VMWare Fusion 6 upgrade won't load virtual machines

[DavidHS]

I downloaded the trial for VMWare 6, and when I launch it, it shows the two virtual machines I have from version 5.0.3, but they just say "loading…" next to them. I can never get them to start.

I have Haiku and Debian 6. They run fine in Fusion 5.0.3. I shut them down before trying to run them in 6.

When I tried to make a new virtual machine, or to open them, I get this error message (see attached image). Note that I do have Cubase installed, and it must use the file extension .vmx for some of it's files.

I can't get it to run existing VMs or create new ones. 5.0.3 continues to work fine.

[changhai]

DavidHS,

>>>...and it must use the file extension .vmx for some of it's files.

Please let me know whether or not the workaround on this thread works for you through renaming the folder containing your vm files by adding .vmwarevm to the end.

VM fusion 3 won't recognize vmx file type

Best Regards,

changhai

[DavidHS]

OK I just read that thread. The virtual machine files are named ".vmwarevm". The extension is hidden, but it doesn't help if I make it visible.  Inside the package, the main file is named ".vmx."  I tried renaming that one, and then it can't find the virtual machine. So I changed it back, and it sees the VM but it just sits there saying "loading…" and never does anything.

I have read others saying they had no problems on MacUpdate, so maybe I'll try reinstalling it.

[avanish321]

Please check if the bundle has any .vmem files, .vmss  and .lck files. If you fine any, move them to trash and then try to launch the VMs.

Deleting these files did resolve the issue to me once.

Note: By using the above steps you may loose any unsaved data created during your previous session.

[ColoradoMarmot]

are you shutting down (not suspending) the virtual machines before upgrading? 

[DavidHS]

Yes, they were shut down. They are in the list but won't load. I also can't create a new one, I get that error message. I have heard from a few other people that have been having the same issue.

When I get a chance I'll try reinstalling it, but version 5 works fine, and it's not something I use all the anyway.

[DavidHS]

OK, I deleted the "Haiku-c889e5e5.vmem" file, and that didn't change anything.  There was also a .nvram file. There are no .lck files, but there is a .vmsd and .vmxf file. Deleting those doesn't change anything.

[WoodyZ]

DavidHS wrote: but there is a .vmsd and .vmxf file. Deleting those doesn't change anything.

You cannot just go arbitrarily deleting files!  He never said to delete the .vmsd file and you should not do that if you had any Snapshots on that VM as that file is the Snapshot Database and without it you've just orphaned the Snapshots!

[DavidHS]

Yes, I realize that, and I didn't actually delete them, I just moved them out of the package file. I put them back after I tired it. I'm not new to all this.

As an update, I reinstalled Fusion 6, and it's behaving as it did and not loading the VMs. Fusion 5 continues to operate as expected.

Next I'm going to try running it from a different user login I keep clean for trouble shooting.

[mudaltsov · Accepted solution]

I've reproduced a problem with Launch Services leaving the .vmx extension registered for Cubase, and not registering it for Fusion correctly. This causes a problem within some standard Apple document loading code that Fusion uses. I'll continue looking into the differences between Fusion 5 and 6 to see how to resolve this. In the meantime, could you please try the following workaround?

1. Unregister Cubase from Launch Services:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -u "/Applications/Cubase 7.app"

2. Launch Fusion and make sure it's able to create and power on VMs.

3. Re-register Cubase with Launch Services:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister "/Applications/Cubase 7.app"

If you have a different version of Cubase, or it's installed in a different location, you may need to adjust the path of the application accordingly.

[DavidHS]

Thanks, I'll give that a try when I get the time. I think it's probably not a good idea for the two applications to be using the same file extension? VMware should probably change that.

[mudaltsov]

It's not a problem to have multiple applications use the same file extensions - this is exactly the same as multiple applications being able to open .txt files. It shouldn't even matter if Fusion is the default application for opening .vmx files or not, it still supports opening them even when it's not the default.

The problem here is that the Launch Services database (contains all file type registrations and default applications) did not correctly register Fusion as supporting .vmx files. Apple's code that does document opening uses Launch Services to determine which file types can be opened, but it only matched the .vmx extension to Cubase instead of both Cubase and Fusion, and failed to open the file as a result.

[DavidHS]

Right, except in this case, the two files with the same extensions are not the same kind of file. 

A txt file is a txt file. It contains plain text. If you had one that was something else, like a jpeg, then you would have an issue (You can change the extension on a jpeg to "txt" and see what happens. It will open in TextEdit, but not as it should). Launch Services assigns these extensions to apps that can open them. I think the older way of having creator and file type codes in the resource fork prevented this problem. But time marches on! Now we are stuck with file extensions to indicate file types.

Fusion cannot open Steinberg VST mixer setting files, and vice versa. If you Google this problem, you see that others have had it too. End users shouldn't have to mess with the Launch Services DB. Changing to a different file extension will solve this problem.

BTW, I did try to change the association on the .vmx file to Fusion, and that didn't help at all.

[DavidHS]

OK, that did indeed fix the situation!

Thank you. 

[WoodyZ]

I highly doubt that VMware is going to stop using the .vmx extension and I'd venture to say there are far more installs globally of VMware Products then Cubase.  Additionally the number of Cubase users that also use VMware Products and have this issue are rather few in comparison.  VMware will get this issue fixed without having to change the .vmx extension!

[FinAddic]

Same problem for Nuendo.  If you have Nuendo figure out which version is registered and put in that product.  You may have to dump and search for anything steinberg if you have multiple things registered.  So unregistering and re-registering Nuendo seemed to work for me.

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -dump > kill.h

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -u "/Applications/Nuendo 5.5.app"

Re-registering didn't seem to hurt Vmware.

[DocTravis]

I had the same "loading ..." hang after upgrading to VMware 6.  I had Cubase LE installed in the system. Thanks to the tips here, that pointed me in the right direction.

Since I'm not good in the terminal, and had a different Cubase installed, I did the following that worked:

In VMware 5.0 shut down my 2 virtual machines.

Installed VMWare 6.0

Used the program "AppDelete" to delete Cubase and it's associated files. I can't say thay using the utility was completely needed, but I did so to be sure all files associated with Cubase were erased; there were only a few.

I then used the utility "Cocktail" to rebuild the Launch Services database. It's under the "system" tab, databases. I used the "restore default file associations" option when Launch Services was rebuilt. Again, I don't know if this step was necessary, but the goal was to get Cubase out of Launch services and the database restored. Simply deleting Cubase may have been enough.

When I restarted VMware 6 and the virtual images started up as expected.

I did not reinstall Cubase as I am not using the program.

Hopes this helps someone and thanks to the other forum users for pointing me in the right direction.

I'm sure, given their very good support, that there will be a patch for this in the future.