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HenryK_09
Contributor
Contributor

Error "Unable to Connect to MKS" after upgrade to VMware Workstation 15.5.5

Hello,

I upgraded my workstation to latest version 15.5.5. Now I cannot connect to shared VMs on another VM Workstation (V12.9) anymore.

The following error message appears (image type forbidden?):

"Unable to connect to the MKS:

vim.fault.GenericVmConfigFault."

The log file of the remote VM indicates:

  • Failed to start server on WebSocket pipe, error 1: Asyncsocket error
  • Expiring webmks ticket ....

Can anyone help? Thank you in advance

69 Replies
scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

"VMware should pay people to staff these "community" forums as they surely exist to minimize support costs."

Some of the support team staff are asked to contribute to the forums - as an example the availability of vSphere 7 has been met with increased forum presence from that team.

However, first and foremost VMTN is a community forum - where users and customers can get help in a less formal way, and from one another - it is a great source of tribal knowledge.


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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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dejanrodiger
Contributor
Contributor

Is it close to be resolved? It is over 3 weeks now? I can't use the product as designed...

Thanks

-- Dejan
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Max3141
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I can't use my product right now either.  It's been too long and we need a resolution to this.

So, are we waiting for this fix to be bundled in the next big release here or what?

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dejanrodiger
Contributor
Contributor

Soon to be 5 weeks and no solution? At least any updated, when it will be fixed?

-- Dejan
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namuen
Contributor
Contributor

I got the same Problem. Any new Information from VMware about the timeline for a solution of this???

Any News about the internal bug report? Any Workarounds in place?

My Client: VMware Workstation 15 Pro -> 15.5.6 build-16341506

My "shared VMs"-Host: VMware Workstation 12 Pro -> 12.5.7 build-5813279

I'm looking forward to having this solved, since it's a big drawback for my daily work...

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pwolf
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I had the same issue after upgrading from Workstation 15.5.1 to 15.5.6 on a Windows 10 host. I even uninstalled Vmware Workstation completely and installed vmrc (vmware remote console), which led to the same error. Now I have set back the whole PC to some date before installing Workstation 15.5.6 and it works again. My suspicion is, that some configurations of remote VMs are not compatible with some drivers installed along with Vmware Workstation, but that's a mere suspicion, as it happened via vmrc in the same way after unistalling Workstation. But e.g. the VMware USB drivers are used by vmrc, too - therefore my suspicion.

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Pheckphul
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

In another thread​ I was told by a VMware tech to upgrade from 12.5.7 to 15.5.6 on the host I was having issues with. Other than that, silence.

My solution has been to ssh to the host and display the VMware console on my desktop via X. Not elegant, not a real solution, but it lets me get my work done.

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namuen
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for sharing!

But I'm not happy with this advice, since

- we have to buy a new License then

- we have to ramp down all running VMs which are in use all the time

- this is a bug which was not there before 15.5.x and there was NO Information that there is a stop of support of v12.x shared VMs

I hope that this bug will be fixed soon!

______________

edit: your Link is dead! there is a "http" at the end which should not be there Smiley Wink

edit2: ssh to Host is not needed for me since I can use RDP to the Host (Win Server 2016) and use VMware there Smiley Wink  But for all other users it's a big pain… For some I had to install user accounts on the Server/Host to give them the possibility to reach the respective VMs. For some other ssh was enough...

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Pheckphul
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

edit: your Link is dead! there is a "http" at the end which should not be there

Thank you for letting me know. I fixed the link.

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dejanrodiger
Contributor
Contributor

If this is not going to be fixed in a week, I think I will start moving my VMs to VirtualBox. I also found replacement for remote management called RemoteBox 😉

Not ideal, but...

-- Dejan
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dejanrodiger
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

This was found 6 weeks ago as a BIG problem. You connect to remote VMWare Workstation and it crashes vmware-workstation-server service.

Is it normal for VMWare not to fix such a big problem? Or the problem is bigger that initially thought?

Thanks

-- Dejan
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ixd704
Contributor
Contributor

Same problem here.  Trying to connect to a v12 Linux Workstation hosted guest from a v15 Linux Workstation.  Since I am not going to get a new machine to run a newer version (stuck at 12 for skunk works due to unsupported processors on higher Workstation versions).

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ixd704
Contributor
Contributor

Would be good to know if this is going to be a "upgrade to fix" resolution or if there will be some sort of backwards compatibility put in the newer versions to talk to the old ones again.  Budgeting is currently happening for this fiscal.

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james11112222
Contributor
Contributor

I'm also seeing this problem when connection from one win 10 host to my other ubuntu 20.04 64bit desktop host with both running 15.5.6.

I can see the local ubuntu workstation server connection immediately disappear when I try to connect from my win10 host running workstation 15.5.6.

Restarting the local ubuntu vmware server restores the local ubuntu workstation server connection without an issue and I can get to the console of my shared VM without an issue.

Viewing the vmware logs offers little insight.

Has anyone received any updates on this issue via side channels?

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ixd704
Contributor
Contributor

Nope, found nothing.  I'm nn the process of moving everything in our lab back to version 12.5.9 as that is an actively supported Linux community version that keeps on working.  Should VMware fix this in the future, I can move forward again.  But I have some older lab hardware stuck on version 12.5.9 due to processor support being dropped so 12.5.9 will be running until the hardware dies.  And I need to be able to connect between versions.  Our office will continue to go forward with current licensing upgrades as we require the latest and greatest for our production environment, but the lab funding is not that high on the priority list.  If the standalone client worked on Linux, that would be an option, but it does not (conflicts with Workstation 12.5.9).

For anyone needing Workstation 12.5.9 on Linux (for old processors), here is a script that will keep you up and running...

export VMWARE_VERSION=workstation-12.5.9

export TMP_FOLDER=/tmp/patch-vmware

rm -fdr $TMP_FOLDER

mkdir -p $TMP_FOLDER

cd $TMP_FOLDER

git clone https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules.git

cd $TMP_FOLDER/vmware-host-modules

git checkout $VMWARE_VERSION

git fetch

make

sudo make install

sudo rm /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libz.so.1/libz.so.1

sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libz.so.1/libz.so.1

sudo /etc/init.d/vmware restart

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dejanrodiger
Contributor
Contributor

Come back after vacation and this CRITICAL bug is still not resolved? Even after more than 10 weeks...

:smileyshocked:

-- Dejan
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ixd704
Contributor
Contributor

It is Linux, so I would not be holding my breath on this one.  Linux client software is supported at a very low effort level as not a mainstream OS for VMware.  I doubt you will see a fix for this unless the Linux community come up with a fix themselves.  Compare the old binary to the new one and then hack it to work again maybe.  But that would probably violate the license and then land you in a court case.  So doubt anyone is going to be jumping on fixing it and if they do, probably would not share the fix anyway.

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bjtimmy
Contributor
Contributor

Hi all,

It's not only with Linux, but all the same mess on Windows.

You may use RDP to access the box remotely, but that's not exactly a solution.

Bernd

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douglasids
Contributor
Contributor

Has anyone found a solution to this problem?  VMware support say they have no complaints on this issue.  Was a patch issued that I am unaware of?

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james11112222
Contributor
Contributor

This is stil a problem for me on 15.5.6.

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