Clone VM/defragment VM disk eats all memory and locks system. Vista 64-bit host. VMWare Workstation 6.0.3 / 6.0.4

[ralpho]

I have been experiencing problems with using VMWare Workstation disk operations, specifically clone a virtual machine and defragment virtual machine disk.

Any help with these issues would be most appreciated.

Symptoms:

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The operation starts OK but then proceeds to use up all (and more?) of available main memory until the host session locks up such that even the mouse pointer has difficulty moving. All input (other than mouse movement) and output to desktop appears to freeze (although I suspect in fact it is operating very, very, very slowly). Disk activity seems to continue indicating that the system may be thrashing the page file and/or the VMWare disk operation may be still be executing.

I reduced the amount of memory available for all virtual machines in case this had an effect to a ridiculously low level (64KB or there abouts) and it did not (this was for a VMWare Workstation 6.0.4 / Ubuntu 8.04 workstation 64-bit Hard disk (SCSI:0) defragment operation).

I cannot find any obvious mention of this problem or any obvious settings that might need to be adjusted to prevent it. Apologies if I have just been looking in the wrong places and the solution is staring me in the face..

System details:

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VMWare Workstation versions : 6.0.3 and 6.0.4

Host operating system : Microsoft Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition SP1

Guest operating systems : Ubuntu Linux Workstation 7.10 64-bit

(with no virtual machines : (clone operation; VMWare Workstation 6.0.3)

running) : Ubuntu Linux Workstation 8.04 64-bit

: (defragment operation; VMWare Workstation 6.0.3 and 6.0.4).

Host system details:

2 x AMD Opteron 250 processors

4GB memory (2GB controlled by each processor);

Chipset nVidia Pro 2200 + 2050;

Hard disks: controlled by nVidia RAID;

4 SATA hard disks: 160/320 GB Western digital RAID edition

C: (system partition): 320GB single disk stripe;

😧 - virtual machine storage partition: 2 x 160GB RAID 0 stripe;

E: 160GB single disk stripe

Virtual machine details (same setup for both Ubuntu OS versions):

Memory: 512MB

Harddisk (SCSI:0): Max Size 32 GB current sizes:

3.85GB (Ubuntu Linux 7.10);

8.16GB (Ubuntu Linux 8.04)

CD-ROM (IDE:0): Mapped to ISO image file of Ubuntu Linux Workstation 7.04 64-bit

in directory on 😧 partition.

Floppy: Auto Detect

Ethernet: Bridged

USB Controller: Present

Sound adapter: Auto Detect

Display: Auto Detect

Processors: 1

Note that host system has around 180GB free space on 😧 drive used for virtual machine directories.

Attached are the .vmx file for the Ubuntu Linux Workstation 64-bit 8.04 and the log file produced up to the time of trying a defragment operation.

Here is a directory listing of the files in the virtual machine directory for the Ubuntu Linux Desktop 8.04 64-bit virtual machine :

Directory of D:\VirtualMachines\Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Desktop 64-bit

13/06/2008 19:16

.
13/06/2008 19:16

..
13/06/2008 17:08 536,870,912 564d5cc9-1985-68df-9f78-96e675f7222c.vmem
13/06/2008 17:08

564d5cc9-1985-68df-9f78-96e675f7222c.vmem.lck
13/06/2008 17:09 8,763,736,064 Ubuntu 64-bit-000001.vmdk
13/06/2008 17:08

Ubuntu 64-bit-000001.vmdk.lck
05/12/2007 15:00 536,870,912 Ubuntu 64-bit-Snapshot1.vmem
05/12/2007 15:00 18,557,677 Ubuntu 64-bit-Snapshot1.vmsn
13/06/2008 15:37 8,684 Ubuntu 64-bit.nvram
13/06/2008 17:04 7,625,441,280 Ubuntu 64-bit.vmdk
13/06/2008 17:08

Ubuntu 64-bit.vmdk.lck
05/12/2007 14:58 577 Ubuntu 64-bit.vmsd
13/06/2008 17:08 1,529 Ubuntu 64-bit.vmx
13/06/2008 17:08

Ubuntu 64-bit.vmx.lck
27/08/2007 18:10 268 Ubuntu 64-bit.vmxf
13/06/2008 19:16 0 Ubuntu_8-04-64-bit-vmware-vm-files.txt
13/06/2008 15:37 74,267 vmware-0.log
12/06/2008 17:01 50,386 vmware-1.log
12/06/2008 16:33 52,841 vmware-2.log
13/06/2008 17:08 48,117 vmware.log
14 File(s) 17,481,713,514 bytes

Directory of D:\VirtualMachines\Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Desktop 64-bit\564d5cc9-1985-68df-9f78-96e675f7222c.vmem.lck

13/06/2008 17:08

.
13/06/2008 17:08

..
13/06/2008 17:08 512 M17508.lck
1 File(s) 512 bytes

Directory of D:\VirtualMachines\Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Desktop 64-bit\Ubuntu 64-bit-000001.vmdk.lck

13/06/2008 17:08

.
13/06/2008 17:08

..
13/06/2008 17:08 512 M39091.lck
1 File(s) 512 bytes

Directory of D:\VirtualMachines\Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Desktop 64-bit\Ubuntu 64-bit.vmdk.lck

13/06/2008 17:08

.
13/06/2008 17:08

..
13/06/2008 17:08 512 M33844.lck
1 File(s) 512 bytes

Directory of D:\VirtualMachines\Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Desktop 64-bit\Ubuntu 64-bit.vmx.lck

13/06/2008 17:08

.
13/06/2008 17:08

..

13/06/2008 17:08 512 M17508.lck

1 File(s) 512 bytes

[Peter_vm]

Try to disable VMware memory optimizations:

C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Workstation\config.ini

prefvmx.useRecommendedLockedMemSize = "TRUE"

prefvmx.minVmMemPct = "100"

guest ".vmx" file:

sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE"

mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"

MemTrimRate = "0"

MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"

[ralpho]

Thank you for the suggestion.

I have just found the time to give it a go.

I initially stopped all running virtual machines and closed down the VMWare Workstation application, modified the VMWare Workstation config.ini and just one virtual machine vmx file as per your suggestions. I then rebooted and tried to defragment the disk for the virtual machine with the modified vmx file to see if it fixed the problem,

Unfortunately it did not.

However having things to do away from the PC today I left the session running - well hobbling along - to see what happened and eventually the defragment operation did complete. In between times the symptoms were mostly as originally described with occasional moments in which memory was freed before being re-allocated and a bit more life was evident in the session in these moments. On completion of the defragment operation the Vista session was unusable and had to be forcibly rebooted as before (i.e. holding power button down for a slow count of 8 - 10).

This time however I noticed that my anti virus / security software was trying to get into the mix (Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0).

When the machine returned from its restart I returned the modified config.ini and vmx files to their original states, restarted again and then carefully stopped Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 and tried to defragment a virtual machine disk from VMWare workstation (a different one to my previous victim as that was now marked as defragmented!).

Success.

After some poking around the Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 dialogs I eventually managed to exclude the VMWare virtual machine directories and files (for anyone interested: from the Settings dialog select Threats and Exclusions, click "Trusted zone..." then "Add..." then click on the not very obvious "specify" link next to "Object:" in the "Exclusion mask" popup dialog).

I restarted Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 protection and tried more virtual machine disk defragment operations and a full clone of a virtual machine. All with success.

Hopefully then the problem was a clash between VMWare Workstation 6.0.3/4 and Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0.

Again thank you for your suggestion.

[Janda]

I know this is an old post, but I must say Thank You! This has been driving me nuts for weeks. Excluding my VM Folder from Kaspersky did the trick.