Unable to get sound working in Workstation 7 running Linux guest.

[aurimask]

Unable to get sound working in Workstation 7 running Linux guest. I got the message "A device ID has been used that is out of range for your system. Sound will be disconnected." and have no sound on my Linux Mint virtual machine. The host is Windows 7 x64 bit. Please help. I am using VMware workstation 7.

[0WayneH0]

Rather coincidentally (or not) I also got that exact message not long ago with WS7.1, Win7 x64 host, but in a Win7 x86 guest. I'm not sure how to fix it, but it might suggest it's not specific to the guest. Fortunately for me I don't really need my sound to work in that particular guest; in fact I disabled it in the hope it will help my guest stop freezing up on me which is another story I won't go into here.

Sorry I can't offer any real solution/answer... more I am just adding additional information that might help someone else give a more considered answer.

Cheers.

EDIT: By "not long ago" I mean literally no more than 90 minutes ago. I have also seen it before that. Usually my sound is working fine, I get that message, then sound doesn't work.

[continuum]

post the vmware.log - it may have a hint

[aurimask]

I will ASAP

[aurimask]

Mar 30 09:56:58.259: vcpu-0| SOUND 021.890564 PCISoundWin32 mixerGetLineInfo error 1024

Mar 30 09:57:06.095: vcpu-0| [msg.sound.defaultbadwaveopen] The default sound device cannot be opened:
Mar 30 09:57:06.095: vcpu-0| A device ID has been used that is out of range for your system.
Mar 30 09:57:06.095: vcpu-0| [msg.pciSound.HostOpenDspChannelFailed] Sound will be disconnected.

[continuum]

is this a joke ???
some random lines when I asked for the vmware.log ???

[aurimask]

It is not random. It is what is connected to sound. Do not feel offended, i attached full log. By the way it is not related to Guest OS as i tried several linux distributions and the problem is the same.

[continuum]

no offense taken - you just missed the really important lines:

sound.present = TRUE
sound.fileName = -1  
sound.autodetect = TRUE

check with the GUI and do not use autodetect - instead select the device like in the screenshot

[aurimask]

I tried it this way, but the result is the same. Attaching vmware.log with NO autodetect.

[continuum]

don't you have other options available ?
the line
sound.fileName = Speakers (High Definition Audio

looks truncated to me

do other VMs work correctly with sound ?

[aurimask]

I have also noticed this, but i have two integrated audio devices and both are named the same. I tried to install several 32 bit and 64 bit linux distributions but get the same behaviour. Did not tried Windows Guest.

[continuum]

try a XP guest as a reference - sound in Linux guests is wizardy in some distributions 😉

[aurimask]

Tryied XP guest 32 bit Professional. Sound works perfectly. So it is somehow connected to Linux distributions. Any idea?

[continuum]

sorry - I am no Linux guy - I would search the forums for the distribution you use

[aurimask]

It seems that nobody need sound in Linux Guest and i am the only one who have this problem.

[continuum]

no - you are not - this problem is discussed every now and then - try to use the google site search against VMTN forum - you should come up with several hits

[0WayneH0]

For fun I set up a Ubuntu 10.10 guest and also couldn't get sound to work with the standard audio... same message every time:

A device ID has been used that is out of range for your system.
Sound will be disconnected.

So this wasn't all that hard to reproduce and feels like another bug in WMware.

Notably sound does work with my USB headset, so now I might aswell see if it locks up a Linux VM.

EDIT: "Works" (with USB) is probably not the right word... initially it appeared to work, but then sound is so broken and choppy its not worth it. It's broken and choppy under Win7 guest too, but not that bad.

[ykraps]

I had the same problem before but i found the solution and my sound works fine now. Check this site: http://www.printandweb.ca/2012/10/fix-for-vmware-player-sound-problem.html..

Hope it helps..

[play3r]

I was getting the same error message when running Fedora 18 in VMware Player 5.0.1 and I fixed it with a couple of configureation changes in Fedora.

In recent distributions of linux sound has been handled by PulseAudio.  In the past, I have had much better luck with Alsa.  However, I had found a fix that worked for pulseaudio in "real" installations and decided to try it in "virtual."

1) (in the guest host) modify /etc/asound.conf to contain only these lines:

   pcm.pulse { type pulse }
   ctl.pulse { type pulse }
   pcm.!default { type pulse }
   ctl.!default { type pulse }

[ I may have rebooted the guest host and or the virtual machine at this point ]

2) reconnect the "virtual" sound card

   right click on the speaker icon to the right of the VMware toolbar

3) from within (the guest host) linux (in my case Fedora) select the appropriate sound configuration hardware profile:

   in my case since, I just had stero speakers, I chose "Analog Stero Output"

Hope this helps you and others.