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ndavie
Contributor
Contributor

VM Workstation 16.1->16.2.1 on Ubuntu 21.10 broke everything

Ubuntu 21.10

I was annoyed to find shared VMs gone in 16, I was able to limp along and everything was fine until I "upgraded" and now I can't even create a VM.  

VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (mks)
ISBRendererComm: Lost connection to mksSandbox (2878)
A log file is available in "/home/ndavie/Documents/vmware/AME 21H1/vmware.log".
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To collect data to submit to VMware support, choose "Collect Support Data" from the Help menu.
You can also run the "vm-support" script in the Workstation folder directly.
We will respond on the basis of your support entitlement.

 

 

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67 Replies
JosephLS
Contributor
Contributor

I hadn't used my VM-WS for over a month. Your solution worked like a charm. Brilliant work, you!

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JosephLS
Contributor
Contributor

I hadn't used my VM-WS for over a month.

Environment: 

  • System76 oryx pro-2018
  • VMware Workstation 16.2.1

Your solution worked like a charm. Brilliant work, you!

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vodkanaut
Contributor
Contributor

Today i hesitantly updated to the new  v 16.2.3  and post update everything is working without issue 😄  no errors 

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tylerbevan
Contributor
Contributor

Hi vodkanaut,

I'm assuming that is having already used the workaround?

I haven't used the workaround yet I'm just sticking to an older kernel but I upgraded to 16.2.3 hoping they'd included a fix for later kernels but the vmmon / vmnet issues persist

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robertmglynn
Contributor
Contributor

I had to re-apply the workaround(s) yesterday, after updating PopOS. I had updated VMWare Workstation to 16.2.3 build-19376536 immediately prior, hoping the issue was fixed, but no. This is about the fifth time I've had to do this, and it makes me wary of applying updates to my OS, which is not a good thing for sure.

Help me understand: this appears to be an issue caused by poor engineering on the part of VMWare, and not anything Linux devs are responsible for; correct? Does Workstation just not function for anybody on an updated Ubuntu-esque OS? This seems to be a catastrophic failure on the part of VMWare, so I don't understand why it hasn't been addressed. I can't imagine only some Ubuntu users are affected, nor that Ubuntu users are such a minority that they can be ignored. Is it so?

Is VMWare even aware of the situation?

cschance
Contributor
Contributor

Some Linux distributions pick a version of the Linux kernel and stay with that version long-term. Sticking with one version of the kernel gets you stability at the expense of receiving various features / improvements that are added with subsequent kernel versions.

System 76 updates the kernel in Pop!_OS every few months, presumably because that's value-added for the folks that buy their hardware (their systems will work with more peripherals, get various performance tweaks, et cetera). The issue with VMware is due to the kernel updates, not something related specifically to Ubuntu-based distributions (...at least, that's my present understanding).

System 76 includes their kernelstub utility specifically to roll back to earlier versions of the kernel. You can see what version of the kernel you're presently running with something like neofetch.

Plenty of other distributions also update the kernel, so I'm also curious why this seems to be such a headache with Pop specifically.

sabennett
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I upgraded my Pop_OS to that latest kernel "5.16.15-76051615-generic"

Workstation Pro 16.2.1 started without issue (but in case it doesn't try the steps below using 16.2.1 instead of the 16.2.3)

I then upgraded Workstation Pro to 16.2.3 and indeed I had compile issues.

I used the following commands to solve my compile issue against Workstation Pro 16.2.3 (Note you can run this against most version of Workstation Pro by replacing the version number "16.2.3" with your Workstation Pro version, for example "16.2.1")

wget https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules/archive/workstation-16.2.3.tar.gz

tar -xzf workstation-16.2.3.tar.gz

cd vmware-host-modules-workstation-16.2.3

tar -cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only

tar -cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only

sudo cp -v vmmon.tar vmnet.tar /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/

sudo vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

 

 

 

wilbur_harvey_h
Contributor
Contributor

These instructions allowed me to run Vmware Workstation Pro 16.2.3 on Ubuntu 22.04 (2022-Apr-20 daily build)

nabucodonosor78
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks a lot  davidhartleyllc,

Works fine for my system.

I'm running  Ubuntu 22.04 , with  Kernel 5.15.0-25-generic, the Vmware are 16.2.0 build-18760230.

 

Thanks.

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thooijer
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks!

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Budurk
Contributor
Contributor

I found this article that contained step-by-step instructions that worked:
https://www.itzgeek.com/how-tos/linux/ubuntu-how-tos/how-to-install-vmware-workstation-16-pro-on-ubu...

Only step that might confuse someone is building the script.

Change to the /misc/sign-vmware-modules/ directory and create the file signingscript

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gbruno
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The thread is rather old now, but I want to communicate my solution to this problem which I experienced, too.

For me, the error was that the link in /boot/vmlinux pointed to the wrong kernel-image, i. e. not on the kernel running actualy. After editing the link to point on the actual kernel running, the problem was solved. Perhaps this hint maybe helpful for you after such a long time. It is possible that the error was resolved by itself, because any time a new kernel-image is installed, the link in vmlinux is updated automatically.

Greetings GBruno Germany

Ubuntu version 22.04, 20.04.4, Processor intel i5, 16 GB Ram
gbruno
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hallo,

I Think that I found an easier way to solve this issue one times for all.

The steps mentioned above are correct. With vmplayer, after running the install-routine, in the directory /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source you find the tarball vmmon.tar. After unpacking it, you have the new directors vmmon-only. In the subdirectory include there is the corrupt file "vm_asm_x86.h". You change it as described above, and then you create a new tarball vmmon.tar (before you should rename the original vmmon.tar to something like vmmon.tar_orig or so). Then the compiling of vmmon.ko works from within the initial screen "We have to compile some modules first" or so without any problems. The modules vmmon.ko and vmnet.ko are installed in the correct places and vmplayer starts as usually (and works!!). I tried it with several kernel versions 15.4.x to vmlinuz-5.15.0-37-generic with success.

I believe that the installation-routine takes its data from the real tarball and not from the subdirectory vmmon-only. Hereby I add my newly created vmmon.tar for trying. Sorry, doesn't work: "The file type (.tar) is not supported. "

 

Ubuntu version 22.04, 20.04.4, Processor intel i5, 16 GB Ram
Tags (2)
gbruno
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I succeeded in creating a zip-file which ought to be permitted for uploading.

By the way, although I deal with the vmplayer, I suppose that my proceeding is valid for the workstation, too.

Don't know if someone else found this solution before, sorry.

Greetings

G.Bruno, Germany

Ubuntu version 22.04, 20.04.4, Processor intel i5, 16 GB Ram
Tags (2)
angcaruso
Contributor
Contributor

@gbruno your updated/fixed vmmon.tar worked for me. Thanks!

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Zumto
Contributor
Contributor

@gbrunoYour modified vmmon.tar worked for me too! Ubuntu 20.04 and Player 16.2.3, latest kernel. Thank you so much!

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RobRawson
Contributor
Contributor

Have this issue in 16.2.3 on OpenSuSE Leap 15.3. Was able to workaround by commenting out lines 90-99 in vmnet.c.

Linux SIEM-IAM 5.3.18-150300.59.81-default #1 SMP Sat Jul 9 12:59:06 UTC 2022 (a2f05f3) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Seems like there was some sort of a change in how versions are being reported.

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BaronKrause
Contributor
Contributor

Module install seems broken again with the new 5.18.10 kernel Pop OS just pushed out. Modules install fine again when booting from the previous 5.17.15 kernel.

jpp71
Contributor
Contributor

Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS => VMware® Workstation 16-2-1  is broken : compilation problem,

tried https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Player/VMware-player-broken-with-last-Linux-ker... but remaining a lot of compilation problems

downloaded your vmmon.tar => compilation ok, VMware-Workstation is launching, but fails to start VM : some cryptic version problem.

Thanks you : it was easy now to use VMware-Workstation update menu to update to 16.2.4 => compilation is ok , vm is starting,

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logan71f100
Contributor
Contributor

same issue here brother

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