Workstation 16.2 apparently destroyed my VMs

[detechwriter]

I had been having problems with Workstation 16.1.x freezing after about 1 hour. Uninstalled antivirus, added exceptions for the folders containing the VMs, tried different external HDs. Nothing helped. Upgraded to 16.2. Now I've had to downgrade back to 16.1.2 and rebuild all my VMs. Whether a Windows VM or an Ubuntu VM, they all would not start. I could not launch them in 16.2 or in 16.1.2 - no chance to do anything like upgrade, repair, etc. 

[Kenneth_Fortner]

I had this same issue. Has anyone tried 16.2.2 to see if the issue is fixed?

[Arendeth]

Unfortunately, the current releases still break Vmware's Workstations snapshot feature so for now still with 16.12 until they fix it (might be different for linux I've only tested it with my windows 11 vm)

[Arendeth]

I meant I recommend just using version 16.1.2 of vmware workstation for now.

[jibunnokage]

Same issue, 30 year IT enterprise engineer, worked with VMware since 2002, even before VMware was a public company or common knowledge.  I say this to establish I have extensive knowledge and experience with VMware solutions.  I must say that I am quite disappointed in VMware Workstation 16.  I consistently have Debian 11 VMs freezing on Windows 10 hosted VMs.  This does not happen in KVM or even Hyper-V.  What is more surprising is that VMware clearly has not addressed this issue actively.  There are sufficient customers noted comparable issues in this forum if not this thread alone.  Have rebuilt VM and reinstalled VM OS many times, still random freezing results.

Technical information...

VMware Windows Player Version...
16.2.2 build-19200509

Windows 10...
Edition Windows 10 Pro
Version 21H2
Installed on ‎9/‎23/‎2021
OS build 19044.1469
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0

VM OS, Debian 11 Version...
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="11"
VERSION="11 (bullseye)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bullseye
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

VM OS Kernel Version...
Linux frenzy 5.10.0-11-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.92-1 (2022-01-18) x86_64 GNU/Linux

[rickmacd]

I just installed 16.2.2 to fix the 00005 exception problem. I took one snapshot and it seemed to work. Can you describe in what ways snapshots are broken?

[detechwriter]

Hi, sorry I have not replied sooner. I have loaded 16.2.2 build-19200509, and it's been working normally. Whatever the issue was seems to be resolved now.

[drimser]

I cannot agree.

I upgraded this morning to version 16.2.2. After this two of my main VMs were not usable. Because of lack of time I stopped further investigations (I had to uninstall current version, install old 16.1.0 version and find my license ...).

My daily work is based on local VMs. Usually I run 2 to 3 VMs the whole day, sometimes 5 to 6 VMs. My host is on Windows11 now, but I had this issue with Windows 10 too.

[Arendeth]

@rickmacd are you able to load the snapshot though last time I used the latest version of vmware snapshots were broken when loading them up.

[jibunnokage]

I recently upgraded to latest VMware Player, and the issues I was seeing seemed to disappear.  But, I did a full uninstall, and reinstall of VMware Player to 16.2.3 build-19376536, versus an upgrade in place.  While the upgrade-in-place, is actually an uninstall and reinstall of VMware Player, I also recreated the VMs only keeping the VMDK files.  So far so good.  I even created a new a Windows 10 Pro based VM (using media ISO generated from older VM) to TPM enabled, secure boot and with UEFI support.  The new Windows 10 to 11 based VM seems to be functional and stable.  An in place conversion going from MBR to GPT is the next logical test of course.

[KeithMorrell]

I have had the same issue (VMWare Workstation 16.2.4 - any new Centos7.9x64 VM I built just hung intermittently - very annoying after several attempts to build some new VM's. Existing VM's seemed to be fine, but they may be 16.x not 16.2.x builds.

So, based on some of the info here, I tried building another one using 16.x (not 16.2) compatibility, and so far this has worked fine.

All going well so far, so my recomendation is not buuld anythign new on 16.2.x compatinbility - this looks to be broken!