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JohnArizona
Contributor
Contributor

Computer will not boot, Failed to start vmware.service

After installing, but not fully setting up, VMware on my Debian 12 PC a while back, nothing happened for weeks until I turned on my PC to see that it now fails to boot up. Every part of my PC boots correctly except VMware, which gives the error "Failed to start vmware.service - LSB: This service starts and stops VMware services". I could not tell you why VMware working has suddenly become required for this PC to boot. If I could choose I would purge this rot fully from my computer but since I can't boot in I can't do anything about it. I've tried emergency mode and booting into older versions of Debian but neither worked. Is there any way to fix this or should I just do a full reinstall and pledge to never even look at this program again.

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

You keep saying VMware rather than naming the product you are using (a bit like saying Microsoft when you could mean Word or an Xbox), you have posted this in the ESXi area for the forums, but the things you say make it sound like you are using the Workstation product.

Please be clear on which VMware product you are using, and what version.

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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
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BivasM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

what has not worked? booting into emergency mode?

https://www.linuxtechi.com/boot-debian-rescue-emergency-mode/

if you have a debian iso , you can try to boot from it and try the troubleshooting options there. 

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JohnArizona
Contributor
Contributor

That's so true I just realized that this was in the wrong spot I must have misclicked. This is VMware Workstation 16.2.1. Not sure how to move the topic honestly, thanks for the heads up

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JohnArizona
Contributor
Contributor

Emergency mode hasn't been working yeah. I might try booting into an iso and just seeing if I can delete the VMware files from there but I don't have a USB on hand I don't think so this has been my last resort

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I have reported your post to the moderators, one of them should be along to move it for you.

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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
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