[SOLVED] VMWare Player not working correctly after installing QEMU

[magic_missile]

So... here's the story. I'm hoping someone with virtual machine experience here can help me. I'm using Linux Mint 21.2 64bit (Cinnamon) with Kernel: 6.2.0-37-generic. CPU is i5-3570 and GPU is GTX 1050.

I first installed VMWare player (VMware-Player-Full-17.5.0-22583795.x86_64.bundle) to run some programs/old Windows games on W10. Everything worked fine for the little testing I did, no complaints. I used VMWare for a few days like this. Then I was really annoyed that I cannot make VMware Player (the free version) run in fullscreen, so I searched for how to install QEMU, since that's open source and... maybe it can run some old 3D games/apps in full screen without GPU pass-through shenanigans? I don't know, but VMWare did run F.E.A.R. without any extra configuration from me. And I'm not playing FEAR in a VM, I know WINE exists and I love it, but this is just to give you an idea of what I expect and what worked for me.

Now, on to the QEMU and Virt Manager install... Given that I'm a Linux newbie, I don't have a solid idea of what I'm really doing with every single terminal command, I'm mostly just following instructions from tutorials. So I don't understand where I messed up. I followed this tutorial:

https://christitus.com/vm-setup-in-linux/

And now, after installing QEMU and Virt Manager from the tutorial above, VMWare Player doesn't display my Virtual Machines in its main menu anymore. Furthermore, I can click "Open a virtual machine" and point it to the .vmx file, but it just does absolutely nothing. However... if I directly double click the .vmx file, it does open the VM in VMWare Player with no problems. Weird.

So, double clicking the file works, but I cannot view it in the VMWare list. And this is quite important, because I can't modify its settings, as the VM is running, and I can't seem to install VMWare tools either (it's greyed out when the VM is active).

To install QEMU and Virt Manager, I used these commands in the following order (from that tutorial). Hopefully, someone can notice what screwed up my VMWare install from these commands:

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sudo apt install qemu-kvm qemu-system qemu-utils python3 python3-pip libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon-system bridge-utils virtinst libvirt-daemon virt-manager -y

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sudo virsh net-start default

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sudo virsh net-autostart default

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sudo usermod -aG libvirt $USER
sudo usermod -aG libvirt-qemu $USER
sudo usermod -aG kvm $USER
sudo usermod -aG input $USER
sudo usermod -aG disk $USER

If I use the command: "sudo virsh net-list --all" then this is the output:

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username@PCName:~$ sudo virsh net-list --all
 Name      State    Autostart   Persistent
--------------------------------------------
 default   active   yes         yes

and if I use the command "sudo systemctl status libvirtd.service" this is the output:

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Nov 29 13:54:08 PCName libvirtd[1120]: Unable to read from monitor: Connection reset by peer

Nov 29 13:54:08 PCName libvirtd[1120]: internal error: qemu unexpectedly closed the monitor: 2023-11-29T11:54:08.107803Z qemu-system-x86_64: egl: eglInitialize failed
                                        2023-11-29T11:54:08.107914Z qemu-system-x86_64: Failed to initialize EGL render node for SPICE GL
                                        
Nov 29 13:54:08 PCName libvirtd[1120]: internal error: process exited while connecting to monitor: 2023-11-29T11:54:08.107803Z qemu-system-x86_64: egl: eglInitialize failed
                                        2023-11-29T11:54:08.107914Z qemu-system-x86_64: Failed to initialize EGL render node for SPICE GL
                                        
Nov 29 13:55:02 PCName libvirtd[1120]: Unable to read from monitor: Connection reset by peer

Nov 29 13:55:02 PCName libvirtd[1120]: internal error: qemu unexpectedly closed the monitor: 2023-11-29T11:55:02.946559Z qemu-system-x86_64: egl: eglInitialize failed
                                        2023-11-29T11:55:02.946679Z qemu-system-x86_64: Failed to initialize EGL render node for SPICE GL
                                        
Nov 29 13:55:02 PCName libvirtd[1120]: internal error: process exited while connecting to monitor: 2023-11-29T11:55:02.946559Z qemu-system-x86_64: egl: eglInitialize failed
                                        2023-11-29T11:55:02.946679Z qemu-system-x86_64: Failed to initialize EGL render node for SPICE GL
                                        
Nov 29 13:57:17 PCName libvirtd[1120]: Unable to read from monitor: Connection reset by peer

Nov 29 13:57:17 PCName libvirtd[1120]: internal error: qemu unexpectedly closed the monitor: 2023-11-29T11:57:17.127985Z qemu-system-x86_64: -device virtio-vga-gl,id=video0,max_outputs=1,bus=pcie.0,addr=0x1: opengl is not available

Nov 29 13:57:17 PCName libvirtd[1120]: internal error: process exited while connecting to monitor: 2023-11-29T11:57:17.127985Z qemu-system-x86_64: -device virtio-vga-gl,id=video0,max_outputs=1,bus=pcie.0,addr=0x1: opengl is not available

[mikeflan]

sudo apt install . . . . . python3 python3-pip . . . .

That could be the problem. You probably already had python3 installed.

Timeshift might not fix this, but I would try that first.

[magic_missile]

Timeshift would've been a good idea... if I had actually created a timeshift before that. Oopsies... But anyway, do you think reinstalling python 3 could've really messed it up? Wouldn't it just replace the original already installed filed and that's it? And... should I try reinstalling python 3 now, will uninstalling it and then installing it again mess things up even worse?

I forgot to mention one thing. In my first post, I posted the output of "sudo systemctl status libvirtd.service", but I focused on those errors only and forgot to post what was above them. It probably doesn't matter, but here it is:

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● libvirtd.service - Virtualization daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/libvirtd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2023-11-29 13:42:33 EET; 16h ago
TriggeredBy: ● libvirtd-ro.socket
             ● libvirtd.socket
             ● libvirtd-admin.socket
       Docs: man:libvirtd(8)
             https://libvirt.org
   Main PID: 1120 (libvirtd)
      Tasks: 22 (limit: 32768)
     Memory: 9.6M
        CPU: 5.183s
     CGroup: /system.slice/libvirtd.service
             ├─1120 /usr/sbin/libvirtd
             ├─1350 /usr/sbin/dnsmasq --conf-file=/var/lib/libvirt/dnsmasq/default.conf --leasefile-ro --dhcp-script=/usr/lib/libvirt/libvirt_leaseshelper
             └─1351 /usr/sbin/dnsmasq --conf-file=/var/lib/libvirt/dnsmasq/default.conf --leasefile-ro --dhcp-script=/usr/lib/libvirt/libvirt_leaseshelper

I also just noticed there was a virtual machine section in this forum... lol. If some mod would be kind enough to move the thread there that'd be nice.

[mikeflan]

Wouldn't it just replace the original already installed filed and that's it?

Yeah, I would think that too, but I don't know the intricacies of Python.

And... should I try reinstalling python 3 now, will uninstalling it and then installing it again mess things up even worse?

Personally I would not uninstall any Python.

The guy you need is spamegg. Read this until he comes along:
viewtopic.php?t=362499

[magic_missile]

Thanks for your reply. Sorry about my late response. I'll read that guide and if I find any solution to the problem I'll post it here.

[magic_missile]

Well, it's a few months later, but I found a solution. It had nothing to do with the QEMU installation. The problem was that the file /home/user/.local/share/recently-used.xbel will be emptied from time to time, thus the library of VMs will be lost. The solution itself is stupidly simple:

1. Go to your Privacy settings in Linux Mint
2. Enable "Remember recently accessed files"
3. Set the number of days of remembering the files to a big number so that your VM list doesn't vanish again soon, or preferably set it to never forget accessed files.

I think it's a silly decision that VMWare relies on that option being enabled in order for it to work correctly. I did not want my distro to remember all my recently accessed files, but now I apparently need it to be ON if i want VMWare to show my VMs. Oh, well. Hope the solution helps someone else. Thanks to everyone who tried to help.

[MikeNovember]

Hi,

- I use VMware workstation player 17.5.1 and it is able to display a VM full screen.

- And it doesn't depend on the list of recent documents, since it has its own configuration directory, hidden in your home.

- So, something is still wrong in your installation, and you have found a workaround, but you don't describe a normal functioning.

- Normally, when you launch VMware Player, you can import existing VMs, and it remembers them. Sometimes, after an update, the list of VMs is empty and you need to import them again.

Regards.

MN

[magic_missile]

- So, something is still wrong in your installation, and you have found a workaround, but you don't describe a normal functioning.
- Normally, when you launch VMware Player, you can import existing VMs, and it remembers them. Sometimes, after an update, the list of VMs is empty and you need to import them again.
Regards.
MN

Hey, that's true, fullscreen has no problems! Thanks for reminding me to try that again. I don't know why I had problems making it fullscreen at the time... but it does actually work, trying it now. I'm very happy about that!

Though without that Remember Files option, even if I just imported a VM, it just doesn't work. I wish I knew how to fix my installation without turning my system upside down, but I suppose I'll just use the workaround if there is no obvious solution. Kind of sucks, but I'll just have to turn that Remember Files option ON whenever I want to edit the VM, and turn it off afterwards. Then I'll just double click the .vmx to enter my VMs.

[MikeNovember]

Hi,

Correction: you are right. Though VMware Workstation Player keeps the references of the virtual machines in "~/.vmware/preferences", if you delete "~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel", the list of virtual machines disappear from VMware Player Workstation window...

I had never experienced it since, in Linux Mint 21.3 with Mate 1.26 desktop, there is no Privacy Settings, and "recently-used.xbel" seems to never be emptied or deleted (except manually).

What a silly way to remember its settings!

Regards,

MN

[magic_missile]

Hi,

Correction: you are right. Though VMware Workstation Player keeps the references of the virtual machines in "~/.vmware/preferences", if you delete "~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel", the list of virtual machines disappear from VMware Player Workstation window...

I had never experienced it since, in Linux Mint 21.3 with Mate 1.26 desktop, there is no Privacy Settings, and "recently-used.xbel" seems to never be emptied or deleted (except manually).

What a silly way to remember its settings!

Regards,

MN

Good to hear about your experience as well. It is indeed a silly way, haha. I'll mark the topic as [SOLVED] then.