Workstation 16.2 apparently destroyed my VMs

[detechwriter]

I had been having problems with Workstation 16.1.x freezing after about 1 hour. Uninstalled antivirus, added exceptions for the folders containing the VMs, tried different external HDs. Nothing helped. Upgraded to 16.2. Now I've had to downgrade back to 16.1.2 and rebuild all my VMs. Whether a Windows VM or an Ubuntu VM, they all would not start. I could not launch them in 16.2 or in 16.1.2 - no chance to do anything like upgrade, repair, etc. 

[Robbie70]

I am having the same problem ... I can no longer run any of my VM's!

Upgraded from 16.1.2 buid-17966106 to 16.2.0 and my windows server 2016 snapshots start, get to the login screen sometimes, but always freeze.  If I snapshotted the VM while the OS was running (so saved state) I get the following: 

"The features supported by the processors in this machine are different from the features supported by the processors in the machine on which the virtual machine state was saved.

You may attempt to resume this virtual machine, but doing so may result in unpredictable behavior. Do you wish to resume this virtual machine?"

I click "Yes" then get the next message:

The virtual machine you are attempting to restore is using the FFXSR CPU feature, but your host does not support it.

An error occurred while restoring the virtual machine state from file "D:\VMWare\AIAU-CS\AIAU-CS-Snapshot28.vmsn".

An error caused the restore operation to fail. Cancel the restore operation and correct the error, or discard the snapshot's state and power off.  The saved snapshot will not be affected."

I then click cancel.

I restored my pc from the previous days backup so VMWare Workstation back to 16.1.2 buid-17966106 and all is good!

PC Specs for Windows about:

Processor            AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-Core Processor               3.50 GHz

Installed RAM    128 GB

System type       64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Pen and touch   No pen or touch input is available for this display

Edition  Windows 10 Pro

Version 21H1

Installed on         ‎21/‎10/‎2020

OS build               19043.1288

Experience         Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0

[Robbie70]

Would also add, that I did manage to get my VM's working by restoring my C drive (windows host & apps).  The VM machines are on another drive and were not restored.  So I guess I got lucky!  Sounds like you could not recover by installing the previous version of VMWare Workstation.

[wila]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about your problems, I have no idea what is happening. I did see one other report a similar issue (aside from the reply here).

Rebuilding the VM's should not be needed, normally a downgrade back to Workstation 16.1.x should be sufficient. Note however that it is likely that Workstation 16.2 has done a virtual hardware upgrade on your VM's. If that's the case then you need to downgrade the virtual hardware of your VM's before uninstalling and going back to Workstation 16.1.

You can change the virtual hardware as follows:
- select the VM
- in the list of VMs on the left, right click on your VM, select "Manage" -> Change Hardware Compatibility -> Next
- make sure that the compatibility is set to "Workstation 16.x" and not "Workstation Beta"

- click Next
- Select "Alter this virtual machine"
- Finish

Repeat those steps for all your virtual machines.

Then uninstall Workstation 16.2, reboot, install Workstation 16.1 again.
The VM's should now work.
If they do not work, then please attach the vmware.log from a VM you tried to start, but failed.

--
Wil

[wila]

Hi,

---

@Robbie70 wrote:

Would also add, that I did manage to get my VM's working by restoring my C drive (windows host & apps).  The VM machines are on another drive and were not restored.  So I guess I got lucky!  Sounds like you could not recover by installing the previous version of VMWare Workstation.

---

Uninstalling 16.2 and installing 16.1 should be fine, but beware of any virtual hardware changes as I laid out in my other reply.

--
Wil

[jmetzner1]

I also have the problem where my Windows VMs freeze after the 16.2 update. A log from my attempt today is attached.

Edited to add: To clarify, in my case the affected VMs seem to boot fine then freeze after a minute or two. I am able to either power them off or revert to a previous snapshot.

[SimonJMBrown]

edit 2

Uninstalled, installed 16.0 (VMs still failed to run with internal error). Then upgraded to 16.1.1 and back working. Lost a day to this poor upgrade.

/edit

Reverted to old version, still not working and backups don't work either? Really need to get a fix for this, I now have 12 VMs that are dead!

Happened to me as well, most of my VMs now show Internal error on starting.

Tried old remove lck files approach, no good.

Tried backup VMs, same problem.

3 of my main VMs do start but 7 others don't so far.

Not trying uninstall to go back to previous version in hope it works.. and the 3 that did work don't suddenly stop working.

Not a happy customer, lost most of day on this now and still not in working state.

How can a bug like this get through QA?

[danb1974]

Similar issue with 16.2 player, linux vm freezes in under a minute, can't even poweroff, must kill vmware process.

[PlayItLoud]

Something to try: I'm on a linux host working with Windows 10 guest. Update to 16.2 broke my VMs (non-functional - needed to kill process). I've found that turning off "Accelerate 3D Graphics" in the VM settings seems to have resolved the issue. For the record, my host display is Nvidia.

[jmetzner1]

It does feel like a graphics issue -- cursor changes to a black square and the screen freezes -- but changing the 3D acceleration and/or the video memory didn't work for me on my Windows 10 host/guest.

[wila]

@jmetzner1 in your case, check that you are on the latest virtual hardware and have the latest vmware tools.

--
Wil

[jmetzner1]

@wila It's on the v16 hardware (not the beta), and unfortunately the VM locks up before I have time to update the tools. Was working fine in 16.1.2, however.

[PlayItLoud]

I can concur that I was not able to update Tools until I got the VM to work, which in my case involved changing the display settings.

[SimonJMBrown]

A few replies have mentioned changing settings on VM..

Probably subtle issue difference on this thread... with my VMs I cannot go into any settings (via GUI) as it only shows the remove option.

[jmetzner1]

TLDR: Turning on full debugging worked around the problem in my VMs that were locking up.

I created a new VM in 16.2.0 from a recent Win10 ISO to see if it would have the same issue. Windows setup and installation of VMWare Tools worked fine, but as soon as I ran Windows Update for the first time, this new VM locked up like my older one has been doing. In order to have some more information to report about the problem, I set "Gather Debugging Information" to "Full" and checked "Log Virtual Machine process periodically". I haven't had a problem with this VM since, and I went back and changed the settings in my old VM and got the same (good) result.

[drimser]

I had troubles with this version too. After upgrading from 16.1.0 to 16.2 some of my VMs (W10 in most cases) fail to start. If I downgrade to 16.0 my VMs will work without any issues. I tried this activity several times.

[Arendeth]

16.2.1 still breaks the snapshot feature so I recommend holding off on upgrading til they fix all issues

[danb1974]

16.2.1 still freezes sometimes, windows 10 host, linux guest, no 3d acceleration. May be related to heavy console output.

[wila]

Hi,

---

@danb1974 wrote:

16.2.1 still freezes sometimes, windows 10 host, linux guest, no 3d acceleration. May be related to heavy console output.

---

You might want to check the following thread:
https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Player/Ubuntu-keyboard-poor-performance-after-u...
and the links posted in there.

edit: Oh wait.. freezes.. that might also be the kcompactd issue: https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Player/Over-CPU-usage-in-idle/m-p/2878569

--
Wil

[ggo98]

Same problem here. lost a Win10 VM, and today my Win2008 R2 machine (which was useful for support, for some customers still using this version).

The worst is that it looks like I can't even create and reinstall a Win2008 R2 machine!

I will try to downgrade.

Don't install the 16.2.1 version. This version sucks.