Workstation 15: Guest screen flickering occasionally - can someone reproduce this issue?

[Legacy User]

After having upgraded to VMware Workstation 15 on my Windows 10x64 machine, each of my VMs shows a black flicker from time to time (once every 10 minutes or so).

This disturbance can be reproduced easily:

Simply start a VM with a Windows 10x64 OS installed and wait for about 10 seconds after having signed in to the guest OS. Then the first black flicker will occur:

After having opened a support ticket I'm having long discussions with VMware Support. They don't seem to be able to reproduce this issue.

So I'm asking here: Can anyone reproduce this issue?

[bluefirestorm]

I just upgraded a few hours ago from Workstation Pro 12.5.9 to 15.0.2, and Fusion Pro 8.5.10 to 11.0.2 with the Black Friday sale.

Yes, it can be reproduced on both Workstation 15.0.2 and Fusion 11.0.2. All the Windows VMs are Windows 10 1803. Two of them have virtual BIOS and one of them has virtual EFI.

[bluefirestorm]

Considering that it the flicker also happens on Fusion, it led me to think it isn't the host graphics hardware or host graphics framework (Fusion 11 uses Metal by default while Workstation on Windows uses DX11 and the graphics hardware I have are very different Intel Pro 5200 on the MacBook Pro while Nvidia on Windows host). It also seems to happen only on the Windows 10 VM (not on a macOS VM and Linux VM).

I changed the hardware compatibility on the Fusion Windows 10 VM back to 12 and switched back to OpenGL and the flickering still occured.

I then tried just a sign-out and sign-in again and the flicker still occured. This led me to think it might not be related to the VMware SVGA 3D graphics driver during power-up of the VM. I also noticed that the the flicker happens just before the VMware Tools icon appear on the notification area. I turned on debug and the flicker time roughly coincides with certain VMware log entries in relation to VMware Tools.

| vmx| I130: PolicyVMX_IsCopyPasteAllowed: Copy/paste policy is allowed.

| vmx| I130: ToolsGetCopyPaste: Copy/paste allowed: 0.

| vmx| I130: PolicyVMX_IsDragDropAllowed: Drag/drop policy is allowed.

| vmx| I125: Guest: toolbox-dnd: Version: 10.3.2.6765 (build-9925305)

| vcpu-1| W115: GuestRpc: application toolbox-dnd, changing channel 65535 -> 1

| vcpu-1| I125: GuestRpc: Channel 1, guest application toolbox-dnd.

| vmx| I125: DnDCP: dndGuestVersion from vmdb failed, setting to 4

| vmx| I125: DnDCP: set guest controllers to version 4

| vmx| I125: DnDCP: set guest controllers to version 4

| vmx| I125: DnDCP: set guest controllers to version 4

I did install VMware Tools 10.3.2 before when I still had Fusion 8.5.10 and Workstation 12.5.9 but I can't say with certainty that the flickering didn't occur as it could be that I just didn't notice it.

[Legacy User]

Thanks, Blue,

I can confirm that this issue occurs on every machine I have with VMware Workstation 15 installed (from 15.0.0 to 15.0.2), each equipped with different hardware, from tablet over notebook to server workstation.

[Michael Banack]

To both WhiteKnight and bluefirestorm, do you still see the flickering if you disable 3D graphics in the VM ?

[Legacy User]

Thanks, bm​, for trying to help.

Yes, even after having 3D acceleration disabled, the flickering still occurs.

[Flownwolf]

I had this flicker happen every time my Windows 10 background wallpaper would change on the host machine (once every 10 minutes).

[bonnie201110141]

We have an internal bug to track the issue, and we are working on it. Thanks for the feedback!

[chefundo]

have a similar issue on workstation, just opened a ticket, my screen flickers every 10 seconds I cannot work with it

SR 18010046812

Any solution in the works, or a workarond?

[ChrisG0x20]

Hi, this is still happening to me in Workstation 16 Pro 16.1.0 build-17198959.  The host is a AMD/Win10 19042.746 using hyper-v as the hypervisor backend. It does it with both win10 and ubuntu guests. It's the whole window. Including the frame. They all flicker black. It's making me crazy.

Also, having issues when suspend/startup causing the guest to become unresponsive, but that's another bug. Is there a public bug tracking I could get busy entering bugs into?

[wandreas]

I have exactly the same, really annoying problem with all my Win 10 VM's (with installed VMWare tools, in my case 10.3.2.9925305) after upgrading to Workstation 15.

There is always an initial flickering as shown in your video shortly after the user profile has loaded and the desktop shows up.

After this initial flickering/blackening I also encounter relatively regular consecutive screen flickerings, just the period for me seems to be longer than 10 minutest (more 30 up to 45 mins for me).

As I use those VM for software development this is really annoying, because especially when I extend the VM to my two displays, the flickering affects windows positions and screen focus is often shifted.This regularly leads to typos or wrongly positioned controls, when designing Winforms Apps.

The flickering occurs regardless if 3D Acceleration is turned on for those VM or not.

I tried both Settings, but the behaviour does not change.

No changing wallpapers, just monochrome ones used together with Wininternals BGInfo.

Win 10 VM without installed VMWare tools do not show this flickering, at least for me.

I can also confirm that the initial flickering occurs exactly when the VMWare tools icon appears in the system tray.

[beneddt]

Also want to chime in that I'm in the same boat.  Just upgraded from Workstation 12.5.8 to 15.0.2 and have screen flickering as mentioned.  I've tried disabling / re-enabling 3d Acceleration, that doesn't do anything for me either.

Not sure if it matters, but I have 2 monitors, each plugged in via Display Port, with one usually dedicated to the VM for development.  Never ran into this issue with v12.5.

thanks,

Dean

[wandreas]

Some additional findings:

At least for me the periodically occurring flickering seems to be somewhat "synchronized" throughout all running Win10-based VM's.

I currently could observe this on my workstation with two independently started and running Win10-VM (two separate vmware.exe instances), each sitting on separate monitors.

The flickering effect occurred on both VM at exactly the same point in time (VM settings as described, no 3d acceleration, etc.).

I suspect that both VM react to the same external cause triggered by the host, which is a Win10 1809 Workstation as well.

Just no idea what this cause could be.

Older Guest OSes do not seem to be affected.

I ran several VM running with Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008R2 for longer Times, none of those showed the effect.

[wila]

Hi,

I don't have the problem, but the first thing I would try is to go to the folder where VMware Tools is installed and rename the file VMwareResolutionSet.exe into VMwareResolutionSet.exe.old

--

Wil

[marvinxno]

We have multiple machines running VMWare workstation 15.0.2 build - 10952284.  We have guest running Windows Server 2016. My machine is a T480s using the Intel UHD Graphics 620 video adapter.  The video driver version is 24.20.100.6344. Periodically (average once/hour??, sometimes more often, sometimes less than once/day) the video on the monitor running VMware workstation will "flicker" (go black for a second, then return). The other monitors (i hve a total of 3) are not effected, only the monitor running VMWare workstation. Sometimes the screen contents will change during this flicker. The host operating system is Windows 10 1803, specifically Windows 10 Enterprise, version 10.0.17134. The machine has 24GB memory. 3D Hardware acceleration is off.

It seems that when the "flicker" occurs, it "blinks" exactly twice.

This has been happening for months now. We really need a resolution for this issue with VMware workstation.

[beneddt]

Here is a temporary fix that seemed to work for me, and for those of us who couldn't wait for VMware to fix it.

I installed an older version of the VMware tools in the guest, and the flickering stopped.  I'm sure this isn't super optimal as they probably have fixes for bugs in the newer tools, but for me everything seems to work just fine in the VM (USB, Sound, clipboard, drive maps, etc), and I can work without the flickering.

I chose the VMware tools from the 12.5.x release (tools version denoted as 10.1.7), mainly because that was the version I was on before upgrading to 15.  Not sure if other previous releases also work.

Downloaded from here:

Index of /45848/tools/releases/10.1.7

Good luck

[wstagner]

thanks for the workaround for this

i'm running win10 32-bit version and this has been driving me crazy

the flawed program has been found, now it's up to vmware to find out what makes it fail

interestingly, my win10 64 bit vmware works perfectly with the most recent vmware tools

go figure

[Legacy User]

So, VMware, did you find the reason for this bug and will you be able to provide a bugfix with the next update? When will this update be available?

[wstagner]

I'll take that as a no. :smileycry:

[NinjaFaceX]

I'm late to the conversation, but I found if I right click VMWare Tools in the system tray and select exit, the flickering stops.  

[jcatayoc]

Also experiencing screen flickering, almost every 10 seconds or so, with blinking twice.

Flickering stops when the VMWare Tools Tray icon is exited.

[lecedre10]

Same here, the workaround proposed by NinjaFaceX works but isolate the Guest (no copy paste or drag drop as well as weird time....) so it's not ideal

[damondawson]

I noticed this too, shortly after upgrading to v15.

Mine flashes black 6 times. I recently discovered that it was doing this every time AD Group Policy (GP) was refreshed on the host system.

My host system is Server 2012-R2 and the VM is Windows 10.

It appears to occur with the "Computer" portion of GP refreshes.  I can recreate it by opening a command prompt and running GPUPDATE.

This doesn't seem to impact my VMs that are running Windows 7, 8 or 8.1.  Just Windows 10.  VMTools is current on all.

By default, GP refreshes every 90 minutes.   As a stop-gap measure, I've created a GPO to override the default refresh interval from 90 minutes to 7200 minutes (once every 5 days).  This is setting is in GP  Management MMC, under Computer Settings > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Group Policy > Set Group Policy refresh interval for computers = 7200.

Since doing that I now only see the 6x flashing every 5 days.

I haven't been able to narrow it down to any particular setting.

[bonnie201110141]

Thank you damondawson for your help! Now we can reproduce the issue and are actively working on a fix.

[Legacy User]

I called "GPUPDATE" today, but nothing's flickering here while that tool is being executed.

To me it seems like the guest OS pauses running while the screen is black. The black periods are particularly long at my slow machine or when my SSD drives are busy copying large files.

VMware, wouldn't it make sense to add profiling/auditing/stop-watch calls to each of VMware Tools' API entry points while you're debugging? The first flickering in a guest session always occurs when VMware Tools finishes booting in the guest, so it should be easy to find the call that's causing this flickering. (Strange enough: It doesn't occur when I restart the VMware Tools service in the guest.)

[jgilleland]

Happens to me, windows 10 host, windows 10 guest, any time the host OS flashes an alert/toast the screen blanks.  about 20% of the time it results in a bluescreen and restart.

Seems to have to do with the vmware guest screen resize, but I have no idea why a toast alert would trigger it.

[Nullers]

Thanks damondawson the flickering happens when I call GPUPDATE. Given that this happens in the background quite a lot, this is a really annoying issue!

[Legacy User]

I believe I may have an idea on the reason for this issue:

Anyone of you who experiences this bug:

What is the manufacturer of your graphics card?

Why am I asking this:

1. I once had a severe issue with VMware Workstation. It took more than a year to hunt this issue down, and the result was that the issue was based in faulty NVidia graphics drivers.
   
   
2. I can easily cause my guest OS to flicker by doing the following ...
   1. switch to VMware Window mode,
   2. go to host OS (Windows 10, having a multi-image Windows theme installed there)
   3. right-click on the host OS desktop and select "next desktop background" from the context menu that appears:
      
      
      

This is making me wonder if the NVidia graphic drivers are having a bug again, causing VMware workstation to fail (i.e. flicker).

[EdO_HIS]

My video card is AMD FirePro W4100

[Legacy User]

Ah. OK then ... Too bad.

@VMware:

How are chances we're getting a fix for this, soon?

Out of curiosity: are you dogfooding? If so, aren't you bugged yourself by all this flickering while you're working?

[bonnie201110141]

It will be fixed very soon. Thanks for your patience!

[kwitt]

Finally it is identified and perhaps soon we will have a resolution.

[Legacy User]

Splendid!! Good work, chaps!

[chinaski007]

Hello,

i have the same problem on Workstation pro 12.5.9 latest. (no update so far).

My host is Windows 10 x64, my guest is Windows 10 x64.

I have this flickering with GTX 980 and with GTX 2080

with nvidia driver < 400 and current driver 430.86 (standard).

I have the flickering with 3D graphics enabled or not.

I have 2 screens, both 2560 x 1440.

Also, after waking up from screen saver, it happened that the whole guest machine remained

black.

And, when i span the gues over 2 screens and switch back to 1, it remains black.

How to fix this ?
Thank you

[bkader101]

Hi...

Have same problem ;((

Do you have a fix for it ??

Thks

[danpoleary]

Been a while, any progress on this issue?  Is there a version which does not have this issue?

[bonnie201110141]

The issue was fixed a long time ago, maybe in Workstation 15.1? Anyway, you can get latest Workstation 15.x for free to try it. Thanks!

[Legacy User]

Please note that existing VMs observing this issue will still observe this issue even after updating VMware Workstation a/o VMware Tools.

You need to fully re-install the VM with latest VMware Workstation/Tools for this issue to be fixed.

[Rafferty2000]

So just to be clear, that's not just running "Install VMware Tools" from the "Virtual Machine" menu?

[Legacy User]

That's my observation. All the VMs I created that have been showing this issue never recovered from it, even with the current VMware Tools version.

So, I fully re-installed them last month to overcome the flickering.

[Rafferty2000]

Thankfully, just installing the VMware Tools again worked - so I didn't have to reinstall the VM - phew.

And now my Mac wants to update from 10.15.3 to 10.15.4 - lets hope it still works after that.

[JohnW3]

Like alexsch​, I am seeing this in Workstation 15.5.6, but in what might be the worst-case scenario. Everything was fine yesterday. At the end of the day, I deleted the one existing snapshot of the VM, which took a while since there were a couple months' worth of changes to roll in. Bad idea.

Today, the guest screen starts flickering immediately after the "logging in" process completes and the flicker period is just under one second. I can't do anything in the guest while the flickering is happening; no mouse cursor ever appears. Sending Ctrl-Alt-Del to the guest brings up the expected screen, not flickering. If I log out, the next screen also does not flicker, but logging back in restarts it. I can also start Task Manager there and it will run, sitting on top of the flickering screen. Navigating through Task Manager is hard because there is no mouse and the keyboard input is only recognized for a very brief part of each flicker.

I tried running VMware-vdiskmanager to check the vmdk file, but it fails with "VixDiskLib: Failed to initialize PhoneHome library." I did a Repair install of Workstation with no improvement.

I would accept a temporary workaround of disabling VMTools, but I don't see how to do that outside the guest O/S.

The following unfamiliar entries in the log are flagged as errors by the Configuration Manager Trace Log Tool:

2020-07-24T10:23:27.670-04:00| vmx| I005: OvhdMem OvhdUser_BusError                   :       1      1      - |      0      0      -

2020-07-24T10:23:27.793-04:00| vcpu-0| I005: Win32U_GetFileAttributes: GetFileAttributesExW("E:\Virtual Machines\Win10x64 PC4\Win10x64 PC4.vmpl", ...) failed, error: 2

2020-07-24T10:23:27.796-04:00| vcpu-0| I005: Vix: [mainDispatch.c:4200]: VMAutomation_ReportPowerOpFinished: statevar=0, newAppState=1872, success=1 additionalError=0

2020-07-24T10:23:27.853-04:00| mks| I005: SWBWindow: Window #0 validation failed: no valid host window or host surface.

2020-07-24T10:23:27.927-04:00| mks| I005: SWBWindow: Window #0 validation failed: no valid host window or host surface.

[Yan Li]

@JohnW3,

Unfortunately I can not reproduce this screen flick with WS 15.5.6. If possible, could u upload your VM to somewhere that I can access? It will help a lot to reproduce the issue. Thanks

My HOST: Win10 2004

My Guest: Win10 1803

WS build: 15.5.6

Tools version:15940789

[JohnW3]

I could, if I could safely remove the proprietary content from its disk image.  When I opened the vmdk file (suddenly, I love ImDisk) to recover the work I had lost in the corrupted snapshot removal, I discovered that an entire directory I had been working in had disappeared. That's a convincing sign that the O/S image got trashed, a sort-of virtual hard drive crash, so there are no guarantees that anything will behave the same after I remove more files. I just extracted what I could and created a new VM to start over.

If you want to dive into it, I am willing to try sanitizing the content and uploading it to an appropriate location, but I would now be much more interested in having someone figure out what happened during the snapshot consolidation that corrupted the disk.

[RubenGarciaHern]

I have this issue on 15.5.6 build-16341506, Ubuntu virtual machine running on Windows 10, when my display is set to 3840x2860. On 1920x1080, I don't see flickering.

[dhunt73]

I have experienced the same issue with Windows 10 VM's running VMWare 15.  I did however find a solution to the issue. 

If you want the flickering to stop just uninstall VMWare Tools that came with 15 and install VMWare tools 10.2.5. I did this on all the Windows 10 VM's I was using and it completely fixed the flickering issue.  There is definitely something wrong with the latest version of VMWare tools.

[sevitech]

I can confirm that the VM screen is flickering every time a host system updates group policy (gpupdate) or it changes wallpaper (when I manually click on "next desktop background" from the desktop context menu) while vmtoolsd.exe is running in the VM. Host system (Win10) has a Intel UHD 620 graphics adapter and VMware Workstations Pro 15.0.4 build 1299004

When I exit vmtoolsd.exe in the VM, no screen flickering appears while gpupudate nor next desktop background.

[Dalhyp]

Installed Workstation 15.5 and the screen flickers. I can workaround the issue is if I uninstall VMTools from the Virtual machine. Attempted uninstall and reinstall of both VM Workstation and VMTool and that did not fix the issue.

[alexsch]

This issue is driving me nuts.  Even upgrading to 15.5.6 has not helped.  The only thing that stops this for me is uininstalling VMWare Tools, booting into safe mode, bringing up the device manager, under the Display adaptors, right-select the VMWare SCGA 3D driver, uninstalling the device diver AND checking the delete driver from disk.

Yes, back to the basic display driver and a mismatch on the display window, but at least my sanity is restored.  The guest even feels nippier.

[forthespam]

Seriously, TeamViewer seems to run better right now.

[codus]

I have the same issue on VMWare Fusion 12.1.0 and macOS Big Sur 11.1, running a Win10 guest VM.

Had it on previous versions of Fusion and macOS  as well.

In my case it seems to happen mostly when graphical "stuff" happens in the guest VM, like a pop up from Outlook or Teams.

[MerylC]

For me this problem happen when I run graphically incompatible application that was not originally made for newer OS.

Did you try disabling 3D graphics acceleration under VMware setting.

[ChrisG0x20]

I did. And, it worked, but the performance of the VM became _very_ slow.

[MerylC]

It was happening to me when I was using Dell dual graphics laptop.

 

Intel + nvidia

Graphics were application switchable. Yet it was giving lot of problems, Blank screen on Guest OS start.

[ChrisG0x20]

I'm also using nvidia graphics. Just updated my driver to 461.40 in an attempt to see if it makes a difference.

 

[MerylC]

Wish you best!

[vm1234561]

I am having the same issue. 

I am running VMware Workstation 16 Pro Version: 16.2.4 build-20089737

Workstation Specs: MSI, Intel i7 12th Gen with Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060.

Please resolve this issue ASAP. We are having this serious issue that might distract us to the other virtual machine platforms.

[ChrisG0x20]

Changing my monitor refresh rate seemed to improve, but not completely remove the problem. It still happens when the vmware client window does not have window focus.

[adza77]

Is anyone still having this issue on VMware 17? I've just noticed this issue on my laptop. Works fine when I'm using external monitors but when solely using my laptop I get the flickering when the VM is focused.

I'm running Windows 11 23H2 and Vmware Workstation Pro 15.5.7 build-17171714. Re-installing Vmware Tools didn't seem to work for me.