VMWare 10.0.1 Infamous "Internal error"

[Dryne]

I just got hit with this issue over the weekend.  None of my VMs would start and the only thing that showed was this Internal error message box.  The logs showed something about not being able to create or delete a folder, but it was not overly helpful.  I deleted the log file thinking I will restart the VM to have a fresh log created.  What I did not know was that VMWare would never again create a log file for this issue.

Long story short, I Google search and found this is an issue that has been around for a long time.  The fix is to perform a repair of the installation, which I did do.  My VMs then started again.

Why did this happen in the first place?

[Jayden56]

Hi

Welcome to the communities.

Did you installed any driver or any latest host fix ?

[Dryne]

Thanks for responding.  Nothing was changed at all on my host OS other than Microsoft Security Essentials virus definition updates.  The last Windows update was was installed was on Feb 26, 2014 (KB2923545).  I am looking at Windows Update history right now.  My VMs were working without issue after this update.  Nothing else was changed on my workstation at all.

[Dayworker]

Why did you delete a "vmware.log"? Each VM-start creates a new log. The old log will be renamed to vmware-0 to vmware-1 to vmware-2 and then deleted. After four VM-starts are all log-files rotated.

[Dryne]

I routinely do this as a part of hard drive maintenance.

More importantly though, the question should really be:  Why is VMWare no longer creating a log file during this non-informative message box?  Is this a bug or a feature?

[continuum]

When you get no new log while starting a VM it just means that the error happens very early in the launch of the VM