VMWare Workstation 16.2.3 - Freezing and Stuttering with Ubuntu Host and Ubuntu Guest

[BroadcastStorm7]

I've been dealing with an issue for the last few months and I'm stumped on it.

I run VMWare Workstation Pro 16.2.3 build-19376536 on a Ubuntu 20.04 LTS host. Any time I have a Ubuntu 20.04 LTS guest running, I get these freezing/stuttering issues every minute or so. They last about 5-10 seconds. While they're going on, I can move the mouse but can't click on anything.

CPU usage on both the host and guest go up to 100% on all cores during that time.

I don't have 3D acceleration on and have tried to slim down the guest as much as possible. I'm running XFCE4 as the DE with compositor turned off. I'm not doing anything intensive to have these spikes occur. Typically, I have a web browser open or terminal open, nothing crazy. The host isn't doing anything to cause these spikes, typically, again a web browser open or terminal open. The guest is using the newest VMWare tools.

I thought it could be a resource bottleneck so I upped the cores I use to 3 or 4 cores and upped my memory usage. Nothing there seemed to help. I also updated everything. VMWare, my kernel on host, my kernel on guest several times thinking it would fix it.

Anyone else experience this issue?

Here's some of my host system information. Let me know if you need any log files and where to find those:

Memory - 16 GB

Processor - Intel Core i3-1005G1 1.2 GHz (but I also tested on another machine that is an i5-1035G1 1.0 GHz, same issue)

Graphics Driver - Mesa Intel UHD Graphics (ICL GT1)

OS - Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS

Guest is running on a mechanical hard drive (but I've tried an m.2 drive, doesn't make a difference)

[RBEP]

I have this problem too 😞 , but with 16.2.4

[JamesVan]

I am also now having this problem. I cannot run 20.04 or 22.04. They both install good, but once they have been running for a few minutes, they just freeze with 100% CPU usage in the guest. I have an 8-core system (16-cores total). Only 4 assigned to the guest, but the vm is actually eating up 50% of the host CPU; so equal to 8-cores.

I am on 16.2.4. Is there a way to downgrade back to 16.1, or v15?

[RBEP]

You can reduce the hardware version through the VM-Manage-Change Hardware Compatibility menu. You can also reduce the version of VMWare Workstation by downloading and installing the old version and uninstalling the new one. I have a license from 16 and I don't know if it will work with 15, I haven't tried that.
Also noticed that if the 3D is turned on and lags begin, if you move the mouse during menu animation or text entry, the lags stop for the duration of the mouse movement.
I tried many different settings in vmware workstation as well as in ubuntu and unfortunately none of them gives a stable result. More or less working is to disable 3D graphics and use cinnamon desktop.

[bcrtech]

I have a very similar issue. I have narrowed mine down to the wireless adapter. If I turn the wireless off before I start the VM it runs fine. I am running Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS and Player 16.2.3 build-19376536. I have no option to select which networking adapter is passed to the VM in the Linux client like I do in the Windows one. Does Workstation Pro have this option on Linux?