Workstation Pro 17.5.0 Linux VM black screens w/ Power On to Firmware, etc.

[kbulgrien]

Nothing I have tried has allowed me to find out how to boot to a CD after an OS is installed.  I've dug around for hours.  Edited the .vmx file to add boot.Delay, etc.  I figured maybe I could do it from the BIOS screen, but I can't even get into that.  With all the pop-ups, or time to click into the window, etc., I cannot enter BIOS with a keystroke or call up a Bios Boot Screen.  Ubuntu's boot menu is accessible but does not include removable media entries.  I used to be able delay boot or boot directly into BIOS, but the options for boot are gutted from the GUI and VM > Power > Power On to Firmware goes to a black screen.

I have Ubuntu 20.04 installed in the VM and it boots fine.  The .iso I'd like to boot is mounted and is set to connect at power on.

Of course all this is ridiculous because I guess the root password wasn't written down and the user account isn't in the sudoers file, so to get permissioned access is now not possible.  Still, I don't understand why something that worked for years all of a sudden doesn't.  It would be faster to just blow away the VM and re-install, but that really is not a viable "solution".

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1004129 is unhelpful.

This is a Linux installation of 17.5.0 on Mageia release 9 (Official) for x86_64.  It's a fresh install.  Nothing indicated install issues.

This VM didn't have problems when I was running Workstation 16.x.x, though I cannot say for sure I tried doing anything but going all the way into a graphical desktop.

[kbulgrien]

Changing VM > Settings > Options > Advanced > Firmware Type

    (o) BIOS

to

    (o) UEFI

Has fixed VM > Power > Power On to Firmware so it does not black screen.  Now a Boot Manager screen is shown which allows selection of boot media or entering Setup.  I can't say why this setting would have been wrong as the .vmx file had not been fiddled with since it was last used with an older version of Workstation Pro (16.x).

[kbulgrien]

This actually has not fixed the problem.  The VM will not boot with UEFI selected.  Setting UEFI did let me boot the CD.  What is not right is that I had to change to UEFI to get to the Boot Manager.  The blackscreen is still a problem.

[kbulgrien]

It turns out that black screens are occurring anytime the system lands on a text console.

• Pre-grub menus
• Grub menus
• Recovery mode
• Etc.

It also turns out that everything starts working fine if "Accelerate 3D graphics" is unchecked during the operation that requires booting to a text console.

VM : Settings : Hardware : Display

[ ] Accelerate 3D graphics

The host has an NVidia GTX-750 Ti graphics card, and, the host operating system is using native NVidia drivers.

nvidia-current-all-535.86.05-1.mga9.nonfree

[happyuserbg]

I am experiencing the same issue with Workstation Pro 17.5.0 on Ubuntu 20.04 host with AMD GPU.

The text mode doesn't work in VMs with BIOS firmware type and enabled "Accelerate 3D graphics". It just displays black screen and you can't see anything, but the keyboard still works.

For UEFI VMs or BIOS VMs with disabled 3D acceleration there is no such problem.

Obviously, this is not a solution and the issue needs to be resolved. Disabling 3D acceleration is just a workaround if you need to change something in the BIOS.

[happyuserbg]

This issue is not resolved in Workstation Pro 17.5.1.

Looks like VMware has problems with QA.

Also no one from VMware pays attention to this forum.

[happyuserbg]

Not fixed in Workstation Pro 17.5.2 as well.

I wonder how it's possible to not notice or ignore this issue.

The vmware-clk problem happens only on Ryzen CPUs and I can understand that it may be missed by QA, but the black screen problem seems to be much easier to reproduce.

[Dhairya Tomar]

@happyuserbgRequesting you to share support bundle of the affected VM.

Please try adding below parameters in the VMX file of the affected VM and let us know if the issue persists-

mks.enableDX12Renderer = "FALSE"
mks.enableGLRenderer = "TRUE"

@Ian ForbesLooping you in to check if any other information is required on this.

[happyuserbg]

Adding the suggested parameters in the .vmx file didn't fix the problem in Workstation Pro 17.5.2.

However, the problem seems to be resolved in Workstation Pro 17.6.0, even though the release notes don't say anything about this.

As expected, the vmware-clk spinning problem for Ryzen CPUs persists.