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quiettime
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Graphics corruption in Ubuntu guest since upgrading Workstation to 15.5.6

I upgraded from 15.5.1-15018445 to 15.5.6-16341506 on Windows 7 and since then I'm seeing weird graphics corruption in my Ubuntu 16 guest VM. I have a snapshot that I resume and if I leave it on in the background eventually I will switch back to it and graphics nonsense will show. The bad graphics data seem to be from the guest. In the screenshot below you can see distorted text but I've also seen icons. If I switch windows in the guest and then go back to the problem window then the graphics will go back to normal. The snapshot is from July 26.

Capture.PNG

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quiettime
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Does anyone know what this is? I've seen it on several snapshots now of the same guest, and none of them had that problem before upgrading.

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quiettime
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

This is still a big issue for me. I am using Workstation 15 on a Windows 7 host and I cannot upgrade to Workstation 16. Does anyone from the VMware team plan to address this issue in Workstation 15 before it goes EOL and updates cease?

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quiettime
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Checking in. This is still an issue since upgrading to 15.5.7 build-17171714.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

Are you on the latest virtual hardware for the guest?
Is vmware tools in the guest up to date?

--
Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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quiettime
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The hardware compatibility says Workstation 12.x. I am using the open-vm-tools package that comes with Ubuntu.

open-vm-tools:
  Installed: 2:10.2.0-3~ubuntu0.16.04.1
  Candidate: 2:10.2.0-3~ubuntu0.16.04.1
  Version table:
 *** 2:10.2.0-3~ubuntu0.16.04.1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2:10.0.7-3227872-2ubuntu1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages

 

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Try switching the virtual hardware version to your actual Workstation version.
That appears to fix more than a few problems nowadays.

--
Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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quiettime
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I am pretty sure this is a problem with the VMware software on the host. I have a number of saved snapshots that did not have this problem with any of the earlier 15.x builds. My guess is they changed something in the way the graphics communicates with the guest.

I did try what you suggested, I converted a VM snapshot from 12.x to 15.x. After that I still observed graphics corruption.

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