Bug: Certain windows in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge (Chromium) are incorrectly translucent

[johncenix]

Steps to reproduce: VMware Workstation 16.2.3, Windows 10 VM on a Windows 10 host, all freshly installed. Host graphics Intel UHD 630 and I've also observed the bug on another computer that's sporting a Geforce 1080 graphics card. Host graphics drivers are up to date and so is VMware Tools in the virtual machine. dxdiag indicates that DirectX 12 is being used in the VM. Install Google Chrome. Click the star icon in the URL bar. Observe that the "do you want to add a bookmark" popup dialog is translucent and very hard to see. It should be opaque.

You can see the (incorrect) translucent effect easier if you open up an incognito tab (Ctrl+Shift+N) and attempt the same:

The bug occurs also in many similar popup windows, for example if you click the lock icon in the URL bar, or if Chrome prompts you to save credentials for a website, or in the zoom popup (ctrl+plus or minus). The bug also happens in Chromium-based versions of Microsoft Edge (in fact, it is almost impossible to navigate the initial screens that Edge forces you to go through when starting it up for the first time, as they are also incorrectly translucent).

The bug is by no means new; I think I have been seeing it for 2-3 years already.

[ender_]

Known problem, workarounds are:

• disable hardware acceleration in Edge/Chrome in guest
• disable hardware acceleration for the VM
• switch to OpenGL renderer (quite a bit lower performance compared to the default DX11 renderer in my tests, but much better than disabled acceleration) - to do this, edit the .vmx file and add the following lines:
  mks.enableDX11Renderer = "FALSE"
  mks.enableGLRenderer = "TRUE"
• use older version of VMWare Tools (11.2.1 supposedly works – I haven't tested this)

You only need to do one of these things.

[johncenix]

A Windows 10 VM with Chrome is already quite sluggish on a laptop with integrated graphics, so I would prefer not to have even worse performance (your first three workarounds).

The suggestion about using an older version of VMware Tools is intriguing; are the old versions archived somewhere so I could try?

To the VMware Workstation folks: the bug still happens in 16.2.4. Please consider fixing this.

[olederpybasted]

If you actually need 3D acceleration, I've found reverting to the display driver found in VMware-tools-11.1.5-16724464 on the guest fixes this bug.

https://packages.vmware.com/tools/releases/11.1.5/windows/x64/

If you're more security-conscious, it is possible to 'Frankenstein' the current VMWare tools to use this older video driver while keeping the other components up to date.

To do this:

1. Install the old version and reboot the guest VM.
2. Backup the working 3D driver using the command:
"DISM /online /export-driver /destination:C:\DriverBackup" (Note you'll have to make the destination folder before running this command)
3. Uninstall the old version of VMWare Tools
4. Install the current version of VMWare Tools, using the 'custom setup' option, and opt out of installing the new SVGA Driver.
5. Manually install the old SVGA driver from the Device Manager (The old/working driver will be found in the folder prefixed with 'vm3d.inf' in the 'DriverBackup' folder created earlier.

The real point is - we shouldn't have to do this for a paid, ostensibly 'enterprise-grade' product; and especially not one that advertises 3D acceleration as a 'key feature'.

It's been over two years and there is no traction on this issue at all from the Chromium or VMWare side ( See Chromium discussion of this issue at https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=929764 where they discuss blacklisting VMWare's broken 3d support)

I guarantee if there is no headway made on it soon -- Workstation Pro v16 will be the last version I buy.

[anil2016]

We have a WS Tech Preview available here: https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2022/07/workstation-22h2-tech-preview.html Could you try and confirm if it resolves this issue. Make sure to install VMTools 12.0 or later in the guest.

[ender_]

Looks like the problem is fixed in tech preview.

[johncenix]

Still not fixed here. I upgraded from 16.2.4 to the tech preview (actually had to remove 16.2.4 completely first as the tech preview installer complained that it would not "downgrade" (I take it that 16.2.4 is in fact considered "newer")), updated VMware Tools in the W10 VM, rebooted and the issue still occurs.

VMware Tools version is 12.1.0, build-20134879. The VMware SVGA 3D device driver version in Device Manager is 9.18.3.1, dated 2022-06-13.

Edit: Upgrading the virtual hardware version from 16.(2.)x to tech preview fixed it finally! This ought to be documented.

[Bradall]

Is there any trick to getting 11.1.5 to work? I've discovered that i had to change out the windows iso otherwise if i installed 11.1.5 in the guest when the guest rebooted vmware would automatically uninstall and upgrade to 11.3.5. So eventually got 11.1.5 running but the same problem persists. This is with a win10 guest. Is there any other options that may make this work other than using the tech preview below? I do notice that in device manager in the guest that the VMware SVGA 3D driver remains version 9.17.1.2 no matter what....Im assuming it should not be that. I'll test that theory by installing a blank win10 machine and see what happens i guess.

[Bradall]

OK did a blank install of win10 with the iso for vmware tools replaced with 11.1.5 and the svga driver is 8.17.1.1 so i guess that is now the issue to uninstall the driver itself as well as vmware tools. I can confirm that things seem to work with this driver. Update: Uninstalled vmware tools, reboot, manually uninstall video driver, reboot, install 11.1.5 (after replacing windows.iso), and everything works again. Guess it remains this way until the next release if the tech preview fixes it. Thanks.

[prefname]

@anil2016 

Since the problem appears to be with the drivers will the fix be backported to the tools for 16.x?

It's working with VMware tools 11.1.5, but with these older drivers, just starting the new UWP win11 notepad, crashes the whole vm.

host: win11 21h2

graphics: intel iris xe 30.0.101.1298

guest: win11 21h2