Anyone else see the following issue with Workstation Player?
Summary:
--------
* We have a problem with VMWare Workstation 16 Player where our VM consistently drops removable hardware devices connected to the VM through the physical host PC.
* This problem occurs when the VMWare USB arbitrator service running on the host crashes.
* The USB arbitrator service crashes consistently whenever we attempt to use Bluetooth within the VM.
Environment:
------------
* VMWare Workstation 16 Player (version 16.2.1 build 18811642)
* Host PC: Dell G7 15 with integrated Bluetooth adapter
* Host OS version: Windows 10 Enterprise 20H2
* VM OS version: Windows 10 Pro 1809
Repro Steps:
------------
* On the host PC with VMWare Player installed, open Task Manager.
* Go to the Details tab, and find the vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe process to confirm it is running.
* Launch VMWare Player.
* Start a Windows 10 VM inside VMWare Player.
* In the settings drop-down menu ("Player ▾" near the upper left corner) for the VM, look at the list under "Removable Devices" - I see multiple devices:
* CD/DVD (SATA)
* Network Adapter
* Sound Card
* LCS Telegraphics Tableside Controller
* Realtek Integrated_Webcam_HD
* Alienware AW-ELC
* Silicon Motion Flash Drive
* Inside the VM, click on the Windows Start button in the lower-left corner.
* Start typing "Bluetooth", then select "Bluetooth and other devices settings".
* In the Bluetooth settings page, click on the ⊞ button next to "Add Bluetooth or other devices".
Result:
-------
While the VM attempts to discover nearby Bluetooth devices:
* On the host PC, the VMWare USB Arbitration Service crashes. I confirmed this by:
* Watching Task Manager on the host PC: I saw vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe terminate; it does eventually restart automatically, but has a new Process ID.
* Check in Event Viewer on the host PC: Under Windows Logs -> Application, I see an Application Error for vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe with an exception code 0xc00000005 (full details pasted below).
* In the VM, several of the devices DISAPPPEAR from the "Removable Devices" list; after the USB arbitrator crash, I only see 3 of the 7 original devices:
* CD/DVD (SATA)
* Network Adapter
* Sound Card
* The 4 missing devices are no longer usable within the VM.
Details:
--------
This problem reproduces consistently - the VMWare USB Arbitration Service (vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe) crashes whenever we try to use any Bluetooth functionality within the VM.
Whenever the service crashes, most of the external devices are no longer visible / usable by the VM.
Note that it is not only the connection to these 4 devices being lost, but rather the 4 devices NO LONGER APPEAR in the "Removable Devies" list, whether they were connected to the host or the VM.
I tried several experiments to see if I could narrow down the cause of this error, and to see if it was preventable or recoverable after the crash:
1. I tried changing the VM settings to try all 3 versions of USB (3.0, 2.0, and 1.1) to see if that might help, but it did not make any difference - regardless of which USB version I used, the USB arbitrator 4 devices completely disappears whenever I do any activity that tries to use Bluetooth.
2. In the VM settings menu, under File -> Preferences -> USB, I changed the default setting for "When a new USB devices is detected, VMWare Player should:" from "Ask me what to do" to "Connect the device to the running virtual machine". However, this did not help either - re-running any of the steps above still results in the various devices (USB, Realtek webcam, Alienware BT) disappearing from the list of Removable Devices.
3. I Googled around to see if I could find any other reports of people seeing this behavior (including the VMWare communities / support forum), but did not see anything that quite matched what I observed. I saw a few people who reported problems with the VMWare USB Arbitration Service not running at all (as opposed to it crashing), but they fixed it by reinstalling.
4. I tried to manually restart the USB arbitrator service (even though it eventually does auto-restart after it crashes). This made no difference - the missing devices still did not re-appear under the Removable Devices list.
5. I found that the devices DO RE-APPEAR (and become usable within the VM again) if I either: A. pause and restart the VM, or B. restart the VM OS.
6. I found that the devices seem to work reliably and persist if I completely disable Bluetooth within the VM.
Anyone see this same behavior before?
Anyone have any ideas why it appears that Bluetooth is conflicting / interfering with the USB arbitrator?
Full Event Viewer Log:
----------------------
Faulting application name: vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe, version: 20.5.0.0, time stamp: 0x61641e52
Faulting module name: vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe, version: 20.5.0.0, time stamp: 0x61641e52
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000000579a
Faulting process id: 0x177c
Faulting application start time: 0x01d7e7ca502b961d
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VMware\USB\vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VMware\USB\vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe
Report Id: 95a58687-ed8c-41b6-846e-14af8ef31ffc
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="Application Error" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>100</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2021-12-02T22:19:13.4520184Z" />
<EventRecordID>681</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>DESKTOP-943963S</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
- <EventData>
<Data>vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe</Data>
<Data>20.5.0.0</Data>
<Data>61641e52</Data>
<Data>vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe</Data>
<Data>20.5.0.0</Data>
<Data>61641e52</Data>
<Data>c0000005</Data>
<Data>000000000000579a</Data>
<Data>177c</Data>
<Data>01d7e7ca502b961d</Data>
<Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VMware\USB\vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe</Data>
<Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VMware\USB\vmware-usbarbitrator64.exe</Data>
<Data>95a58687-ed8c-41b6-846e-14af8ef31ffc</Data>
<Data />
<Data />
</EventData>
</Event>
