Windows 10 VM Transport VMDB error -14 on Mac OSX 12.4 Monterey

[ganggang1]

Hi VMWare Community,

I am currently running VM Fusion 12.2.3 on Mac OSX 12.4 Monterey and I receive. the following error after building a Windows 10 VM (Win 10 21h2 x64.iso). Transport VMDB error -14: Pipe connection has been broken?

Please advise. 

[UnlimitedTech]

Hi @ganggang1 

The fix for me was to allow read&write access to the /tmp directory. It seems that vmware fusion gets installed as the current logged on user. Vmware fusion requires access to write to the /tmp folder and if that access is not there you can get this error.

Steps:

1. Open File explorer

2. Click on "Go" at the top taskbar

3. Select "Search for a folder"

4. Type in "/private/var"

5. In this folder you should have a folder called /tmp and /log. 

6. Right click /tmp and select "More info"

7. Press the unlock button and allow the "Users" group to read and write

8. Quit and reopen vmware fusion and test

Not saying this will work for you but it did for me. For whatever reason the permissions changed. I didnt get a chance to investigate further as to why the permissions were lost but i assume maybe an update or AV software.

Hope this helps,

Kind regards, Jonathan

[ganggang1]

Hi,

What is the procedure for Mac OSX Monterey? 

[Technogeezer]

@ganggang1 Could you attach the vmware.log file for this VM (found in the VM's folder)?

Also, this particular error code has many different causes, you can see if the /private/var/tmp directory permissions are the culprit by opening the Terminal app and issuing the following command:

ls -ald /private/var/tmp

The expected output should have the permissions as drwxrwxrwt, owned by root, and group of wheel as shown below. If that's the case the permissions issue is NOT your problem and we have to dig deeper:

drwxrwxrwt  7 root  wheel  224 Jul 15 13:31 /private/var/tmp 

[ganggang1]

HI @ganggang1 ,

I received the following output:

drwxrwxrwx  4 root  wheel  128 Jul 15 04:29 /private/var/tmp

Please see attached logs. 

I have tried installing the lastest version of VMFusion and 12.1.2. 

thx

[Technogeezer · Accepted solution]

It doesn't immediately look like permissions on the /private/var/tmp directory are your problem. You already have read/write for everyone for the directory. The 't" or "sticky bit" permission on a directory is more of a security feature - it limits the deletion of a file in the directory to the userid that created the file, the owner of the directory, or the superuser. If you really want to change the permissions to what they should be (this is not necessary, though), use the following command from a Terminal session:

sudo chmod 1777 /private/var/tmp
ls -ald /private/var/tmp # to verify the changed permissions

As a first action, I would upgrade to Fusion 12.2.3. Fusion 12.1.x is not supported on macOS 12.x Monterey per https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2088571

Also, what model Mac are you running this on? Based on the output you've provided, it shows the CPU in your Mac is an Intel i5-3210M. According to EveryMac.com, this CPU is used in 2012 MacBook Pros and the 2012 Mac mini. If that's the case, you are running an unsupported configuration according to both Apple and VMware. macOS Monterey is not supported by Apple on any 2012 Mac models, and Fusion is not tested or supported on Macs running on hardware/macOS combinations not supported by Apple. Unsupported configurations run the risk of not having hardware features that both macOS and Fusion expect.