. For some reason, that appears to affect wireless clients more than wired. Have you tried using the wired interface of the Mac?

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wintensive
Contributor
Contributor

The computer in question is a Macbook with 4 GB of RAM, not an AIR. Everything else about VMs runs excellent on this hardware. It's the network problem that is killing me. In many cases the VM Guest (XP Pro) has no problem getting DHCP (bridge mode) while the host cannot get internet access or DHCP address. There are various ways to get it back....by changing the state of the network on the VM and shutting it down. Then when I shutdown the Host Mac and restart it, the Mac Host can get a DHCP. Once I run the VM and change the network state it seems to break the Airport again. When broken I have to use a manual address where DHCP won't work. This works most times

I will try you methods of renewing the connection to see how they work compared to what I've tried. Thanks for that!

When plugged into the Lan via ethernet, it works fine with DHC. So it appears that there is somethign about changing states in a VM that cause the DHCP in airport to break. Also, seems to work good when the wireless network HAS NO SECURITY enabled, but that does me no good. As stated before....this happens on many routers.

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wintensive
Contributor
Contributor

VMWare - I am not a satisfied customer. How can I get a refund on my purchase of Fusions.

Please post instructions for how unsatisfied customers might be able to get a refund on the purchase of software that does not work as advertised (for me at least).

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

See "Can I return VMware Fusion and get my money back?" under VMware Fusion. - FAQ's

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wintensive
Contributor
Contributor

So I would go back to the apple store where they will say...."you bought this over 30 days ago".

I'll say something like "but it took me this long through email and online only support for the product (that is the only way to get support) to find out that it won't work for me. Apparently it works for everyone else, so it took awhile for us to realize we couldn't get it to work for me."

Them: "sorry sir, we don't have a button for that. You could call the manufacturer and see if they want to help you."

Me: "But they told me to come to you..."

Them: "thank you, come again"

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wintensive
Contributor
Contributor

So I won't be getting a refund.

I guess this question is still open. I've been trying the suggestions and I can eventually get everything to work. But it eventually causes problems if I want to be bridged. In NAT things seem to be better. I am going to have to field the occasional call from the wife when she has this thing at a clients and can't connect. So I guess I'm not sure what to do to fix it completely so I know it will be reliable in any network mode.

Thanks to everyone for their contributions.

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