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WardC
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yosemite virtual machine freezes with a black screen after changing Compatibility settings

I recently upgraded to High Sierra on a new iMac.  The first time I started my Yosemite virtual machine in Fusion, I indicated I'd Moved the virtual machine.  When my session was restored, this notice dropped down from Fusion toolbar.

Fusion - New features are available.png

I clicked OK, and everything was fine.  I wound up dismissing this notice on several subsequent sessions.

Today, I decided to check out the new features.  Unfortunately, after changing the Compatibility settings, my Yosemite virtual machine fails at the login screen – when I type the first character of my password, the screen goes black (except for the mouse cursor in the upper left corner), and my entire iMac freezes.

I found I could unfreeze my iMac by clicking the power button.  This dialog appears:

Fusion shut down.png

Indeed, my MacBook Pro is sharing a folder on my iMac.

Clicking Cancel, unfreezes my iMac and Fusion's menus, but the Yosemite session remains frozen.

I'm hoping I can reset my Compatibility settings to the way they were to get my Yosemite virtual machine working again.  But I don't know what those settings should be.

I've attached a screenshot of the current Compatibility settings.

-- Ward

Fusion - Compatibility.png

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7 Replies
wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi Ward,

Not sure why it would not work with the current virtual hardware settings.

However if you shut down the VM completely (not suspend, but shutdown) then you can change the virtual hardware / compatibility settings to an earlier version.

Just checked my Yosemite VM and I have it set at version 11.

Also uncheck that "Allow upgrading the virtual hardware..." checkbox at the bottom, so that you don't get that nagging popup all the time.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
WardC
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks, Wil, for the info about your Yosemite VM.

Unfortunately, changing the Compatibility > Hardware Version from 16 back to 11 had no effect.  The login screen goes completely black the moment I click to enter my account password.

I just successfully opened a backup copy of my 10.10.5 virtual machine file.  So it appears that my active 10.10.5 virtual machine was corrupted by changing the Compatibility setting, and I've lost my data.

This has been an expensive lesson from the School of Hard Knocks.  I don't look forward to rebuilding my 10.10.5 testing VM from scratch – installing and registering apps, locating and copying data, etc.

-- Ward

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Ward,

Curious why turning back the virtual hardware did not work. Did it also update vmware tools perchance?

Would you mind if I have a look at your vmware.log file to see if I can see something out of the ordinary in there?

If interested then please attach the vmware.log at a reply (the attach link/button is at the bottom right of the reply window for some weird reason)

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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WardC
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Wil,

>> Curious why turning back the virtual hardware did not work. Did it also update vmware tools perchance?

I did not see any change to VMware Tools.

>> Would you mind if I have a look at your vmware.log file to see if I can see something out of the ordinary in there?

I found 4 vmware.log files in the virtual machine package – 3 from yesterday + 1 from today.  I've attached them to this message.

While we're trying to figure out this 10.10.5 black screen problem, I decided to build a new 10.10.5 virtual machine (starting with a copy of a fresh, uninitialized 10.10.5 virtual machine from 2016).  That was going smoothly until the 2nd round of App Store software updates.  When I returned to my iMac after the updates should have finished, I found another frozen black screen.  I had not touched the Compatibility settings on this new virtual machine.

-- Ward

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SvenGus
Expert
Expert

It could perhaps have something to do with this problem:

OS X 10.10.5 Yosemite VM freezes after Security Update 2017-003

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SvenGus
Expert
Expert

... A bug which probably hasn’t yet been fixed (I don’t have a Yosemite VM anymore, so I cannot easily verify this without creating a new one).

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

I think Sven might be right.

On the Yosemite VM of mine that works OK I had no problems.

Enabled the login screen for trying to reproduce... still no problems.

Shut it down again and changed from USB2 in the VM Settings -> USB & Blue tooth -> Advanced USB settings into USB3 and I could no longer login.

The login screen displays, but it won't let me login.

Not exactly the problem you described, but close enough that I recommend changing the USB guest virtual hardware from USB3 to USB2.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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