Problem when host (Mac) is going to sleep

[bzdura]

Hi all,

I suppose my issue is well know - its similar to this thread Fusion 15.5.5 Suspends in Sleep Mode but solution doesn't work for me.

Almost every time when my Mac is going to sleep (closing lid or apple -> sleep) my guest Kali  Linux VM is shutting down or crashing.

I have no idea what is wrong with Fusion - Im newbie to Mac and Fusion but Im using VMWare Workstation on PC with the same Kali VM for over 4 years without any problem - when closing the lid, windows is going to sleep, opening lid and my VM is up and running.

Im appreciated for every hint you can provide.

PS.

Couple of times Fusion crashed in a bad manner forcing me to restart MacBook - f.e. with keyboard unresponsive, just mouse working so only restart helped.

[Alex_Romeo]

Hi,

The fact that Fusion crashed a couple of times makes me think you should try uninstalling it and installing it again.

Maybe in this way the solution of that post could work.

ARomeo

[dariusd]

Is your MacBook running macOS 10.15.6?  If so, you might be encountering a known problem with macOS 10.15.6: VM Ware Fusion potentially causes macOS 10.15.6 to crash​

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Darius

[FusionLinuxUser]

I'm having the same issue as OP. When my Mac goes to sleep and it wakes back up, my guest VM has crashed.

I've tried the following setups with the same results:

VMWare Fusion 11.5.5

Host: Mac OS 10.15.5

Guest: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

VMWare Fusion 11.5.6

Host: Mac OS 10.15.6

Guest: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

I've been using Fusion + Ubuntu for six years across three different MBPs. I recently set up a new machine (16-inch 2019 MBP) and this is the first time I'm experiencing this. If there's any logs / crash reports I can grab to help diagnose the issue, please let me know! It's very easy to reproduce on my machine

[FusionLinuxUser]

@dariusd that link is for an issue in which Mac OS crashes. In my case (and I'm guessing also OP) Mac OS doesn't crash - just the guest VM

[dariusd]

Do you get an error message when it crashes?  Can you locate a vmware.log inside the virtual machine's bundle which contains a log of the crash – and/or launch Console.app and find a crash report for vmware-vmx – and attach it to a reply here in this discussion?  (Use the "Attach" button in the lower-right when composing a reply... Please don't paste the whole logfile into the body of your reply.)

Thanks,

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Darius

[FusionLinuxUser]

There's no error message that displays. I grabbed a screen recording to share (sorry, had to zip it to get around the attachment rules). I didn't notice this before, but it doesn't actually crash until I click on the window again. You can see the cursor blinking before that and then the screen goes black as soon as I click.

vmware.log from a crash attached. Looks like a segfault

2020-08-18T10:01:20-08:00[+3.338]| keyboard| W003: Caught signal 11 -- tid 198488 (addr 70E2BAA78)

There was no crash report in Console.app. I also checked the other tabs for messages around the same timestamp but didn't see anything.

I tried playing around with a few different things - unplugged my external keyboard / mouse / monitor, ran Fusion not in full-screen. Every time I had the same behavior of crash on click.

[dariusd]

Please set the Troubleshooting option to Hang/Crash and try to reproduce the problem again – the resulting logs might be more useful.  If you could post a larger excerpt of the vmware.log, that is likely to help too.  At an absolute minimum, the first few lines of the log which list the Fusion and host OS build numbers, the DICT lines which give the VM's configuration, and the "Printing loaded objects" list (which is only logged when the troubleshooting option is set).  It might also help to include the last "New set of <n> USB devices" list prior to the crash too.

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Darius

[FusionLinuxUser]

Here's the full vmware.log from a crash with troubleshooting set to Hang/Crash

[dariusd]

Interesting.  Thanks for the logs.  Is it possible to test with the Yubikey disconnected?

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Darius

[dariusd]

The VM is crashing while it is attempting to sync the virtual machine keyboard's Caps Lock, Num Lock and Scroll Lock LEDs with the host's physical keyboards, so another possible workaround is to quit Fusion and edit the .vmx file to add:

   mks.keyboard.setHostLEDs = "FALSE"

to the virtual machine's configuration, but then your external keyboard LEDs will no longer reflect the VM's keyboard state.

If that is a suitable workaround, you can also make it a user-wide configuration option (in ~/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion/config) or system-wide (in /Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion/config, which you will need to edit as "root" using sudo or similar).

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Darius

[FusionLinuxUser]

Setting the config works! No more crashes! Definitely a suitable workaround for my case :smileygrin:

Before setting the config, I tried one more test: I quit the VM, unplugged everything (external keyboard, monitor, headphones, yubikey), did a full shut down / start of Mac OS. I was still able to reproduce the issue, so it looks like it's failing to sync Fusion with the Macbook's physical keyboard, as opposed to some other keyboard.

Thanks for digging into this! If you want me to run more experiments, or confirm that the issue is gone in future versions, please reach out!

[mcampobasso]

@dariusd's post should be marked as the solution.

Solved the issue on MacOS Catalina 10.15.7 (19H1824) running on a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016) with VMware Fusion Player Version 12.1.2 (17964953).