Fusion 12 Unity Problems - App Opens and shows gray screen

getterdone — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 19:42:22 GMT

HI,

I have a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017) 2.9 GHz running Big Sur 11.6. My guest OS is W10 v10.0.18363 Build 18363. The laptop is connected to a StarTech DK30CH2DPPD and has two ACER V226HQL attached to it. So with the laptop display I have 3 monitors.

My problem is with Unity, this is the first time I have ever tried it. When I start my guest OS, then change to Unity view, everything appears to work as expected. The Unity tool bar is added to the dock, I see my system tray Icons and can see all the apps in the Unity bar. In Unity when I open Visio it shows a gray window where Visio should be running, with a thin black line around it. If I open the virtual machine library I can see Visio running inside it. This gray affect happens with all applications launched in Unity.

What have I done? Well I have read and tested every step in this forum and only one thing works. Run Unity without the StarTech and tow monitors, didn't try using a single monitor and the StarTech. So this helps narrow my problem down, but I would still expect Unity to work with the simplest of settings.

Then I tried:

Uninstalling VM Tools and reinstalling
Lowering display settings on monitor
Turning off 3D acceleration
Multiple other things noted throughout the forums and VM KB's

Thanks in advance your suggestions are appreciated. Maybe they will help the next guy too.

Bret

Re: Fusion 12 Unity Problems - App Opens and shows gray screen

getterdone — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 18:46:32 GMT

Problem Solved:

I took my troubleshooting further and removed monitors one by one from the StarTech hub and tested. Using a single monitor going into the HDMI port I was able to use Unity. With a single monitor going into the DISPLAY port I was not able to use Unity. I also found that with the monitor using the DISPLAY port I was not able to change my display color profile. Problem must be with the StarTech, Display cable, or StarTech display manager software.

In summary, when all else fails eliminate the physical layer. Start from 0 and work up from there. When I was troubleshooting I went to 0 using only the laptop and Unity worked. Then I went to a single HDMI monitor and found Unity worked and stopped there. Never testing the DISPLAY monitor.

Lesson learned. Hopefully this helps the next person as they are looking for a similar solution.

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Fusion 12 Unity Problems - App Opens and shows gray screen

Re: Fusion 12 Unity Problems - App Opens and shows gray screen