VMWare Workstation 10 always fails to start Guest VMs with: VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (vcpu-0) vcpu-0:VMM fault 13: src=MONITOR rip=0xfffffffffc2c89bd regs=0xfffffffffc008e60

[drjohn]

After almost every MS Windows Update (Windows 7 x64 Ultimate)  VMware Workstation 10 (build-1379776)  is unable to start any Guest VMs,  and reports the Error:

VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (vcpu-0)

vcpu-0:VMM fault 13: src=MONITOR rip=0xfffffffffc2c89bd regs=0xfffffffffc008e60

Sometimes doing a System restore to the previous state will fix the issue,   and re-applying the MS Windows update doesn't cause the issue.

But this time,  it's just not working.....

I'm looking for any help debugging this issue..

I've attached the vmware.log and core files from one instance of where this occurs,  but the logs look similar:

FILE: FileCreateDirectoryRetry: Non-retriable error encountered (C:\ProgramData\VMware): Cannot create a file when that file already exists (183)

FILE: FileDeletionRetry: Non-retriable error encountered (D:\Downloads\hadooptutorial_v1\hadoop-virtual-machine\hadoop-vm-appliance-0-18-0\hadoop-vm-appliance-0-18-0\hadoop-appliance-0.18.0.vmx~): The system cannot find the file specified (2)

seem to be the visible errors,  but, I'm at a loss.....

Any suggestions GREATLY appreciated.

John

P.S.   Yes,  I've uninstall and re-installed VMWare Workstation several times to try and fix this...

Message was edited by: drjohn

[admin]

It's rather unusual to be executing the code on that path in the first place.  Are you running another (non-VMware) hypervisor on this system concurrently?

[drjohn]

Nope.  I've a VMWare guy through and through!

No VirtualBox, no VirtualPC, etc....

John

[admin]

No covert hypervisors, like McAfee Deep Defender?

[drjohn]

Not that I'm aware of.

How could I be sure that some software doesn't have a hypervisor component?

Microsoft Security Essentials

BitDefender

MalwareBytes

are my malware/AV of choice.

Any specific tools to be aware of?

John

[admin]

McAfee Deep Defender is the only one I'm aware of, though I'm sure there will be more.

Your CPU is acting very strangely.  The core dump shows that Workstation believes the CPU is already in VMX operation (i.e. that the hardware-assisted virtualization features of the CPU have been enabled).  There isn't a direct way of testing this, but we did try to put the CPU into VMX operation by executing a VMXON instruction, and we were unsuccessful.  That instruction didn't fault, but it did fail, and there are only a few reasons why it would fail.  All of them can be ruled out except for the CPU already being in VMX operation.  After that, we tried to issue a VMPTRST instruction to save the current VMCS pointer of the other hypervisor that presumably was running.  That was the instruction that raised the #GP fault.  If the CPU had not been in VMX operation, the VMPTRST should have raised a #UD exception.  Hence, the #GP would imply that the CPU was, in fact, in VMX operation.  However, there are very few reasons that the VMPTRST would raise a #GP, and none of them seem to apply, based on the contents of the dump.

Either Workstation is running under a virtual CPU that poorly emulates the VMX extensions, or the physical hardware is defective.

Is your BIOS up-to-date?  Are you seeing anything else strange on this system?

[drjohn]

The box "is" old, (Nvidia 680iLT)[2.40 gigahertz Intel Core2 Quad] but the bios is the latest,  and only VMWare recently seems to be having issues.

I've run Workstation 7,9,10 on this same box over the years, and only recently seen this specific problem.

This is my "main" home system, and runs 24x7.   I regularly play online and local video games on it (stressing the graphics, and CPU system)

I run the physical memory up to about 90% used at times.  (Not always.  🙂   )

As I said usually it fails after a windows update,  but usually rolling it back and trying again gets it to run fine for weeks....

Working fine,  then reboot and not working.....

Beyond my pay grade..  🙂

Any ideas for additional tests?

Anybody??

John

[drjohn]

Other ideas?

I'm having to run VMWare on my laptop at this point, and would like to go back to my normal process...

Thanks for all the suggestions so far!

John

Still looking for some other tests or changes I can make, in order to get Workstation 10 working again!!!

Thanks again.

John