VMware Communities
AndCycle
Contributor
Contributor

vmware-authd.exe eats cpu periodically

I just really wanna know why it eats cpu periodically even there is no vmware running,

this simply kill my battery power for no reason,

I have to manually shutdown VMware Authorization Service for peace :<

26 Replies
devzero
Expert
Expert

iirc, i have seen vmware-authd running amok a long time ago.

would you please provivide some more details about cpu usage?

(vmstat output, screenshots , whatever)

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AndCycle
Contributor
Contributor

ok, here is a really large screenshot at attached file, I use dual monitor,

I have tried start/stop VMware Authorization Service for sure,

and it indeed eats my cpu like this, and I really get lots of stuff on this laptop lol

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devzero
Expert
Expert

that looks very similar to what i have seen at that time

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AndCycle
Contributor
Contributor

hope there is a solution for this problem,

I seen some posts have same question like this on board but nobody answer them

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Luke_J_Smith
Contributor
Contributor

Still happening in the final version of Workstation 7.

Not good.

Love to hear from VMware on the issue and what they are doing about it.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

if possible don't run the vmauthd-service at all

it is a resource hog - it scans for non-existing registry entries several times a second - fills the eventlog with alerts and so on

I have seen some registry hacks to reduce this useless activity but I don't find them anymore - if you want to search yourself see in the ws7 beta -section




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

it gets slightly better if you set

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib

Disable performance Counters to 0

the authdservice still reads this key 30 times in one second - then it pauses for 5 seconds and starts again Smiley Sad

- but now at least it is successful






___________________________________

VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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bobby32wf
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Still happening in WS 7.0.1 despite a bug being opened for the issue in the WS 7 beta, see and for more details.

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twinbit
Contributor
Contributor

Yes its still happening. Just realized my notebook battery drain because of this. I cant remember for how long this bug exists, but it should broke the 2 years mark by now.

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rharry
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

We have a fix, will show up in the next point release of Workstation.

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bobby32wf
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Great news. Many thanks for the update.

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dtoomey
Contributor
Contributor

What about VMWare Player? Same problem shows up in v3.0.1. Is this going to be fixed as well?

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rharry
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

yep.

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rharry
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

The fix is included in the Release Candidate, now available from the beta portal. Please try it out and let us know if it resolves the problem for you.

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zhangxi
Contributor
Contributor

Problem still exists in the latest WS7.1, authd eats up to 20% CPU on my dual-core laptop. Very annoying and defeats the processor voltage scaling. Shorten my battery life from 6 hours to 4 hours.

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bobby32wf
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Take a look at my post here, following the steps in the MS KB article resolved the issue for me.

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zhangxi
Contributor
Contributor

Great. Thanks. The trick works!

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draza
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

I'm not sure what the problem is but I can't access the post linked below (the one with the workaround in MS KB article).

I have VMWare 7.1.4 on Win7 x64 and the problem is still there (sigh). vmware-authd.exe eats both CPU (periodically spiking to 10%) and memory (when left 'unattended' will eat few GB in a few weeks).

Needless to say, this is extremely annoying. Do we really need this service? If so, what for? When can we expect the fix?

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brettm523
Contributor
Contributor

I bought Workstation 8 hoping this problem would finally be solved and it's still not.  Is there at least a solution pending?  I've already done the registry tweak to no avail.  15% cpu spike every 5 seconds from a fresh boot with no VMs or even VMWare open.  This problem has been around for years so I'm surprised it still hasn't been addressed.

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