Fusion 11.1 on Mojave 10.14.6.
I created a new Debian VM. (I've only ever had Windows VM's before now.) The creation of the VM went fine. It starts, I have a command-line, I can do things. I went to create a shared folder. It says it can't until VMware Tools is installed. Ah, right, I forgot about that.
Except not only isn't it installed, where it usually is on the menu says, "Cancel VMware Tools Installation", and it's greyed out. So it apparently thinks it's canceling the installation. I didn't start the installation, and I didn't cancel it. So I'm not sure how it got into this state.
Regardless, I'm in a catch-22: I can't remove it (if in fact it is installed), and I can't install it.
What now?
Did you complete the installation?
Did I complete what installation?
What OS is the VM configured to run?
Fusion General System Settings
You may have an OS set that does not support VMware Tools.
For debian I thought that the recommendation was to use open-vm-tools - have you tried that route instead?
From my question: "I created a new Debian VM."
I haven't tried any route. As I said in my original question, I didn't start an install of VM tools.
The point is that it says it's trying to cancel an install I didn't begin. But since it's "canceling," I can't do anything else.
Just because you installed Debian doesn’t mean that you set that as the OS for the VM when defining the VM - that’s the reason I asked.
What I'm suggesting is ignore the menu and just install open-vm-tools instead.