This follows on  VMware Knowledge Base "Cannot open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory" error when powering on a VM (2146460).

Linux has a new security feature called kernel lockdown that prevents processed from directly accessing /dev/mem etc.  This applies even to root processes except via signed modules.  

So I signed vmmon and vmnet following the cited article.   However I still get the error when trying to open a vm:

Aug  2 12:49:44 p73 kernel: [412584.941998] Lockdown: vmplayer: /dev/mem,kmem,port is restricted; see man kernel_lockdown.7

I suppose I could completely disable lockdown, but I don't want to, especially given the recently announced linux kernel security holes.

Is there a way to give vmplayer more power but still keep some security?

I'm running p73 5.4.0-42-generic.

I'm sympathetic to the comments in some other recent postings that the linux kernel is changing so fast that it's hard for vmware to keep up.  I'm also aware of Linus's longstanding hostility to proprietary commercial SW interfacing to the kernel.

However all that leaves me unable to use vmplayer, which I wanted to use to run MS windows under linux to use a real MS office and not some buggy partial knockoff.

Thanks.

I've tried this on 3 different hosts and the device and driver works fine on 1 and fails to start on 2.

Host: Windows 10 19041 on all 3

Client: Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit

VMWare Player 15.5.6 in all cases

Running the same copy the client across all 3

Latest VMWare tools

The one host that works is a Lenovo x220 with a core i5 2520 processor.  The other two are newer PCs a Lenovo T460 i5-core6300 and a NUC desktop i5 7250.

Might also be worth noting that the x220 host is Windows 10 upgraded from Win7 and the other two were fresh installs of Win10

I mention the processor type because when starting up the VM for the first time on a new host, that is the only thing that the client detects as new, otherwise there is nothing that happens when starting the VM for the first time.

Using USB 2.0 in the VM, but have tried 1.1 and 3.1 with the same behavior.

I have tried older versions of Player with no difference.  Tried disabling Hypervisor & Hyper-V, no difference.  Tried running the device in a WinXP VM also, with the same outcome.

For what it's worth, this USB device is an automotive tool to communicate with a particular make of car.  I have other similar ones for different manufacturers running in the same base VM that work just fine on all of these same hosts.

I have a feeling there is some driver security / signing thing that the newer PCs are expecting that the old one is not checking for but I don't have clear evidence of that.  The drivers are signed, SHA1 as they are pretty old.  The signature expired in 2010 and the client is running with a fade date of 2013 (again same on all 3 hosts).

Really scratching my head on this one.  Any ideas appreciated.

Hello all,

I've been having some issues with my computer and I feel as though I would need to copy my files on my computer onto an external hard drive. I'm not really sure how they work and I'm not sure whether this is the right place to ask or not but, I'm going to try to ask here anyways. I currently have Kali Linux on a Debian image on the Workstation 15 Player, which I am currently using for a cybersecurity course on my personal computer. My question is: If I were to copy this onto my external hard drive, will everything (files, configurations, and settings) be copied onto this drive the same that it currently is on my computer?

I am using VMWare Workstation Player 12 on a Windows 7 Embedded system and the guest system is Ubuntu. Everything works fine except if I try to shut the system down without first gracefully shutting the guest system down the shutdown process stops on the "please wait..." screen and the spinning indicator freezes in place. The system hangs in this state forever until forcefully restarted.

I have tried to write a script that auto kills the VM before shutdown starts however the same problem happens. If I kill the process in windows then the shutdown process hangs. The only way the system shuts down normally is if I never start the VM or shut it down properly.

Thank you for any insight you can provide!

I've been getting this problem lately:

When trying to start a VM, VMware Player just sits there, doing nothing; the VM does not boot.

Trying to close the VMware Player window brings up the error message "The virtual machine is busy" - this error message can not be closed.

Task Manager shows the vmplayer.exe process is using as much CPU as it can get, and the vmware-vmx process has not started.

Killing the vmplayer process closes the windows, but does not solve the problem - trying to start the VM again has the same result as above.

Killing both vmplayer and vmware-usbarbitrator64 does help, although the VM seems to boot slower than usual.

Host is Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

Guest is Windows XP Professional SP3

Player version is 5.0.1 build-894247

I am using VMware player 15, in it i am using Ubuntu 18.04 virtual machine, my gpu is rtx 2070 super, but in the display settings of the virtual machine, I cannot select graphics memory higher than 2GB, why is that?

I just do it but it says that was "VMware workstation setup Wizard ended up prematurely Vmware workstation Pro setup Wizard ended prematurely because of an error. Your system has not been modified.To install this program at a later time, run into Setup Wizard again. click the finish button to exit the Setup wizard" it. how can I do?

I have the latest version of VMware player (free). I have an OVA that requires VT-x/EPT and am running into this exact issue:

VMware Workstation does not support nested virtualization on this host.

I have a clean, updated version of Windows 10. I'm using the latest version of Player, Hyper-V is disabled. I see a number of people aren't having any luck on workarounds. Any updates?

Hello,

Running a Win 7 host, installed MS Virtual PC and Win XP Mode VM, it runs fine. Installed Workstation Player 15.5.6 (free, non-commercial) and vCenter Standalone Converter 6.2.0. Ran Workstation menu selection to import Windows XP Mode, Converter shows successful completion, and the XP Mode VM gets populated in Workstation as it should. Run it, and all I get is the vmware bios boot screen for a couple seconds, and then a black screen with blinking cursor. Restarted, same thing. Deleted VM from disk and re-did all steps, no difference. Downgraded to Workstation 14 and re-did all steps, no difference. Upgraded back to 15, re-did all steps, no difference. Examined vmware bios settings, re-ordered boot sequence to put hard disk at the very top, no difference. Searched this VMTN community and noticed another user posted having similar situation back in Nov 2019, his post is still unanswered 9 months later. Found and tried to follow several of the KB articles for solutions, none worked. Everything says that this has been supported since Workstation 7, what gives? Would appreciate some help.

My host and guest are both Windows 10 v2004 with all the latest security and driver updates. I am running VMWare Workstation Player v15.5.6 with the latest VM Tools.

The experience between my host and guest has been getting steadily worse and worse, until now where the experience makes it unbearable and borderline impossible to do anything in the VM. The issue: the mouse cursor constantly loses focus from the VM. Every minute or so, even when actively typing or mousing around in the VM, the cursor becomes a hand, meaning that if I'm typing, it stops. If I'm mousing, there is no cursor, because it seems that the cursor has been stolen by something.

I spent the entire weekend troubleshooting. I can assure you it's nothing on my PC. I closed ALL programs, ran with a basic, barebones host setup. To ensure it wasn't something that got degraded in the guest, I created a brand new VM and installed Windows 10 v2004 directly from the download tool made available by Microsoft. Installed VM Tools, then all the latest OS security updates. And then tested.

Just SITTING there, doing nothing, with the mouse cursor in the VM, randomly and very frequently, the mouse cursor becomes a hand, signifying that focus was stolen from the guest. I have to click back in the VM in order to do anything in the guest. It does this irrespective of whether or not I'm running the VM fullscreen or windowed.

I barely had any issues with VMWare Workstation Player 14, but with 15, the experience has been downhill. I considered buying VMWare Workstation Pro, but with this mess, no way I'm doing that. Can I get someone from VMWare to chime in and assist?

Thank you.

Hello,

I have problems communicating with my Windows Server 2016 virtual machine on VMware Workstation Player from my host device (Windows 10). I'm the testing connection with PING command but it doesn't work: ping from host results in 'Destination net unreachable', and ping from VM results in 'Destination host unreachable'.

My VM network configuration is set on bridged and I'm trying to connect via Ethernet adapter on the host device.

Host device settings:

Ethernet adapter Ethernet

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::f417:b018:2a38:5914%7

   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.48.10

   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.48.1

Virtual machine settings

Ethernet adapter Ethernet0:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :

   IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2a02:a314:xxxxxxx

   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::389f:2e18:9655:188c%2

   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.48.128

   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : fe80::ae22:5ff:fe81:62b0%2

                                                   192.168.48.1

I hid the IPv6 address cause I'm not sure it'd be secure to share it.

On both machines this network is set as private, both have turned on network discovery & file and printer sharing on the private profile. Both IPs are static and there are no more defined for these adapters. DNS addresses are not set since I'm not connecting to Internet from this network.

I tried:

- turning off Windows Firewall on both machines

- setting default gateway to blank

- enabling proper services on Windows Server according to this video.

Moreover, I have two other devices connected to this network, they are reachable from the host device, but not from the virtual machine.

I also have to say, the VM and the host were successfully pinging several times, but it has changed under unknown by me circumstances (I have been suspending the VM a view times since the connection was working last time).

Does anyone have an idea why I cannot ping these machines, what can be wrong with my network configuration? I have spent a little time on this problem and will be grateful for any advice from you.

Hi all,

I'm using the free version of VMWare Player (ver : 15.5.6) on a Open Suse Linux Tumbleweed system.

This morning I have done an Update of my system (TW is a rolling release so I do that frequenly) and a new version of Kernel was installed.

Usualy, after a Kernel update I have to re-compile the VMMON and VMNET files of VMWare... Sometimes VMWare do it automatically and sometime I have to do manually... But VMWare always start...

This morning, VMWare don't start without error message... I try to start in console mode and I got this :

/usr/bin/vmplayer : ligne 105 :  5175 Segmentation fault	(core dumped)"$BINDIR"/vmware-modconfig --appname="VMware Player" --icon="vmware-player"

I don't know if the problem is due to VMWare or Kernel and I need advice if you think it will be better to wait a little time (get another update) or If I need to reinstall VMWare ?

Thank you very much for yours advices

Philippe (From France ... ;-))

Hi How is it going?

I am have installed andriod x86 on my VMware Workstation 15 Player.

I am using an app that requires my Laptop to NOT be charging otherwise I cant use this app.

Given I am using VMware I wanted to know if I can charge my host user laptop and within VMware the guest user would not know I am charging the device.

I am aware that VMware has an option to disable "report battery information to guest" but when I do this:  by default the guest user enters a charging state which means i cant use my desired app. Is there any way i can change this default behaviour?

Thanks in advance.

i am not able to install VM Tools....The option Has just Got Disabled/Greyed Out.

host: windows 10

guest: lubuntu 20.04 (also with previous versions, also with ubuntu)

open-vm-tools installed

Problem: when guest is in full screen and no action is done for a while, the host lock screen timeout is triggered

Desired behavior: when guest is full screen, host lock screen timeout should not trigger.

     As an example, Chrome with youtube in fullscreen on host does not cause lock screen to trigger after some minutes

Notes:

I cannot change nor disable lock screen settings on host

guest lock screen / screen saver is not triggered

Does anybody know how to fix this behavior?

Thanks

I am seeing a new and serious issue with VMWare Workstation and USB. This may have only occurred with the latest update, as I did not notice this problem until now.

When a new USB device is connected while a virtual machine is running, the device driver fails to successfully load. For instance, my headphones report a driver error of: "There are no compatible drivers for this device." This does NOT occur when a virtual machine is not running.

This also appears to affect other types of devices. I tried to move my keyboard and mouse to different USB ports and then those drivers no longer worked and I could no longer control my host machine at all.

I was not trying to connect these devices to the virtual machine and even have tried switching to automatically assigning devices to the host and still have the issue.

Here are the environment's details:

VMWare Workstation Player v 15.5.6 build-16341506

Windows 10 v 10.0.19041 Build 19041

Hopefully, this bug report helps.

Thank you,

Justin

I just installed VMWare Workstation 15 Player, 15.5.6 build-16341506 on Linux Mint 20. During creation of the virtual machine VMWare would not recognize my OS ISO file, so I selected the install OS later option. Later when I tried to power on the virtual machine to install my OS I briefly see a "waiting for connection" message then VMWare immediately closes. It never powers on.

I've never used VMWare before, so I don't know where I'm going wrong. Is it my machine not configured correctly (most likely) or is it a problem with VMWare?

I have a notebook with intel uhd 630 and nvidia rtx 2060 gpu in optimus mode (when not used, nvidia discrete gpu doesn't draw power).

All new nvidia gpu's (rtx series) has onboard usb 3 controller (type-c for virtual link: PSA: The USB-C port on Nvidia RTX graphics cards isn't just for VR • Eurogamer.net)

But on many notebooks (and some desktop cards) there no physical usb-port for this usb controller, despite this, all drivers for this controller are installed.

VMware USB Arbitration service wakes up this controller (and all nvidia discrete gpu) each 30 seconds, significantly increase power/battery drain - in normal mode (with nvidia optimus) notebook draw only 17 Watt, but each 30 seconds it start consuming 40 Watts for 1-2 second. You can see power monitoring in attached screenshot. Only disabling VMware USB Arbitration service can help, but this leads to lack of  usb support in Guest OS.

Tested on latest VMware Player 15.5

Hope VMware developers can fix this bug.

I am using Windows 10 in VMware Player 15.5.6 build-16341506 on a Linux Min 20 host. The main reason for the Win10 VM is Office 365 and especially Teams. For my work I have to use Teams a lot and the Linux version for Teams is not up to scratch (no screen sharing, among other things).

The webcam I use is a Logitech C930e. Works fine with Linux Mint 20, and worked fine under Windows, when I had Windows installed on this same PC. However, on the virtual machine the webcam sometimes is available, sometimes it is not.

The VMware taskbar tells me the camera is connected:

And in Windows the USB key in the tray gives me the option to remove the webcam:

Nevertheless, the device is sometimes found with no problems by Teams or other apps in Windows, but sometimes no webcam is found by any application. In these situations the webcam is also not present in device manager.  In some instances, I start out using the webcam in Teams with no issues, but half an hour later, during the same VM session, the webcam is suddenly no longer available.

These are my VMware settings

I am new to VMware Player so maybe I am overlooking something or maybe I need to add extra info. Please let me know.

Thanks,

BJ

Hi,

On Ubuntu 20.04 disabling file history (Settings > Privacy > File History & Rubbish Bin) prevents VMs from being loaded into the VMWare Player library. It looks like it relies on the file $HOME/.local/share/recently-used.xbel rather than its own config files. I would like to report this a bug as there is no useful error message warning the user of this fact. VMs can still be started from the terminal (vmplayer $HOME/vmware/path-to-vm.vbx) with file history disabled. I hope this is useful for anyone that finds it.

Kind Regards