VMware Workstation

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  • 1.  25H2 U1 - Webcam performance slows to a crawl when switching between VM's

    Posted 28 days ago

    Hi All,

    I have a Insta360 Link 2 webcam which is fantastic and works well inside both the Host and the Primary Virtual Machine. I have it autoconnect on boot to my primary VM using this config in the VMX File:

    usb.autoConnect.device0 = "vid:0x2e1a pid:0x4c04 autoclean:0"

    This has worked perfectly for a long time. When I disconnect the webcam from the VM and place it back to the Host, no issues, performance is great and works as expected. When I reconnect it back to the Primary VM, again, no issues, performance is slightly worse (just the usual overhead I assume), but still great, as expected. 

    I have recently created a 2nd VM, and occasionally need to switch the webcam from the Primary VM to the Secondary VM. 

    I do what you would expect, on the Primary VM, go to:

    VM -> Removable Devices -> Link2 -> Disconnect

    On the Secondary VM, go to: 

    VM -> Removable Devices -> Link2 -> Connect

    When I open the Camera app now inside Windows 25H2 on the Secondary VM, the performance is like a slideshow. When I disconnect it from the Secondary VM and place it back to the Primary, again, the performance remains a slideshows. 1fps at max, often far worse. 

    There is no getting it back to its original performance unless I close the VM's and relaunch Workstation, where performance returns to normal. No host reboot is needed.

    I don't know if this is a new issue or if its been going on for a while, but it basically makes the webcam unusable until a full shutdown/startup of all VM's and Workstation. issue is 100% completely reproducible.

    Any ideas of what could be going wrong or how to fix it? Its gotten so bad I am tempted to purchase a 2nd webcam to just permanently assign it to the Secondary VM, but I guess that defeats the whole point of "virtualization".... 

    Happy to provide logs (if I'm told which ones are the relevant ones to provide. 

    Thanks your support :) 



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  • 2.  RE: 25H2 U1 - Webcam performance slows to a crawl when switching between VM's

    Posted 27 days ago

    After further testing, my initial assessment was incorrect.

    Any disconnection of the webcam, and reconnection, makes the performance horrible, even if I dont switch it between VM's.

    What could the reason be that when mounting the webcam via VMX file during boot means performance is as expected, but soon as you disconnect it, and reconnect it, I get a slideshow instead of a webcam? 

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