VMWare Workstation 14.1.2 build-8497320, locks up

[DickHinSC]

VMWare Workstation 14.1.2 build-8497320, locks up "non-responsive"; "waiting on IO" so says vmware.exe service. Workstation window becomes faded (2 "vmware.DMP" files available).  Host Can't Kill the app or the service, SO Only solution is complete Host CPU Poweroff then Restart.  And often the VM Guests  are damaged "beyond repair"  So Win 10 Pro kills all apps, keeps user data and installs a very fresh copy (like out of the box) of Win 10 WITHOUT any settings for local environment.  UGLY and Time Consuming.

Happens when switching to another Workstation VM tab, even when only one vm is powered on, others in shutdown mode. The powered on VM is damaged, as are all powered on VMs. See above.

Same VMs running GREAT on 3 active instances of VMPlayer.  Easy to switch between VMs (and host)

Dell Precision Tower 5820,  Intel Xenon W-2125, 64GB,  MR9440-8i SCSI Disk Device  Raid 5, Windows 10 Pro for Workstations 1803 17134.165  All Dell drivers and bios are current. All Dell's system tests pass.

I've been a workstation user since version 6 days.  First time I've run into non-responsive lockups that require host poweroff.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[DickHinSC]

Hello Susie, R U Still on this case?

Here's yet another Lockup requiring a CPU powerOff button then a CPU button restart to clear.  I'm just about to FTP some more files.

I had Workstation running one VM, and VMPlayer "running" another VM but I'd not even logged on to it. After a full day of just sitting there, I clicked on a tab on the browser (in Workstation VM); Workstation Window paled and said non responsive in Task manager.  Then I clicked on player, it too went pale, non-responsive in task manager.  Trying "shutdown" in host cmd of WS or Player VM failed.  Restarting Workstation Service in Host's Services MMC didn't do anything.   Tried restarting host.  After 2 hours waiting on host to restart, only choice was to use the host power Off Button

Since I haven't heard from you or Anyone (in VM) in almost 3 days, I can only assume there's no Fix.  Sad and Disappointing.  Since I'm "on my own", I guess I'll just wait for 14.5.x should it ever show up. I hope I haven't WASTED my upgrade fee.

[DickHinSC]

Well, it looks like there was some action,  The FTP file uploader no longer likes the ID and PW Susie gave to me.  Oh Well...figures.

[AngryNapkin]

After a full day of just sitting there, I clicked on a tab on the browser (in Workstation VM); Workstation Window paled and said non responsive in Task manager.

Any chance its related so some power settings? Maybe the host is trying to hibernate or something causing vmware to become stupid.

Also...may be unrelated or not...but I have experienced windows 10 doesn't like to come back from sleep...at least not on the PC's at work. I had to disable the hibernation on them, because every time...when sitting idle for a half hour, they would try and hibernate...then when coming back up, the network was all jacked, reboot required. Don't know why, but setting the hibernation to never fixed the "Physical" machine issues with windows 10.  Maybe the same issue is effecting VMware as well?

Just my 2 cents, may be worth nothing.

[DickHinSC]

I wish that were the cause. My host settings are no sleep no hibernation screen always on etc. thanks for comment. Are you now running as expected?

[AngryNapkin]

Are you now running as expected?

No. I went to VirtualBox for the mean time. Working much better than VMware and Free. Zero kernel crashes. Running multiple VM's with mush IO, Zero issues.

I paid for this software, I would expect it to work....All Ill get is my OS is not supported I am sure. Its not worth reinstalling a "supported" OS, just to prove it still doesn't work. I hope my logs can show something usefull, I would really like to get this software working.

Using it in windows 10 wont work for me either because dell produced a laptop with poor USB 3 drivers that doesn't work in windows 10 and I have a VM that needs lots of storage and is running off a USB3 connection. USB3 works flawless in Linux.

[Susie201110141]

Dick,

Thanks for the reminder! I can understand your situation.
Could you told me the filenames you uploaded to the ftp ? Since there are too many files, It's hard to find them without filenames.

[Susie201110141]

Hi AngryNapkin,

Thanks for uploading the file. We'll investigate it with the data vm-2018-07-24.4966.tgz .

[DickHinSC]

Names of files I uploaded:  DMP-1.zip and DMP-2.zip on  7/17/2018 That's 13 days ago!!

I have several more that I could NOT upload since FTP id/pw were closed.

[AngryNapkin]

Thanks for uploading the file. We'll investigate it with the data vm-2018-07-24.4966.tgz .

Thanks for looking into it. I hope to hear good news soon.

[Susie201110141]

Dick,

These two DMP files have been investigated last week. We suspect it may relate to windows code, so I asked you to try some scenarios last week.

Could you upload new logs with following access? Since I can't reproduce locally, I have to ask for your support.

"FTP Server: ftpsite.vmware.com

User:   inbound

Pwd:    inbound

Port:   21

You can retrieve any file that is uploaded to this site via either http or ftp. Via http:

http://ftpsite.vmware.com/inbound/ftp/

".

Thanks for your continous support!

[DickHinSC]

Thanks for followup.  I've FTP-uploaded several files, logs, dmps. from both Workstation and vmplayer 14.1.2.

I've seen similar crashes, locks, etc with Win10Pro64, Win8.1Pro64 as well as Win7x64 VMs.  To keep things simple I've used one VM at a time and to show the myriad of problems is  not an "interaction" between various OS VMs.  Note that all these VM images run as expected on Workstation 12.5.9, even with 4 Win10s, 2 Win 7s and 1 Win8.1 running simultaneously (all using proper version VMTools)

Note also, that When Workstation and/or vmplayer are NOT running, and the host does a copy of a Very big file (50 GB) from Host HD to NAS, task manager on the host shows 960Mbits/sec ethernet speed (that's host to nas).  But when I start Workstation but not running any VM, ethernet speed on the inprogress copy drops to 500 range. If I watch ethernet speeds for a while, it drops to ZERO with random spikes to only 11 Mbits/sec.  and the copy says remaining time in double digits of hours.

So.  I see 1) Lockups, many requiring powering off host; 2) After several hours VMs apps slow to a crawl and soon lockup; 3) Doesn't matter if VMs on workstation or Player or both, tho Player-run VMs seem to run longer as long as only one VM is running.  4) I've even done what I know will be slow:  Run 14 Workstation on a Win7 VM (problems!) and Run 12.5.9 Workstation on a Win10 VM (no problems).  All tests in #4 are running on the Dell 5820 hardware with Win10Pro OS that I've described earlier.  5) And Yes, I've even Reinstalled (repair option) WS 14.1.2. 6) And finally, all host and VM OSs are x64, none are Linux.

I hope a solution arrives Very Soon.  Please.

[Susie201110141]

Dick,

Except the 2 DMP files, which logs have you uploaded? Could you share me the file name?I can't find them without filename. Thanks!

[DickHinSC]

Susie201110141,

As per your request, here are the seven file names of what I uploaded via FTP earlier today.

LockUpScreenShot.docx

player.log

playerUploadedData.log

vmplayer.DMP

workstation.log

W7x64PoweredOff_vmsupport-2018-07-23-20-18.zip

W7x64Running_vmsupport-2018-07-23-20-35.zip

[bonnie201110141]

Can you point out where the other threads are that are discussing similar host unresponsive issue? And can you upload your support bundle via ftp:

FTP Server: ftpsite.vmware.com

User: inbound

Pwd: inbound

Port: 21

Please let me know your filename that is uploaded. Thanks a lot!

[Susie201110141]

DickHinSC,

Thanks so much for your great support!

[bonnie201110141]

Hi DickHinSC,

I see from your screenshot, when the issue occurs, disk I/O is 100%. Can I ask a few questions?

1) If you don't power on any VM, everything will be running well. The issue only arises when you power on a VM. Correct?

2) How long have you been running VMs before you ran into such lock-up issue?

3) Can you try to add below file to .vmx file under your VM directory? (Please shut down VM before adding the line)?

mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"

4) If 3) does not work, can you try to turn off any security scanner program on your host?

[bonnie201110141]

Hi DickHinSC,

Can you please do a few more things?

1) Please enable log in VM settings > Options > Advanced > Gather debugging information to Full. Please collect support bundle again when the issue occurs.

2) When the issue occurs, the disk I/O is 100%. At this time, can you check which process are using most disk bandwidth?

Thanks  a lot!

[DickHinSC]

Hi Bonnie201110141,

1)  Correct.  But if I run workstation then do not power on a VM I believe that host only disk i/o and ethernet slows down  and gets slower over time.  I don't recall running player but not powering on a selected vM.

2) At least a couple of hours, sometimes longer.  Workstation locks up quicker than player.  I believe that what slows down disk i/o eventually slows down to lockup.  Tonight it took player an hour to suspend the win7 VM that I've been using for our analysis.  Sometime, maybe a half an hour after player finished the suspend and the shutfdown I restarted player and tried to start the suspended Win7 VM.  restart took well over half an hour.  Note the the VMs are in the 😧 partition of the main HD, During the suspend and resume, Disk I/o was at 100% and average response time was showing at 1-20 secs.  Note, that I chose to use player since it seems to run longer than workstation before problems start showing up.

3), 4) I'll get back to you on this.  The only security scanner is Defender on the host (and on win 8 and win 10 VMs) and Security Essentials on the Win7 VMs.  I don't want to use any system that requires me to shut off Microsoft's security scanners.

[DickHinSC]

Bonnie,

I have a question:  What do you mean by "If it does not work..."?

In your reply #36 you say

3) Can you try to add below file to .vmx file under your VM directory? (Please shut down VM before adding the line)?

mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"

4) If 3) does not work,

I put the line in the VMX file (and set the debugging to full as you requested) and started the VM in Workstation.  The VM appears to be running, but for how long I do not know.  So what am I to be watching for that may not "work"?

[bonnie201110141]

By "If it does not work", I mean you ran into the lock-up issue again 🙂

Please enable logging as I indicated above (in vm settings > Options > Advanced). When you ran into the issue again, please collect support bundle again, and also check which process is occupying the most disk bandwidth. Thanks for your support and sorry for the trouble!