VMware Workstation 14.1.2 crashes when opening some menus like Edit>Preferences

[fa294]

Hi,

I installed VMware Workstation 14.1.2 on two Ubuntu 18.04 machines (one laptop, one desktop), both fully up to date. On the desktop, it seems to work fine. But on the laptop when I go to Edit>Preferences, the program just disappears. It's the same issue as reported here: VMWare Workstation 14 Crashes when selecting Edit->Preferences from Ubuntu 18.04

I've tried my best to compare the two machines but I haven't been able to find any difference in the installed package versions. I've also run "lsof" to compare the list of shared libraries that are loaded, and they are identical between both systems. So I'm really at a loss here...

I've attached the VMware log. Any advice on what I can do?

Edit: I just had the idea of trying a Wayland session on my laptop instead of X11, and when I do that I'm able to see the Preferences menu... But on my desktop it works fine on X11! I have Intel integrated graphics on the laptop, and a Radeon card on my desktop - could that be the difference that is causing the problem?

[wila]

Hi,

Sounds like a shared libaries issue.

You can work around it by using the libraries that are bundled with VMware Workstation.

Set VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS before starting a application.

export VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS=force; vmware 

hope this helps,

--

Wil

[fa294]

Thanks for this suggestion! Somehow, it seems to be working properly for me now, after having temporarily switched to Wayland and then back to Xorg. I literally didn't make any other change to my system (e.g. didn't update any packages or anything). Very peculiar. But if I encounter the same problem again, I will try this environment variable as you suggested.