Problem with VMRC and USB

[hetz]

Hi,

I'm using latest official VCSA (5.5.0.20200 Build 2183109) and the latest VMRC.

I've configured Windows 7 VM with USB 2.0 controller. Windows installed the drivers and there aren't any visible errors in Windows nor in VCSA

The problem is with VMRC - it simply doesn't show me any USB removable device, only the network adapter.

Is this a bug or am I missing something?

Thanks

[CQuartetti]

First the basics: Have you plugged in a USB storage device to your local machine? The Removable Devices menu doesn't show USB options until something is plugged in locally.

[hetz]

Yup. Mouse, keyboard and webcam are all connected to this laptop

[admin]

Are you still facing this issue? I have tested it recently with VMRC 7.0 from www.vmware.com/go/download-vmrc.

I used a Windows 7 host OS and a Windows 7 Guest OS with USB 2.0 Controller. VMRC properly enumerates my removable devices such as usb flash drive, web camera and iPhone.

If you can reproduce the issue, can you send me the logs located at %TEMP%\vmware-%USERNAME%\ to skalidindi@vmware.com.

Thanks, SK

[gethyn85]

All,

Appreciated that this is an old post, but for anyone having these problems (as i was this morning), this is the problem I found:

If you have a modern host with USB 2.0 and USB 3 ports, and your virtual machine USB controller is USB 2.0 (which i think is the default), make sure that you plug the device into a USB 2.0 port on the VMRC host computer, otherwise it just won't recognise it.  If it is in a USB 3 port, it will not work!

Hope this helps someone.

[CQuartetti]

Thanks for the post gethyn85!

[CQuartetti]

What device are you seeing this with? Any chance it's a USB 3.0 device that's falling back to 2.0 mode in a 2.0 port? In that case the behavior you're seeing makes sense. We have code in place to attempt to pass 2.0 devices plugged into 3.0 physical ports to 2.0 virtual ports but it cannot handle every case.

[gethyn85]

Hi CQuartetti,

Yes that is exactly what is happening - we have USB3.0 portable drives that will only be passed to the VM (which has a USB 2.0 controller) when in a USB 2.0 port.

I guess this is intended behaviour?

Thanks,

gethyn85

[CQuartetti]

Yes, that's expected. VMware cannot wrangle a USB 3 device in USB 3 mode into a virtual USB 2 port.