Windows Guest "Hides" Under Ubuntu 20.04

[pinrod]

Background: I'm using the VMWare workstation (part of the workstation Pro product) on a ubuntu 20.04 host. I am running Windows guest systems. This also happened under 15. It closes the window, appears to be running in the background, and I can re-open the window (selecting the VM from the list) until I do something (like change the size of a guest window) and than it goes back to background. When it happens, it appears to "spread" to other windows guest machines and then, after some undetermined time, will work normally again.

Anyone have any idea what's happening, or, more importantly, how to fix it?

Thanks!

k

[RaSystemlord]

Don't know exactly, but I can speculate.

First, what do you mean, by these:

- VMware workstation (part of the workstation Pro product)   (perhaps you mean that you use VMware Workstation Player?, need to be sure, because your software does not behave correctly)

- what does this mean "it appears to "spread" to other windows guest machines and then... "

- you are saying that you use "guests", but report on "guest". So, is this VM-specific, if so, what is the difference between them?

As for the speculative reasons:

- I would install VMware Player, VMware Tools against and check Ubuntu Updates

- if none of that helps, I would try to change the graphics driver or if possible graphics adapter. Change of the driver, open or closed driver, is something that you would need to figure out at Ubuntu Forum. Sometimes, wrong closed drivers may be automatically selected by *buntu-systems and taking the correct one, might be rather easy (in software sources menu, reboot required after change, you could try with open driver)

- what happens if you ran different VMs on different desktops? Then they should not interfere in any way (well, they shouldn't anyway, but worth a try?)

[pinrod]

Okay! I see I wasn't quite as clear as I had hoped! {'-)

1) Yes, the VMWare Workstation Player (part of Workstation Pro), Version 16.1.0 build-17198959.

2) It appears to "Spread": I will run several copies/versions of Windows (mostly 7 and 10) on a Ubuntu host with VMWare Workstation. When this happens, eventually, the issue will occur under all the guests. Thankfully, this doesn't usually last very long! (usually less than a day).

3) Using the same VMWare player software and running Windows OS guests (I think that was clear above, but just to be sure).

4) I have uninstalled and re-installed the whole bundle, the latest was yesterday.

5) Graphics: Well, it's a laptop, so the adapter is difficult! {'-) I'm not suspecting that the driver is the issue due to the intermittent nature of the problem.

6) Because I have had several RESUB (A Ubuntu kind of "reboot") type events because of locking up, I am planning to reload everything from scratch on Monday. I'm going to try and run some good virus software on both the host and guest systems, though I try to keep that sort of thing at bay... It'll work out... eventually!

Thanks for the comments.

k

[RaSystemlord]

Thanks for the details ... interesting ... although perhaps a bit more dire to you 🙂 .

1. OK.

2. I can only start to imagine what "spread" means ... never seen something that could fall into that word. Of course, the experiences are from past and might not relate to problems of today.

3. OK. Yes, it was clear as such.

4. OK, end of that path then.

5. Well, depending on what "spread" really means, I can see that this is graphics card related. You know, you have many layers of graphics that they need to deal with and failure to perform can appear very strange.

However, there are many different kind of things that you could try, which all relate to what happens on your desktop:

a) The quickest is to check the driver. Go to Software Sources  and there you see Additional Drivers. There you can see which driver is selected ... I just had a recent thing when Kubuntu selected too new a driver. 

Change the driver to OpenSource, while it is probably now a Closed driver. That will change the driver vendor and will probably have an effect, if the driver was the problem. You need to reboot to see the results.

With Open drivers you may lose some speed and perhaps performance, but in my case, I cannot see any difference - other than it works now (with OpenGL or DirectX, the story might be different, if those are relevant to your use).

This is also something that the Reinstall is unlikely to fix.

b) Try with another desktop. I'm not a fan of Gnome 3. I did like Unity, but Gnome 3 just sends the ideas back 10 years. So, this could also be a Gnome 3 thingy, with your specific circumstances.

Since you are reinstalling anyway, you might want to try another desktop, most conveniently with another boot system disk. THAT you can easily replace in a laptop, while graphics adapter - not really as you state.

I have moved into KDE, which means Kubuntu 20.04.2. It is different, but much nicer in my view. There the virtual desktops that I mentioned work like a charm.

Obviously, there are many other desktops, like xfce, that could be to your liking. I use that with Ubuntu Studio - it is a bit boring but works.

6. As for viruses&stuff, on both computers - cannot think of anything specific to that end.

As for reinstall, it shouldn't be necessary if the system starts - or even after that if you can hack it through. You could fix the install packages, see if there was anything to fix and then check Update. I'm a meaning a far-fetched scenario where a broken package dependency is preventing required prerequisite packages or otherwise needed packages to install.

I hope you find the cure!