Cant open VM - Dictionary problem

[aldo714]

Running VM Workstation 8.0.6  on Win 7

After a shut down and restart of my machine, I can no longer open my VM.  I get an error dialog saying there is a "Dictionary problem"

I've tried other remedies suggested in this forum with no success. Can anyone help?

[WoodyZ]

aldo714 wrote: I've tried other remedies suggested in this forum with no success. Can anyone help?

It really irks me when users make statements such as that without being explicit and specific and makes me not what to waste my time making a suggestion only to have the user write back, "I already tried that"!

So as to not waste my time all I'll say is that the typical dictionary problem usually is about the Snapshot Database and that is the .vmsd file for the target VM.

[aldo714]

Thanks for replying.  I tried "vmware-vdiskmanager -R mydiskname.vmdk"

It found no problems but I still couldn't start my VM.

[WoodyZ · Accepted solution]

As I previously said. "the typical dictionary problem usually is about the Snapshot Database and that is the .vmsd file for the target VM" so if you want to archive (compress) the .vmsd file and vmware.log file for the target VM into a single .zip file and attach it to a reply I'll take a look at it.

[aldo714]

I found the contents of my vmsd file had been overwritten (i.e. corrupted) somehow.

I deleted the vmsd file and used the snapshot manager to make a new snapshot.  After that I was able to start my VM.

Thanks again for the assistance.

[WoodyZ]

I deleted the vmsd file and used the snapshot manager to make a new snapshot.

If that is literally all you did then you have an orphaned snapshot or several orphaned snapshots that you'll eventually have to deal with and you may want to clean it up now vs. later.  If you do have any orphaned snapshots then delete the one you just took and it will consolidate the orphaned snapshots into the parent disk.  Then take another Snapshot and the .vmsd file will now reflect the true start of the actual number of snapshot disks present in the VM!