VMwareTools 8.8.2 update killed Xorg display

[adminmark]

I was happily running a RHEL 6.2 guest in VMware Workstation 8 on Windows 7, until the VMware Tools 8.8.2 update. After installing this update, the vmware-tools-config.pl no longer recognizes the version of Xorg (1.10), and trashed my X setup and display. Now I am limited to a 1024x720 display, instead of the full monitor resolution of 1920x1200. Mind you all this was running fine with VMware Tools 8.8.1, which unfortunately I did not save. So my question is where can I find a copy of VMware Tools 8.8.1 to re-install until they fix the problems created in 8.8.2, or is there something else I can do to fix this?

[admin]

According to http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html-single/Package_Manifest/index.html, RHEL 6.2 repositories have both the xorg-x11-drv-vmmouse and xorg-x11-drv-vmware packages. Install those packages and you should be good to go. If not, please let me know.

  - Ryan

[adminmark]

Thanks for the suggestion. I checked and both of those packages are installed already. I am still limited to 1280x720 on the display which was my original complaint and am not sure what configuration file got trashed during the upgrade to cause this. My previous display was set to 1920x1200.

Thanks,

Mark

[admin]

Hey Mark,

Bummer. Okay, time to put my diagnostics hat on forreals.

If you wouldn't mind collecting some debug info, I'd like you to have a look at http://communities.vmware.com/message/1840388#1840388 and grab VMware Tools logs from your guest. Specifically I'd like to see the guest's vmusr.log and the host's vmware.log. Additionally, I'm interested in the guest's X server log (/var/log/Xorg.0.log). (I want to make sure that a) the correct video driver is loaded, and b) that resolutionSet is working.)

If everything checks out with the video driver, then you may be experiencing a duplicate of the problem described at  http://communities.vmware.com/message/2021083#2021083.

Apologies for the extra hassle here.

  - Ryan

[adminmark]

Hi Ryan,

No problem, I really appreciate the help.

Ok, added the tools.conf and got the log files (attached). It does sound like this is a similar problem to the one you referred to below.

Thanks for the help,

Mark

[admin · Accepted solution]

Hi Mark,

Thanks a ton for the logs. Okay, here's the problem:

[  1497.291] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/vmware_drv.so

[  1497.291] (II) Module vmware: vendor="X.Org Foundation"

[  1497.291]      compiled for 1.10.2, module version = 11.0.3

[  1497.291]      Module class: X.Org Video Driver

[  1497.291]      ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 10.0

[  1497.291] (II) LoadModule: "vmwgfx"

[  1497.291] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module vmwgfx

[  1497.291] (II) UnloadModule: "vmwgfx"

[  1497.291] (II) Unloading vmwgfx

[  1497.291] (EE) Failed to load module "vmwgfx" (module does not exist, 0)

[  1497.291] (EE) vmware: Please ignore the above warnings about not being able to to load module/driver vmwgfx

[  1497.291] (II) vmware: Using vmwlegacy driver everything is fine.

[  1497.291] (II) LoadModule: "vmwlegacy"

[  1497.291] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module vmwlegacy

[  1497.291] (II) UnloadModule: "vmwlegacy"

[  1497.291] (II) Unloading vmwlegacy

[  1497.291] (EE) Failed to load module "vmwlegacy" (module does not exist, 0)

[  1497.291] (EE) vmware: Unexpected failure while loading the "vmwlegacy" driver. Giving up.

[  1497.291] (II) UnloadModule: "vmware"

[  1497.291] (II) Unloading vmware

[  1497.291] (EE) Failed to load module "vmware" (a required submodule could not be loaded, 5359561)

My suspicion is that the Tools 8.8.1 stomped on the drivers included with the xorg-x11-drv-vmware packages package, and it might not have been restored correctly when uninstalling during the upgrade to 8.8.2. Then, since 8.8.2 was a version which knew better than to mess with the distro's packaged version, it just leaves things as is: broken. (NB: I haven't actually looked at the Tools installer stuff to make sure.)

I think you'd be able to get things working again by reinstalling the xorg-x11-drv-vmware package. That should get things back to a known good state.

Please give it a shot and let me know how things work out.

Thanks!

  - Ryan

[adminmark]

Hi Ryan,

Yes that did the trick, back to full screen display.

Thank you very much,

Mark