Win7 guest crash and shared folders

[padarjohn]

I originally posted this as a followup to a different thread post from 7/2012, but I see now that that thread seems to be in a category that doesn't show up...  (VMware Fusion Technology Preview 2012).

Windows 7 crashes when using files/folders on the shared host filesystem.

Fusion 5.0.2, on Snow Leopard (10.6.8) and 64-bit Win7 Enterprise.

The stuff I develop is cross-platform, and I depend on Linux and WIndows VM's to build/test in those environments. The files all exist on the host Mac filesystem.

I had no problems with Windows until after I upgraded from Fusion 3 to Fusion 5 (which I needed to do to support Ubuntu 12.04).

I have a suite of tests for my stuff that opens/closes/reads/writes/creates/deletes files and directories. Windows crashes 100% of the time if the files/directories I'm using are Shared files/folders on the host (Mac). If I copy the files onto the native guest (VM) filesystem there is never a problem. It's a PITA to try to isolate, because I have to wait for Windows to reboot every time it happens.

This is NOT Windows Explorer hanging or crashing, this is Windows crashing. I run my tests from a command line, and generally never have a Windows Explorer window available.

In general most of the issues I've encountered in Fusion 5 are mostly annoyances that I can work around. But this is a real problem.

I originally thought I had no problems at all with the Linux VM. Actually, I was wrong, problems do happen with the Linux VM. Except in that case the entire VM session hangs, and the only thing I can do is switch back to the Mac and restart the VM. And it that case it's usually not the tests that crash, it's the compiles. I had commented on that already:

     http://communities.vmware.com/message/2201283#2201283

[admin]

it is a very serious issue,

could you please provide the detail information VMware Fusion(menu bar) > Help > Collect Support Information and then post the .tgz file here.

May be I can forward this issue to Fusion team.

[padarjohn]

Maybe. I have to be careful about potentially leaking private information. Who will have access to the data I attach?

[admin]

only the Fusion Developers~ :smileygrin:

I am a member of Fusion QA team, and I will file a defect to dev team if I got your logs.

[padarjohn]

That doesn't seem to be the case. I attached the file to the reply post, then logged out and revisited the thread. I was able to download the file without any problem.

Do you have a more secure way of handling attachments?

[admin]

I saw your attachment was posted here about 10 mins before.

But I can not download it, i have no idea what happened.

And for now, I saw no attachment.

[admin]

One of the possible reason is the attachment size.

could you please try to split the .gz file into some smaller ones?

[padarjohn]

It's not there because I deleted it when I saw that there were no restrictions on downloading it.

As I asked before, do you have a more secure way of handling attachments?

[admin]

OK, I got it. thanks for your patient.

This issue has been filed now, hope we can resolve it ASAP.

[padarjohn]

I'm still seeing this issue with Fusion 6.0.2 and Mavericks. What happened to the issue that was filed?

[steve_goddard]

Hi there,

I am the developer for the shared folders feature.

I am very interested to get a look at the crash you are seeing in the guest.

Can you enable a complete memory dump in your Win 7 VM? (Note a complete kernel dump is essential not a mini dump.)

Then reproduce the crash and then after rebooting the VM, compress the dump file and I can give you details about uploading it to our ftp site.

If you send me a private message then only I will see it if you have private data and information.

(The dump file would be found after a reboot and located in your C:\Windows folder.)

Also as far the crash goes, only I will see and will delete it once I can see what the crash was that occurred.

I would like to know if it still exists in the Fusion 7 environment too.

This would probably be the simplest way forward, unless you can give me enough steps (or scripts) to reproduce it myself.

(Again using a private message for confidentiality.)

Thanks.

Steve

[padarjohn]

steve goddard wrote:

Can you enable a complete memory dump in your Win 7 VM? (Note a complete kernel dump is essential not a mini dump.)

Then reproduce the crash and then after rebooting the VM, compress the dump file and I can give you details about uploading it to our ftp site.

And how does one accomplish that? I don't see that anywhere in the Fusion preferences or VM settings.

[dariusd]

Hi padarjohn,

The memory dump type is configured within the Windows guest.  See the Microsoft support article Overview of memory dump file options for Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vis... for instructions.  After the system crashes and reboots, the dump file is usually created at C:\MEMORY.DMP.

Cheers,

--

Darius

[steve_goddard]

Thanks Darius, It fairly straight forward process.

padarjohn:

You launch the control panel applet in the Windows VM.

You click on the "System" entry.

It will bring up the system dialog and then click on the "Advanced system settings" on the left side.

In the "System Properties" dialog, look at the "Startup and Recovery" section and click on the "Settings" button.

At the bottom of the "Startup and Recovery" dialog look at the bottom 2 listbox entries.

Click on the "Write debugging information" listbox and ensure that it has the settting: "Complete memory dump"

Note the second listbox which is "Dump file:"

It should say: "%SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP"

That will be the default setting of the file and location after you have created the crash and will typically evaluate to: "C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP".

Keep hitting the OK button of the dialogs until you get back to the control panel applet. Note if you changed anything it will warn you to restart the computer (meaning VM in this case).

So once you have completed the OKs and then restarted the Windows VM you should run your test and generate a crash.

After restarting the VM and locating the MEMORY.DMP then you can compress it with a tar/zip application and copy it to somewhere where you can retrieve it and upload it to the VMware FTP site. Please give the compressed file a useful and unique name.

I hope this helps

Steve

[padarjohn]

I show two options:
"small dump"

"kernel dump"

The file name is also already specified as indicated.

"Kernel dump" is already selected. There is no "C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP" file.

I tried again. I don't get a Windows blue screen crash, I get a pop-up that says

"VMware Fusion has encountered an error and shut down Windows.

Click Restart Windows to start Windows again. Click Report to collect data and to request support from VMware."

I checked again, and there is no MEMORY.DMP file.

I do have the zip file created by the Report option. I don't know if that will tell you anything more than the last one I uploaded back on March 14 of last year, but let me know if you want it.

I had also uploaded files (executable and associated data) that could reproduce it with the Support Request I created (14463791604) back in early May of this year. According to the SR whoever was looking at it had been able to successfully reproduce the problem and it was supposedly being actively investigated.

[steve_goddard]

Hi there,

Ok thanks for updating.

The memory dump option could be hidden because you are running a  32 bit Win 7 VM and have more than 2GB RAM.

See the complete memory option in the link Darius gave above.

If that is not the case, you can enable it by setting the registry option below:

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl

Value: CrashDumpEnabled

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 1

Having said all of that, from your description of the error, you are getting a host server side crash - Fusion application crash.

For this we will need an Fusion application core dump file which can be created by doing by following:

In a terminal window run the following command:

ulimit -c unlimited

Launch Fusion and run the VM.

Back in the terminal window find the process ID of the VM application:

ps aux |grep vmware-vmx

The process ID will be the second item after the user name which should be "root".

Generate the crash again.

Once you have done that exited the Fusion error dialog saying that Windows had shutdown.

Again, in your terminal application window check the cores folder in the top level of the file system:

ls -al  /cores

There should be an entry core.PID where PID matches the number you got in the terminal window above.

That is the file you will need to copy and compress and upload.

Thanks for doing this.

Steve

PS Yes, please add the zip file from the report as it might have some useful details too.

[padarjohn]

steve goddard wrote:

Having said all of that, from your description of the error, you are getting a host server side crash - Fusion application crash.

For this we will need an Fusion application core dump file which can be created by doing by following:

In a terminal window run the following command:

ulimit -c unlimited

Launch Fusion and run the VM.

Generate the crash again.

PS Yes, please add the zip file from the report as it might have some useful details too.

For the benefit of anyone else reading this, the ulimit command only applies to the current process, so you need to run Fusion from that command line.

I gzipped the core file and uploaded it to the ftp site. I unfortunately rebooted instead of generating the crash data again, so the zip file I uploaded is from the crash before enabling the core file. Both are uploaded using the instructions that were provided to me last March. I assume you can find them?

That said, what happened to the files I provided before? You can easily do all of this yourself with the executable file I uploaded the last time.

[steve_goddard]

Great, thanks.
What is the name of the file you uploaded?

Thanks again,

Steve

[padarjohn]

steve goddard wrote:

What is the name of the file you uploaded?

Response sent via private message

[padarjohn]

Great.... now I can't send private messages. I gett a "Permission Denied" error when I try to post it. :smileyangry: