Fusion

 View Only
Back to discussions
Expand all | Collapse all

macOS guest stuck in reboot cycle after update from 11.6 to 14.4.1

  • 1.  macOS guest stuck in reboot cycle after update from 11.6 to 14.4.1

    Posted Apr 10, 2024 03:24 PM

    Setup:

    • Mac mini 2018 (Core i7) as the host, running macOS 14.4.1
    • VMware Fusion Professional Version 13.5.1 (23298085)
    • Guest system was previously macOS 11.6, now updated to 14.4.1

    Problem:

    • Guest system is stuck in a reboot cycle.
    • Error shown seems to be the grey Apple equivalent of the Windows BSOD.
    • Message is: "Your computer restarted because of a problem. Press any key or wait a few seconds to continue starting up."

    Can someone offer any solution or guidance for this issue?

    I already tried to boot into recovery, but then I don't even get an error message, the boot cycle is not even showing a message.

    I also tried to change the system version in the VM settings from macOS 11 to macOS 14, but that doesn't fix it.

    One thing I noticed is that while the VM says "macOS 14" when not booted up, as soon as I boot up it says "Mac OS X 10.16 (23E224) Darwin 23.4.0", whereas other VMs show the correct version number even when booted.



  • 2.  RE: macOS guest stuck in reboot cycle after update from 11.6 to 14.4.1

    Posted Apr 10, 2024 05:55 PM

    Your guest OS type was probably set to something lower than macOS 13. Those virtual machines configured the virtual network adapter as e1000 or e1000e. macOS Ventura (and later) removed this driver. A virtual machine created as a macOS 13 guest type uses a vmxnet3 virtual network adapter which macOS still has a device driver for.

    This isn't a problem in Fusion 13.0.2 and later for new virtual machines when creating a new macOS 13 virtual machine, but is a problem for users upgrading macOS from earlier versions to Ventura or Sonoma.

    To fix this:

    • Make sure the OS type is set to 'macOS 13" n the VM's Settings 
    • Delete the virtual network adapter.
    • Re-add the virtual network adapter.

    You may also wish to review KB article https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/95426 as the default configuration of the vmxnet3 adapter in macOS may cause network performance issues.