ISBRendererComm : Lost connection to mksSandbox and MKS -RendererMain : Failed to start the renderer

[StefanoK]

Hi all,

I just started using a new virtual machine on my VMware Workstation. Its worth to mention that i have other VM on the station and they are working fine but for some reason on this one i got those two errors and some warnings. I tryed to google it but i didnt find any specific answer. I hope you can somehow help me. I posted down below in the attachment sector photos of the errors with logs.

Thank you in advance 🙂

[StefanoK]

I solved this problem by downgrading to 15.5.6 . Why does that happen on 16.xx.xx no idea 🙂

[bluefirestorm]

There was a major change in 16.x in how virtual graphics were handled (sandboxed) and it also added support for DX11 in Windows VMs. The mksSandbox process does not exist in versions prior to 16.x

From the vmware.log it looks the compatibility is set to 12.

2021-03-30T08:41:44.849+02:00| vmx| I005: DICT         virtualHW.version = "12"

Have you tried setting the virtual HW version to 16.x compatibility when running with Workstation Pro 16.x?

[ewolfson]

This may be a dead thread, but I had a similar problem and found that simply disabling "Accelerated 3D Graphics" in ((Virtual Machine Settings> Hardware> Display> 3D Graphics)) allowed me to avoid these crashes and specific errors. 

[VaneSolutech]

Thank you ! it worked for me.

[TeamRED]

November update is triggering this exact issue for me in Windows 11.  I can confirm that disabling 3D Acceleration in the VMware settings for my Win11 vm works.

Obviously not an ideal solution because I need acceleration...

[peter_l1]

I also have the same problem, just upgraded to 16.2.1 and still have it. It's when I do a disk shrink then I get:

mks ISBRendererComm: ISBRendererComm Remote Disconnect: socket closed.
mks The vmx lost its connection to the mksSandbox.
mks The mksSandbox process may have crashed or hung.
mks Check the mksSandbox.log and vmware.log for more details.
mks PANIC: ISBRendererComm: Lost connection to mksSandbox (2878)
mks CoreDump_CoreDump: faking exception to get context

 I can consistently reproduce it when I have 3D graphics enabled when doing a disk shrink via command line inside a Windows 10 VM.

"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\VMwareToolboxCmd.exe" disk shrinkonly

 As soon as I disabled 3D graphics it stopped crashing.

[oncedeepred]

I get the same error on Ubuntu 20.04.3 with Workstation 16.2.1 and 16.1 before that. Needless to say that it worked like a charm on 15.5.7. For some reason it takes ages to recover memory file from a mounted iSCSI share on 10Gbps network. I can see network I/O spiking back and forth in bursts up to maximum supported bandwidth. By the time the memory dump is restored, MKS sandbox probably timeouts. After the crash, if I click restore from saved snapshot again, it will restore in a few seconds and will work all day without any issues.

2021-11-15T08:09:45.451Z In(05) vmx MainMem: Opened paging file, '/mnt/data/user/[REDACTED]/Machines/win10-pro-msdn/564decae-695d-d993-eee0-2a11d4a6b192.vmem'.
2021-11-15T08:09:45.454Z In(05) vmx MemSched: caller 0 numvm 1 locked pages: num 25338 max 28814336
2021-11-15T08:09:45.454Z In(05) vmx MemSched: locked Page Limit: host 32840648 config 28822528
2021-11-15T08:09:45.454Z In(05) vmx MemSched: minmempct 50 timestamp 1776
2021-11-15T08:09:45.454Z In(05) vmx MemSched: VM 0 min 4293734 max 8488038 shares 8388608 paged 1205460 nonpaged 28246 anonymous 71184 locked 25338 touchedPct 0 dirtiedPct 0 timestamp 1776 vmResponsive is 1
2021-11-15T08:09:45.454Z In(05) vmx MemSched: locked 25338 target 8488038 balloon 0 0 0 swapped 0 0 allocd 0 512 state 0 100
2021-11-15T08:09:45.454Z In(05) vmx MemSched: states: 0 1 : 1 0 : 2 0 : 3 0
2021-11-15T08:09:45.454Z In(05) vmx MemSched: Balloon enabled 1 guestType 0 maxSize 0
2021-11-15T08:09:45.727Z In(05) vmx Progress 0% (none)
2021-11-15T08:09:53.431Z In(05) vmx Progress 1% (none)
2021-11-15T08:09:59.422Z In(05) vmx Progress 2% (none)
2021-11-15T08:10:02.528Z In(05) vmx Progress 3% (none)
2021-11-15T08:10:06.049Z In(05) vmx Progress 4% (none)
2021-11-15T08:10:08.014Z In(05) vmx Progress 5% (none)
2021-11-15T08:10:09.752Z In(05) vmx Progress 6% (none)
2021-11-15T08:10:12.246Z In(05) vmx Progress 7% (none)
2021-11-15T08:10:15.459Z In(05) vmx Progress 8% (none)
2021-11-15T08:10:20.291Z In(05) vmx Progress 9% (none)
2021-11-15T08:10:27.308Z In(05) vmx Progress 10% (none)
2021-11-15T08:10:43.933Z In(05) vmx Progress 11% (none)
2021-11-15T08:11:04.320Z In(05) vmx Progress 12% (none)
2021-11-15T08:11:09.446Z In(05) vmx Progress 13% (none)
2021-11-15T08:11:15.479Z In(05) vmx Progress 14% (none)
2021-11-15T08:11:21.312Z In(05) vmx Progress 15% (none)
2021-11-15T08:11:30.348Z In(05) vmx Progress 16% (none)
2021-11-15T08:11:40.642Z In(05) vmx Progress 17% (none)
2021-11-15T08:11:50.019Z In(05) vmx Progress 18% (none)
2021-11-15T08:11:56.187Z In(05) vmx Progress 19% (none)
2021-11-15T08:12:01.426Z In(05) vmx Progress 20% (none)
2021-11-15T08:12:05.667Z In(05) vmx Progress 21% (none)
2021-11-15T08:12:18.018Z In(05) vmx Progress 22% (none)
2021-11-15T08:12:28.234Z In(05) vmx Progress 23% (none)
2021-11-15T08:12:33.088Z In(05) vmx Progress 24% (none)
2021-11-15T08:12:37.132Z In(05) vmx Progress 25% (none)
2021-11-15T08:12:41.007Z In(05) vmx Progress 26% (none)
2021-11-15T08:12:49.129Z In(05) vmx Progress 27% (none)
2021-11-15T08:13:06.755Z In(05) vmx Progress 28% (none)
2021-11-15T08:13:13.735Z In(05) vmx Progress 29% (none)
2021-11-15T08:13:20.043Z In(05) vmx Progress 30% (none)
2021-11-15T08:13:23.856Z In(05) vmx Progress 31% (none)
2021-11-15T08:13:27.637Z In(05) vmx Progress 32% (none)
2021-11-15T08:13:39.111Z In(05) vmx Progress 33% (none)
2021-11-15T08:13:45.072Z In(05) vmx Progress 34% (none)
2021-11-15T08:13:51.382Z In(05) vmx Progress 35% (none)
2021-11-15T08:13:56.104Z In(05) vmx Progress 36% (none)
2021-11-15T08:14:03.511Z In(05) vmx Progress 37% (none)
2021-11-15T08:14:15.540Z In(05) vmx Progress 38% (none)
2021-11-15T08:14:24.551Z In(05) vmx Progress 39% (none)
2021-11-15T08:14:30.224Z In(05) vmx Progress 40% (none)
2021-11-15T08:14:34.969Z In(05) vmx Progress 41% (none)
2021-11-15T08:14:40.380Z In(05) vmx Progress 42% (none)
2021-11-15T08:14:45.713Z In(05) vmx Progress 43% (none)
2021-11-15T08:14:54.455Z In(05) vmx Progress 44% (none)
2021-11-15T08:15:04.351Z In(05) vmx Progress 45% (none)
2021-11-15T08:15:09.656Z In(05) vmx Progress 46% (none)
2021-11-15T08:15:13.775Z In(05) vmx Progress 47% (none)
2021-11-15T08:15:18.792Z In(05) vmx Progress 48% (none)
2021-11-15T08:15:24.978Z In(05) vmx Progress 49% (none)
2021-11-15T08:15:35.077Z In(05) vmx Progress 50% (none)
2021-11-15T08:15:43.953Z In(05) vmx Progress 51% (none)
2021-11-15T08:15:50.541Z In(05) vmx Progress 52% (none)
2021-11-15T08:15:58.651Z In(05) vmx Progress 53% (none)
2021-11-15T08:16:04.689Z In(05) vmx Progress 54% (none)
2021-11-15T08:16:16.114Z In(05) vmx Progress 55% (none)
2021-11-15T08:16:26.312Z In(05) vmx Progress 56% (none)
2021-11-15T08:16:31.086Z In(05) vmx Progress 57% (none)
2021-11-15T08:16:35.712Z In(05) vmx Progress 58% (none)
2021-11-15T08:16:41.121Z In(05) vmx Progress 59% (none)
2021-11-15T08:16:50.515Z In(05) vmx Progress 60% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:00.024Z In(05) vmx Progress 61% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:08.469Z In(05) vmx Progress 62% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:12.693Z In(05) vmx Progress 63% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:15.704Z In(05) vmx Progress 64% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:17.881Z In(05) vmx Progress 65% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:20.446Z In(05) vmx Progress 66% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:23.999Z In(05) vmx Progress 67% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:36.623Z In(05) vmx Progress 68% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:41.629Z In(05) vmx Progress 69% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:45.905Z In(05) vmx Progress 70% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:50.368Z In(05) vmx Progress 71% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:54.434Z In(05) vmx Progress 72% (none)
2021-11-15T08:17:58.444Z In(05) vmx Progress 73% (none)
2021-11-15T08:18:02.433Z In(05) vmx Progress 74% (none)
2021-11-15T08:18:14.059Z In(05) vmx Progress 75% (none)
2021-11-15T08:18:20.656Z In(05) vmx Progress 76% (none)
2021-11-15T08:18:24.939Z In(05) vmx Progress 77% (none)
2021-11-15T08:18:29.502Z In(05) vmx Progress 78% (none)
2021-11-15T08:18:32.124Z In(05) vmx Progress 79% (none)
2021-11-15T08:18:34.684Z In(05) vmx Progress 80% (none)
2021-11-15T08:18:37.406Z In(05) vmx Progress 81% (none)
2021-11-15T08:18:40.368Z In(05) vmx Progress 82% (none)
2021-11-15T08:18:42.474Z In(05) vmx Progress 83% (none)
2021-11-15T08:18:45.158Z In(05) vmx Progress 84% (none)
2021-11-15T08:19:05.572Z In(05) vmx Progress 85% (none)
2021-11-15T08:19:10.941Z In(05) vmx Progress 86% (none)
2021-11-15T08:19:16.405Z In(05) vmx Progress 87% (none)
2021-11-15T08:19:23.402Z In(05) vmx Progress 88% (none)
2021-11-15T08:19:26.370Z In(05) vmx Progress 89% (none)
2021-11-15T08:19:27.645Z In(05) vmx MainMem: Prefetch 29405 MB from checkpoint (7527904 hot, 5776130 locked, lazy = 1).
....
2021-11-15T08:19:27.877Z In(05) mks SOCKET 4 (100) recv detected client closed connection
2021-11-15T08:19:27.877Z In(05) mks ISBRendererComm: ISBRendererComm Remote Disconnect: socket closed.
2021-11-15T08:19:27.877Z Wa(03) mks The vmx lost its connection to the mksSandbox.
2021-11-15T08:19:27.877Z Wa(03) mks The mksSandbox process may have crashed or hung.
2021-11-15T08:19:27.877Z Wa(03) mks Check the mksSandbox.log and vmware.log for more details.
2021-11-15T08:19:27.877Z Cr(01) mks PANIC: ISBRendererComm: Lost connection to mksSandbox (2878)
2021-11-15T08:19:27.877Z In(05) mks Panic: can't get userlevel lock.
2021-11-15T08:19:27.877Z Wa(03) mks 
2021-11-15T08:19:27.877Z Wa(03)+ mks The core dump limit is set to ZERO; no core dump should be expected

---

[TimothyHuckabay]

I too encountered this issue, immediately after upgrading to 16.2.1!  So, I downgraded Workstation Pro back to 16.1.2 (what I'd previously had), and my VM is again working!  VMware seems to no longer have good regression testing, suggesting that they and/or the company's software engineers / QA folks are of a lower grade than in the past.  VMware needs to get its act together!

[dagbj]

I encountered  this problem as well. My story is that I upgraded to 16.2.1 from 16.2.0, with a VM that had the HW upgraded.

Disabling 3D accelration enables me to access the VM. It looks to me that So this is a bug introduced with 16.2.1.

My setup is:

Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, kernel 5.11.0-40-generic
I'm using secure boot and got the modules signed and all well there.

If I understand things correctly one need the 3D accelration in the VM to have it pass the "win 11 upgrade test".

[Marko6823]

Gracias.. Se resolvio el problema.

Saludos

[Lars_Skjærlund]

I was a happy user of VMware Workstation on OpenSUSE 10 years ago.

Since our ways have parted, and everytime I've evaluated it in order to return to VMware, it fails like this.

I'm now running Ubuntu 21.10, and I've now spent almost a whole day trying to get a useful installation.

I'm running it on a Lenovo Carbon X1 gen. 6 with Core i7 CPU, 16 GB RAM, and 500 GB SSD. I've created a fresh Win10 install with 2 CPUs, 4 GB RAM, 60 GB disk fully allocated from the beginning - and yet you have to wait literally for minutes for response when you click something in the GUI.

Neither this time will VMware win me back as a customer.

[RDPetruska]

What version of Workstation are you using?  

There have been lots of reports of issues with 16.2.0 and 16.2.1.  Have you tried 16.1.2?

[Lars_Skjærlund]

I'm running 16.2.1 build-18811642.

Would a downgrade be worth a try?

[Lars_Skjærlund]

Downgrading to 16.1.2 helped a lot - but my 3D app still runs a lot slower than using Wine directly on Linux.

3D acceleration would surely help.

[smalburg]

what a king you are sir

[Mouri_Naruto]

I have met the same issue when a dialog box pops up too long at startup without selecting by me.

Maybe the mksSandbox thinks the connection to vmware-vmx has been timeouted.

Kenji Mouri

[RobRatcliff]

I created a clone of a migrated VM to 16.2, but the shrink failed with the same command. As suggested on this thread, I had to disable the 3D graphics to run "sudo vmware-toolbox-cmd disk shrink /".  

[lytzen]

Looks like version 16.2.2 is out. Has anyone tried to see if that works. I am running out of energy to keep trying new versions, which never work.

[RobRatcliff]

16.2.2 still requires that you disable 3d acceleration before doing the shrink operation.