VMRC fails to install Ubuntu 19.10 using python3 somehow

[WDavidO]

I'm having trouble installing VMRC on a Ubuntu 19.10 host. I have a copy of workstation installed already but it doesn't seem to be an issue. The issue appears to be a python2 script that is somehow being run in a python3 interpreter somewhere in the chain of extracted scripts. This is with the latest version of VMRC VMware-Remote-Console-11.0.0-15201582.x86_64.bundle. Anyone else have this problem or found a solution for it?

Extracting VMware Installer...done.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/tmp/tmpwhd4nn6g.vmis.env", line 132, in <module>
    exec(fileObj.read(), mod.__dict__)
  File "<string>", line 243
    except OSError, e:
                  ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

[Alex_Romeo]

Hi,

Try following the procedure on page 8 of the attached document.

Install VMware Remote Console on Linux

ARomeo

[WDavidO]

Unfortunately that's what I did to create the behaviour I mentioned. When the bundle is run it extracts an embedded tar file into a temp directory and then runs a python script which the extension env that script is written for python2 as you can see from the expect OSError, e: which is valid python2 but invalid in python3. I tried installing in a virtual machine of ubuntu 19.10 and it works fine but something about my python configuration is messing it up. This is especially strange because the installer comes with a bundled copy of python2 which I would expect should be used to interpret whatever this script is.

[WDavidO]

I did more investigation. It appears to me that the latest workstation 15 and VMRC can't coexist on a linux box (at least on ubuntu 19.10.) I created a new vm with no modifications and was able to install VMRC then the workstation bundle failed in the same VM. On my regular machine I uninstalled workstation and was able to install VMRC but then workstation failed (console # based progress bars appear finish and it says installation failed.)

I noted that workstation uses a newer version of vmware-installer so my guess is that this is leading at least partially to the incompatibility.

As a crazy attempt to get things working I logged all new files after installing VMRC on a vm and then put those that weren't already in place on my machine in place. vmrc would run but proxy settings (to access a shared vm not for updates,) didn't work. Then I overwrote even those files that were already in place and VMRC worked but workstation stopped working. I eventually cleaned up all the files and now workstation is working again but I have to run VMRC inside of a VM, which isn't the end of the world but is very annoying.

[chuanweig]

Currently in Linux platform,  Workstation and VMRC can not co-exist.

There is one newer release of VMRC: 11.1.0, which uses python3, you can get it: https://my.vmware.com/en/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=VMRC1110&productId=974

[WDavidO]

Yes I've upgraded to that version and now instead of failing with cryptic messages about python it has a message box that pops up and says vmrc and workstation can't co-exist if workstation is installed and I try to install vmrc afterwards. If I try the other direction (vmrc installed run the workstation installation program,) it fails because now VMRC is using python 3.8 while the workstation installer is using 3.7, of course if it did actually install I think there would be other problems. Very unfortunate that these two products can't coexist, I don't for the life of me know why they don't just target different directories... I also don't know why workstation doesn't support a proxy to access remote vms. The best I've been able to do is write scripts that automate the installation and removal processes to switch between them.