Workstation Pro 15.0.1 USB Arbitration Service not Starting

[kresejg]

Hi All,

I have spent a few hours researching this, and I cannot find my particular issue reproduced, so I thought I would bring it up here. I have installed Workstation Pro 15.0.1 on a Win 10 host and am running a Win 10 VM. I have a USB controller set up but was not able to see any of my USB drives in the virtual machine OS. I think it is traced back to the USB arbitration service not running. When I try to forceably start the service, I get a "could not start" message -- "Error1: Incorrect Function."

All the similar information that I can find is about an "Error 2:" message, which relates to missing files. I think that all of the files are there as far as I can tell. Attached is the log file from C:\Windows\Temp\vmware-SYSTEM\

I followed advice here: Cannot start the VMware USB arbitration service but was not able to get the command line to return anything but a blank prompt with both the --install and --repair options while trying to install hcmon. Also, if I try to run hcmon (net start hcmon), I get this message: "System error 183 has occurred. Cannot create a file when that file already exists."

I have tried the following:

-Disabled my virus scanner and repaired workstation

-Uninstalled completely, restarted, reinstalled, restarted--all with virus scan disabled.

-Repairing/Reinstalling hcmon from the command line

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thank you.

[sppru]

Try reinstalling Workstation from scratch. I had similar issue in the past.

[kresejg]

Unfortunately, I have tried that twice already--both times with my virus scan disabled, but still no success.

[hrzuser]

Same problem today, my possible reason is partly failed update to 15.0.2

USB arbitration service was not fully removed.

so after de- & reinstalling twice i googled this https://www.faq-o-matic.net/2015/12/21/vmware-installation-schlgt-fehl-mit-hcmon-fehler/

so i did deleting the defect service:

sc delete VMUSBArbService

followed by repair-install vmware workstation 15

all running fine now

Greets from Germany

Uwe

[kresejg · Accepted solution]

Thought I would provide an update on this...

So after much troubleshooting it turns out that the virus scanner my company uses caused this issue. The trick is that it is not enough to disable to the virus scan before you install Workstation. You actually have to completely uninstall the virus scan (in my case, the application is called VIPRE) install Workstation, and then reinstall the virus scan. After we did that, the arbitration service ran without issue and I am able to mount drives in the virtual machine.