VMWare 16 freeze or crashes LM 20.1

[WindowsMint]

Hi
A lot of times vmware is crashing/freezing my mint cinnamon. Especially when i shut down or suspend a VM.

The only thing that works for me is, if i can even access a tty... $ pkill -HUP -f "cinnamon --replace"
if that doesn't do it, it's Alt+sysrq+r e i s u b or the powerbutton

What can i do to check what is the cause of this crash and resolve it?

Info:
VMware Workstation Pro 16.1.0
Snapshot settings are set to "Just power off".
VMs get 8GB and 4 processors.

Code: Select all

$ inxi -Fxz
System:    Kernel: 5.4.0-65-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 
           Desktop: Cinnamon 4.8.6 Distro: Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa 
           base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: GL552VW v: 1.0 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: ASUSTeK model: GL552VW v: 1.0 serial: <filter> UEFI: American Megatrends 
           v: GL552VW.304 date: 04/25/2019 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 26.5 Wh condition: 26.5/48.2 Wh (55%) 
           model: ASUSTeK ASUS Battery status: Not charging 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-6700HQ bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
           arch: Skylake-S rev: 3 L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
           bogomips: 41599 
           Speed: 2132 MHz min/max: 800/3500 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2132 2: 2194 
           3: 2817 4: 2398 5: 2441 6: 2261 7: 2368 8: 2234 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 530 vendor: ASUSTeK driver: i915 v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:02.0 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GM107M [GeForce GTX 960M] vendor: ASUSTeK driver: nvidia 
           v: 450.102.04 bus ID: 01:00.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting,nvidia 
           unloaded: fbdev,nouveau,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 960M/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 450.102.04 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Family HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
           Device-2: Focusrite-Novation type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio bus ID: 1-1.1.3:7 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-65-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Wireless 7265 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: e000 
           bus ID: 02:00.0 
           IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
           vendor: ASUSTeK driver: r8169 v: kernel port: d000 bus ID: 03:00.1 
           IF: enp3s0f1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
           IF-ID-1: vmnet1 state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: <filter> 
           IF-ID-2: vmnet8 state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: <filter> 
           IF-ID-3: wg-mullvad state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 6.82 TiB used: 6.15 TiB (90.2%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: HGST (Hitachi) model: HTS721010A9E630 size: 931.51 GiB 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Samsung model: SSD 860 EVO M.2 500GB size: 465.76 GiB 
           ID-3: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: Seagate model: BUP BK size: 3.64 TiB 
           ID-4: /dev/sdd type: USB vendor: Seagate model: Backup+ Desk size: 1.82 TiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 455.29 GiB used: 313.69 GiB (68.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1 
           ID-2: /boot size: 704.5 MiB used: 205.1 MiB (29.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb2 
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 980.0 MiB used: 4.2 MiB (0.4%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 55.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 53 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 1700 
Info:      Processes: 405 Uptime: 9h 05m Memory: 15.54 GiB used: 4.41 GiB (28.4%) 
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 
           inxi: 3.0.38 

Thanks.

[WindowsMint]

Things got worse.
Another crash.
Again, Mint 20.1 completely freezes during shut down of a Windows VM. Only option is Alt+sysrq+r e i s u b
Now, this Windows VM boots into a Temporary Profile every time i restart it.



Signing out and back in doesn't work.
This VM is 100GB.
I don't have a snapshot. I just want to backup my files and make a new VM.

EDIT
I did a "Reset This PC and Keep My Files". Backed up my files.
Let's hope a new Win VM will be stable...

[WindowsMint]

Well, it happend again with the new Win10 VM.
Any help much appreciated to find the source of the crash.
Like, where do i look for crash logs??

[MikeNovember]

Hello,

I use Windows 10 Pro in VMware 16.1.2 Workstation Player under Mint 20.2 (formerly 19.3 and 19.2) Mate with no problem.

My configuration is close to yours (same processor, 16 GB RAM, 8 GB and 4 cores allocated to VM).

Your problem seems to be more a Windows problem than a VMware or Linux Mint one.

When you shut down Windows, it should be in a steady mode (not occupied to do something with high CPU use, not waiting for something...).
The only crashes I had were after a bad Windows Update, with "infinite" waiting loop when closing Windows. I had to kill VMware process, and then Windows refused to reboot at next launch. But it never crashed Mint.

Hopefully, I had a backup of a working version of Windows (I do new backup after Windows or program updates, once I have tested all is OK), and what I did was simply replace the Windows 10 VM files on my system by the ones on the backup disk.

What arrives to your Windows 10 I don't know. I am afraid you need to reinstall it, and make a backup (copy all the files on an external disk).

Regards,

MN

[wallyUSA]

@WindowsMint,

VMWare works for me on Kernel: 5.4.0-80, Cinnamon 5.0.5 Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal.

Have you tried to shutdown Windows before you shutdown the VM?

My Kernel, and desktop are newer than yours but it also worked earlier on LM20.1. Might help to do some updates or maybe you have since Feb?

Let us know if it has been fixed.

Good luck!