Workstation 16.2: USB pass-through is unstable

[saxa]

Dear all, dear support,

in an new Workstation 16.2 there is a strange problem: the USB devices, which are passed through to a Windows 10 VM are getting occasionally disconnected. It looks like if somebody would just pull out the cable out from the PC.

After the short time of nothing doing is the connection intact again.

I use pass-through for an USB headset and for an USB webcam, to work with Microsoft Teams from inside of a VM. If you loose your connection in the middle of a conference, it's not very cool

Meanwhile I downgraded Workstation to 16.1.2, which doesn't have these problems.

One more point: in order to get the devices (headset and webcam) work on WS 16.1.2, I have to set the virtual USB adapter to be USB 2.0. With this setting on WS 16.2 I had to set the virtual USB adapter to USB 3.1, because while having it in USB 2.0 mode, I didn't get sound at all.

[darlee69]

Same problem here. Starting a VM allows all USB devices to be accessed. After a random period of time, all devices disappear from the list, even those not connected. No activity necessary, so this is not a user triggered event. Rebooting the VM doesn't help. Restarting VMWare does. Restarting the USB arbitration service on the host doesn't seem to help.

[Kaselite]

Same here... guest OS rendered unusable for USB application... annoying... cant work on it anymore. 

[darlee69]

Oddly, the instability seems to only be triggered by DISK connection. Connecting any USB devices other than disks seems to be stable.

[Kaselite]

My issue is USB audio and USB Video... it degrades over time. made all the usual fixes to make it work but thats not working anymore. 

[darlee69]

When you say "degrades", what exactly happens? I do notice some issues with Teams but saw that elsewhere and believed it to be a Microsoft issue.

[Kaselite]

Its while using Teams - but, teams has not changed, i upgraded the VM host app.  

Since 16.2.0 build-18760230 and Windows 11 22000.258 (i did not use the previews) - this issue of USB audio has returned. The fix before was to use USB 2.0 VM compat and to use USB 2.0 hardware port. Then USB audio devices would work fine... no longer. 

Steps: 

VM -> USB Compat: 2.0

USB is plugged into hardware USB 2 port (Jabra USB device)

The device is showing in the VM... 

in Teams, when i want to use the device, the speaker does not work, microphone does work 

then in Windows, goto: SETTING > SOUND > PROPERTIES > OUTPUT SETTINGS > Jabra device > then switch between "formats" i.e.  Telephone Quality or CD Quality.

When i switch between these it works for a while... but then to stops working after a while and distorts. 

Here is an older thread: Solved: Re: Workstation 16: Audio Delay and Distortion - VMware Technology Network VMTN

[Kaselite]

Tested with other apps like Spotify and Skype... same issue... 

[Kaselite]

You need to fiddle with the quality setting of the stream in the control panel, it will start to work, then a new mins later, it will distort and evntually you cant hear anything. 

[STTH]

Let me add a precision (based on my experience), is that if the system is stressed (typically the CPU), then the probability of the USB issue sharply increases.

[drvcloud]

my system is very high end and not stressed at all, but USB mic drops often.  I have to toggle a different mic then back again.  This isn't due to the system being loaded. My host is nearly idle (below 15%) and my VM is easily below 50%, usually below 25% with memory below 50% utilized

 

[STTH]

So although it is not the user's fault in any way, it is still in some way a user-triggered event, which can usually be reproduced by just stressing the system during a test Zoom meeting session (since those apps are not forgiving with USB Mic loss).

[darlee69]

Anyone know where I can get a download of 16.1.2 to try that?

[Kaselite]

I just swapped VM > USB 2.0 to 3.1 virtualization - plugged in to 3.1 hardware ports and everything is working again. 

[darlee69]

Interestingly, one VM may not show the USB devices where another VM running at the same time will. So this implies it's specific to a VM and not the underlying system.

[saxa]

Kaselite: Just wait for a while - you'll get disconnects. Unfortunately.

[yaochengxiang]

that works

[saxa]

darlee69: you can still download it on the download site of VMWare.

[darlee69]

Downgrading to 16.1.2 has solved the problem for me. No disconnects and it has been stable for hours. Hopefully all of this information gives enough from which to solve the problem.

[Luke_N]

Hi, I have checked the downloads page for V16 but only V16.2 is listed - can you provide a link?

[saxa]

You must be logged in to your VMWare account and then go to "download Workstation". You'll see the select box in the top left corner, there you can select, which 16.x subversion you would like to download. 

 

 

[Luke_N]

Hi,

It seems I can downgrade to V15.5.7 but the previous versions of V16 have been removed? Only V16.2 is showing

Never mind - I have found it now , many thanks again

[jb75]

This issue seems to persist in 16.2.1. I will continue to use 16.1.2 until all these bugs are fixed.

[STTH]

Same problem for me. I have used Workstation for years and have never had the issue, so it might be a bug from the last version (16.2.3).

I have multiple VMs running concurrently, and multiple webcams and microphones. So each VM has its own set of audio/video inputs with no interference. It does not matter if only 1 VM is running though.

It happens randomly, out of the blue, and especially if the compute is stressed, as if some USB arbitration was disconnecting for a fraction of second, perhaps just enough to behave as if the USB packets were no longer being processed and therefore appearing as if the cable had been virtually disconnected.

Imagine you are in the middle of a remote presentation before 500 people and your microphone suddenly disappears. Most of the time, manually re-enabling it is all that suffices. But in some cases, a complete shutdown of the host machine is required, which is intolerable.

I have enabled the verbose logs for USB so that VMware inspects the metadata, but they have not found anything yet and they have redirected me to this article. I hope they will identify the root cause of this issue and will fix it quickly and permanently, as it is unacceptable.

[RobertTheFixer]

Any updates to this issue at all?  I recently tried VMWare 16.2.4 thinking (hoping) this issue was resolved, but I still had the same disconnect issues with a USB headset, so I rolled back to 16.1.2.  Has anyone found any solution to this issue besides staying at an old version of VMWare?

[Solus_VM]

I'm experiencing the exact same issue with my Jabra Engage 75 headset in my Windows 10 VM since VMware Workstation version 16.2, which is why I was still using the old version 16.1.2 until a week ago. I have tried many things, but nothing has helped.

I've now updated to the new VMware Workstation version 17, but unfortunately the problem still exists... A firmware upgrade of my headset was also recently released, but that didn't change anything either.

In order for me to use the headset at all, I had to change the VM settings for USB from 2.0 to USB 3.1. That works for a while (sometimes even for several hours), but very often, however, I have the problem that I can still hear something with my headset, but the person I'm talking to suddenly stops hearing anything in the middle of the conversation, or sometimes even at the beginning of the conversation. Most of the time it's enough to restart my softphone application, but I also think that it's a short interruption of the USB connection and my softphone application can no longer access the microphone. Interestingly, I haven't had the problem of not being able to hear anything myself.

VMware Workstation version 16.1.2 was released in May 2021. It would be a real shame if I had to downgrade to this 1.5 year old version again now, just because I have to work with my headset every day in one of my many VMs. I hope there will be some solution for this soon.

[Solus_VM]

If it helps anyone: I've now installed a software called "USB Network Gate" (https://www.net-usb.com) on my host system and inside my VM. I use it to pass my USB headset through to the VM over the network rather than directly through VMware Workstation. This works perfectly and without any interruption. It also causes just 1.5 to 3 Mbps of traffic when I'm on the phone and only a few Kbps when I'm not using my headset. I also don't notice any delays. So now I stay with VMware Workstation 17 and use this software as a workaround. In my opinion, this is still better than using an 1.5 years old VMware Workstation version.

However, I still hope that VMware will be able to fix this problem, of course.