Yosemite and Fusion 7 - Very Very Slow

[Gianluca84]

Hi guys,

I have a problem with my iMac with Yosemite and Fusion 7. All works fine but I have very poor video performance. My VM work if I move mouse cursor ONLY. If I do nothing it stops to run everything! It seems to go in standby mode! With Mavericks and Fusion 6 it was perfect! Any Help?

Tanks!!!

[Sjalot]

Excellent. Solution works. Thanks Darius.

[FrankHae]

Thank you very much.

It works for me on MacBook Pro Mid 2010. OS X 10.10 and Fusion 7.0.1

[klugey1]

Perfect.  How long will this fix last?  Will I need to do it again in a  month or so?

[dariusd]

The fix should stick until either you reset your Mac's nonvolatile memory (by holding Cmd+Option+P+R while booting) or until something else is written to the boot-args variable (which is very unlikely – it's usually a manual procedure to do that).  In other words, you should not need to repeat it.

Hopefully Apple will fix the underlying problem in the not-too-far-distant future and then the workaround won't be needed anymore...

[antoniokratos]

I'm having the same issue on my iMac 12,2 (27" mid 2011, i7, 16 GB RAM, HD6970M 2 GB).

I've posted this issue on Apple Community forums, this is the link: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6683965

[mroy6275]

Dariusd, I ran into the same issue as everyone here. Mid 2011 iMac i7, tried running the command you mentioned, it tells me "To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort"   but when i try to enter my password nothing is typing in.... any ideas?

[dariusd]

At that password prompt, nothing will show up on screen as you type.  Just type it in anyway, then press Enter.  Even though it looks like the computer is ignoring you, it is still listening to what you type there.

--

Darius

[mroy6275]

It Worked !!!! thank you so much for you help !!!

[LeonHenry]

Thank you. Worked for me.

[stephenhjj]

is there a fix for a mid 2010 iMac with the windows 7 , yosemite , fusion 7 issue ?

[SmudgeSpot]

Did you try the fix listed above?  It works on other Macs too besides the 2011 iMac as originally reported.

[blundergod]

I just installed 10.10.2 yesterday and only now am I experiencing the hangs/high CPU with vmware-vmx.  So 10.10.2 has just introduced the problem for me.

Early 2011 MBP 15 inch

Intel I7

Intel 3K graphics

Vmware 6.0.5 running Windows 8.1 VM

I tried the above and set the boot-args and rebooted.  The high CPU and unusable Win8 VM persists. 

# nvram -p | grep boot-args

boot-args    debug=0x10

#

Any other options team?

[mjhd]

Hi,

I'm seeing the same issue on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2013), since Yosemite 10.10.2.

I managed to fix it with a workaround by disabling folder sharing. the other solutions didn't work for me.

MacbookPro:~ my$ !490

nvram -p | grep boot-args

boot-args debug=0x10

sudo powermetrics -s interrupts
Machine model: MacBookPro10,2 SMC version: 2.6f59 EFI version: MBP102.0106.B07 OS version: 14C109 Boot arguments: debug=0x10 Boot time: Thu Feb  5 07:35:13 2015 *** Sampled system activity (Thu Feb  5 11:33:18 2015 +0100) (5000.69ms elapsed) *** ****  Interrupt distribution **** CPU 0:   Vector 0x46(SMC): 1.20 interrupts/sec   Vector 0x56(HDEF/EHC1): 51.39 interrupts/sec   Vector 0x57(EHC2): 3.00 interrupts/sec   Vector 0x72(IGPU): 213.57 interrupts/sec   Vector 0x74(HDEF): 1.00 interrupts/sec   Vector 0x76(SATA): 24.60 interrupts/sec   Vector 0xdd(TMR): 1341.42 interrupts/sec   Vector 0xde(IPI): 162.18 interrupts/sec CPU 1:   Vector 0xdd(TMR): 40.99 interrupts/sec   Vector 0xde(IPI): 120.78 interrupts/sec CPU 2:   Vector 0xdd(TMR): 1063.65 interrupts/sec   Vector 0xde(IPI): 209.37 interrupts/sec CPU 3:   Vector 0xdd(TMR): 33.00 interrupts/sec   Vector 0xde(IPI): 158.18 interrupts/sec
in my opinion VMWare has its fair share in the issue, not only Apple.

my debugging steps:

System: MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2013)

initial setup Yosemite 10.10.2 & Fusion 7 (last release) + Folder sharing ON:

1- Nvram changed and rebooted = no improvement, system response time and CPU high utilisation

2- VMware tools uninstall and  new install = no improvement

3- Yosemite new install over current Yosemite =no improvement

4- disable Folder share under Fusion 7 = fixed the issue

5- Downgrade to fusion 6, and enable folder share = same behaviour, system response time and CPU high utilisation

6- Disable folder sharing on Fusion 6 = fixed the issue

Current setup Yosemite 10.10.2 & Fusion 6 (last release) + Folder sharing OFF:

summary:

I was able to link the issue on my MacBookPro with Fusion 6 & 7 to Folder Sharing (Desktop link). Disabling it fixed the issue!

regards,

[blundergod]

MJHD.  BOOM.  That did it!!!  Great find.  Disabling folder sharing totally removes the performance issues.  This is probably what VMware and Apple need to focus on to permanently fix this issue. 

Unfortunately, not sharing files brings it's own massive issues.  I hope VMware / Apple fix this.

[pfilias]

I have a Macbook Pro 12,2 with Yosemite 10.10.2, a 256GB Samsung SSD and a 750GB HDD and have the 100-240% CPU usage issue (and loud fans - that's another issue I want to figure out how to fix).

I tried the nvram settings and still had the issue. I disabled folder sharing of everything except Downloads and still had the issue.

Once I disabled ALL folder sharing, my CPU usage is now at like 70% or so. So happy about that, but not too happy I can't use shared folders.

Update: A teeny bit of disk activity (downloading a 5K file on the Mac) and my CPU usage is at 140%.

[BYAZ]

Genius.

The sudo nvram boot-args=debug=0x10 command on Terminal fixed my problem and I'm running iMac (27-inch, Late 2012) on 10.10.2 (Yosemite) with VMware Fusion Professional 7.1.1

[GeorgeOS]

On my 2013 Retina MBP I was experiencing slowdowns and graphical glitches in certain applications under Yosemite.

I had no luck with the nvram trick.

I tried disabling shared folders, and many other ideas.

I eventually turned off 3D acceleration altogether in VMWare and my problem was solved.

I was having problems with the Retina freezing up already unless I disabled graphics switching in OSX. Occasional wakeup with garbled screens as well. I wonder if this isn't related to a bug Apple is having with the NVIDIA cards in the retina MBP?

Many things can cause graphics problems and slowdowns so it is possible my problem is of a different cause than the OP but Retina MBP users have another step to try and solve their slowdowns.

[Endorphinity]

Sorry to say, but in my case applying these changes to boot-args did not help. I tried them with Win7 (both BootCamp and standalone VMs) on mid-2012 MBP 15" (non-Retina). Neither version 6.0.5, nor 7.1.1 were performing as expected, I've tried all the possible combinations of them with both Mavericks and Yosemite.

At the same time, VM with ancient Windows XP seems to be as snappy as before.

So far, I've decided to return to Virtualbox using separate (non-BootCamp) VM, which is absolutely free and does not experience any performance issues related to Apple's Yosemite bug mentioned here.

[kdeemer]

I'm experiencing these same issues with Fusion 6 and Yosemite (Fusion 7 will not support one of my drivers). I have tried these various suggestions and  they help dramatically...for a while. The SUDO command worked wonders. But after about a day, the issue returned. I have to shut everything down and run the command again, and it takes about 15 minutes for Fusion just to shut down when this occurs. Next, I tried disabling the 3D acceleration. That, also, worked wonderfully for a day. Now it is back to the same behavior. Has anyone else had these symptoms. Is there something about the clock that is triggering them?

Many thanks.

Ken

[Hank4162]

Like Endorphinity and kdeemer, I’ve tried everything mentioned in this thread with no joy.  They all work for a short while but only a few hours at best. I’m running a mid 2009 MBP, Yosemite (10.10.5) with Fusion (7.1.2) with a Windows 2012 R2 guest VM. As a developer, I use the VM to run only Visual Studio. Visual Studio is now so unresponsive that just clicking on a line of code can take 30 to 45 seconds before the cursor appears where I clicked. Copying and pasting requires a coffee break. Suspending the guest machine can take 15 to 20 minutes compared to one or two in the past. If I leave the VM run for more than 10 to 12 hours it becomes completely unresponsive and needs to be forced quit.

My productivity had become so destroyed that I’ve given up on Fusion and moved my development system to a physical Windows server and use remote desktop from my Mac. That got responsiveness back but dramatically limits workflow (where and when I can work) - still a productivity killer but better than what I had.

I’m hoping VMWare and Apple will collaborate on solving this problem soon. I used to love Fusion but, alas, I can no longer use it.

[Edit Oct. 4, 2015: I upgraded to Fusion 8.0.1 hoping Apple and VMWare sorted things out. Fusion is still unusable under Yosemite for me. Running Win 2012R2 on a dedicated machine with remote desktop from my MacBook Pro is still the only way for me to get any work done. I don't understand why Apple and VMWare can't cooperate to get this defect fixed after an entire year.]

[Edit Nov. 22, 2015: I updated to Fusion 8.0.2. To date, my Windows 2012 R2 virtual machine is entirely unusable. After starting, it will run fine for a few hours then gradually start degrading in performance until it become entirely unresponsive.  I'm still having to run a physical Windows 2012 R2 server and remote desktop into it to get any work done. I've kept a backup of a fresh install of my Win 2012 R2 VM machine just in case I ever needed to rebuild Windows without having to fall back to a whole installation experience. The fresh install of Win 2012 R2 eventually stops responding too. That pretty much confirms that there are no recently installed apps or Windows updates causing the problem.]