VMWare Workstation Pro V16.1 and V16.2 Guest OS freezes.

[aloudermilk]

Why does my guest VM's become unresponsive without affecting  ProV16.1 and V16.2 or my host OS (Win10 latest). I cannot power off the guest OS or close it without rebooting my host PC. This did not occur with the same VMs with V16.0 or prior.

[scott28tt]

Thread reported so moderators can move it to the area for Workstation Pro, since this has nothing at all to do with a vSphere security advisory.

[aloudermilk]

For future reference can you show me the link to the VMware workstation Pro section?

[scott28tt]

Look at the path shown above your opening comment, now a moderator has moved it…

[wila]

Hi,

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@aloudermilk wrote:

For future reference can you show me the link to the VMware workstation Pro section?

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The link is: https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Pro/bd-p/3023

re. The original question.

What guest OS are you running?

Does it help if you disable 3D acceleration?

Have you tried to lower the amount of virtual CPU's?

Did you check any of the options in the CPU configuration for "virtualization engine"? If so, have you tried removing all checkboxes there?

--
Wil

[aloudermilk]

I can check all that stuff, just to be sure you understand. These VMs ran perfectly fine on V16.0 but started having problems with V16.1 onward. Does this fact change any of your recommendations>

[wila]

Hi,

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@aloudermilk wrote:

I can check all that stuff, just to be sure you understand. These VMs ran perfectly fine on V16.0 but started having problems with V16.1 onward. Does this fact change any of your recommendations>

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Not really no.

Also note that beyond VMware Workstation version updates, other changes, like configuration changes and updates to your host OS also affect how things run in a VM.

--
Wil

[aloudermilk]

re. The original question.

What guest OS are you running?

PC-

Device name ???
Processor Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-11855M CPU @ 3.20GHz 3.19 GHz
Installed RAM 32.0 GB (31.2 GB usable)
Device ID BAC2B41F-8EED-4700-997C-4E7??
Product ID ???
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

OS-

Edition Windows 10 Pro for Workstations
Version 21H2
Installed on ‎12/‎20/‎2021
OS build 19044.1526
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4170.0

Does it help if you disable 3D acceleration?

Disabled now

Have you tried to lower the amount of virtual CPU's?

was 1 CPU and 6 cores, lowered to 1 CPU and 2 cores

Did you check any of the options in the CPU configuration for "virtualization engine"? If so, have you tried removing all checkboxes there?

No Virtualization
--
Allan

[aloudermilk]

I made the changes/checks detailed above/below. I had 2 VMs lock up today. One was Win11 and the other was Win10 late version with updates.

[aloudermilk]

Win10-Version 10.0.19042 Build 19042

Win11-Version 10.0.22000 Build 22000

[wila]

Hi Allan,

Sorry for the late reply, things are a little crazy here, so not much time left for the forum.

Can you attach a vmware.log file from one of the problematic VM's please? You can locate that file in the VM's folder.

--
Wil

[aloudermilk]

Windows 11 VM

[aloudermilk]

Windows 10 VM

[aloudermilk]

Do you need more info from me?

[wila]

Hi,

No, don't need more info, just have been very busy and barely had time to visit the VMware forum.

Had a look at the logs now.
The Hyper-V role is properly disabled, so that at least is not part of the issues you see.

Your host certainly is very capable, I don't think it is a resource problem either.

The only thing I notice is that there are a lot of shared folders.. I would probably test and see if it is triggering this issue. If you disable the shared folder feature, do you still see the issue?
Also noticed overlaps in the shares.

Like sharing folder "F:\" and also "F:\Somepath\under\Fdrive" which have caused issues with VMware Tools in the past. So might want to disable the overlap to test (just to make sure)

Lastly I notice that a DVDRom is attached - at least on the Win10 VM - and that has in the past also been cause of trouble. So I would disconnect the DVD iso. This isn't on the Win11 VM, so probably not your issue.

It might also be a good idea to open a support case with VMware (I don't work for VMware)

Hope this helps,
--
Wil

[aloudermilk]

Thanks so much for your assistance and I will try those things you said and if it doesn't work I've been a little puzzled as to how to elevate to a support issue with VMware, if you can post a link that I can submit a support request, please let me know.

Allan

[wila]

Allan,

A link to support is here: https://www.vmware.com/support/workstation

Note that this issue is reported by more people. Haven't seen a workaround for it yet, so if you find out more than please report back.

Also note that some people have decided to roll back to Workstation 16.1.2 which does not appear to have this issue.

If you do decide to roll back to 16.1.2 then make sure that your VMs virtual hardware is set to be compatible with Workstation 16.1 and not only Workstation 16.2 as you wouldn't be able to start your VM in the latter case.

--
Wil

[cces]

I've experienced the same issues

I have a Threadripper 3970x with 128GB RAM running Ubuntu 20.04 as the Host system.

I am using Workstation Pro 16.2 running Ubuntu 20.04 as a guest ( I use this for custom development environments and experimentation)

I found that removing the shared drives, limiting number of CPUs to 1 and cores to 8 gave the best performance and minimized the freezing effect

[mimixiku_jp]

Hi All,

I found the vmware is not compatible with Hyper-V which may have been enabled in Windows Host. I did as the link below, and finally I get a stable vmware environment now. Then I upgraded to the latest version, it still works weel then.

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2146361

Hope this will help you!

Regards