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MB1980
Contributor
Contributor

USB Device Causing VM's to Freeze - Cannot Kill vmware-vmx.exe

Hi,

I'm having an intermittent issue when attaching Huawei mifi devices to my Windows 7 VM's
using Vmware Workstation 15.

Most of time it works fine and the mifi device appears and works with the vm, other times the vm
freezes and cannot be shutdown via the vmware workstation menu.

The only way I've been able to free up the vm again is to restart the host, which is a pain to do
several times a day as I have a host of apps and other vm's working fine.

I have several mifi devices and they all seem to work ok most of the time with the vm's, but
they've all caused the crash at some point. I've tried using different USB
Ports on the PC and a TPLINK USB hub - same intermittent issue.

What usually happens is thje mifi initially connects to the host pc, then I manually select the
connect to vm option. The driver starts installing in the vm, then it freezes.

After googling around it seems I just need to kill off the vmware-vmx.exe process. The
issue is I cannot seem to kill it! Nothing happens when using Task Manager -
just remains there. Tried elevated command prompt, trying to kill using PID an
name. Same with elevated powershell. I can end the Workstation tasks, but when
I relaunch the app, the vm is still running in
a frozen state.

So, I'd be really grateful if someone could help me troubleshoot and
resolve both or one of the following:

  1. VM's are sometimes crashing when I attach the Huawei mifi devices
  2. I cannot kill the vmware-vmx.exe without having to restart the host each time it happens

Host PC:

Windows 10 Pro

Asus  ROG STRIX X299

I9-9980XE

64GB Corsair Vengeance
DDR4 3000MHZ

Many thanks!

42 Replies
cegidbzh
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

I face the same issue for months. I upgrade my workstation regularly. Now, I'm in v15.5.6 build-16341506 and It occured twice today.

I'm still trying to identify the root cause.

Now, I guess it's related with my Logitech mouse : Mx Master 2S connected by Bluetooth.

Any clue for a fix ?

Bye,

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capvar
Contributor
Contributor

My VM freeze when connecting a usb hdd drive, I also use a MX Master Mouse but with bluetooth (without issues)

15.5.6 version on windows 10 Home build 2004

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uvdevnull
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

A year later, v16.1.2 still fails the same way, total freeze when attempting USB passthrough.

Popup error attached

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