VMWare Workstation 17.6 Windows Host - Failed to start the virutal machine

[kasper]

Upgraded host to 17.6 from 17.5.2.   Now all my guests get the same error message

when starting - 'Failed to start the virtual machine'.   I use vmci0.present = false

in the guest vmx file.    I hope this is not the issue.   I disable debug and logging

in the guests.   Now I may have to set one up to troubleshoot this disaster.

I would be grateful if anyone else is experiencing this issue and can post a

fix.

A big thank you to Clonezilla.   That is what I use for any major change to

avoid this type of issue.

I spent $100 a year before on upgrades with VMWare.   Is there a way to

pay for that type of service and get good quality software?

[Dhairya Tomar]

kasper We are unable to reproduce this issue upon updating the parameter vmci0.present = "FALSE" in the vmx file.

Request you to check if this parameter "vmx.scoreboard.enabled" is set to FALSE, if yes update it to TRUE OR remove it from the vmx file and try to power on the VM and let us know if the VM gets powered on fine. If the issue still persists please provide the support bundle of the affected VM using Help->Support->Collect Support Data

[kasper]

Thank you for looking into this.    Mentioning vmci0.present = false was a shot in the dark.

The issue is with another VMX setting which I found.   And which for some reason is on the community

web site but hard to find.   It vmx.scoreboard.enabled = false.    For 17.6 with that setting, guests fail to start.

This is recognized as an issue by Broadcom.

[commodon]

The cause of the issue is the use of the "vmx.scoreboard.enabled" variable in the .vmx file.

For reference, this variable was introduced for use with the "Scoreboard Widget", which if enabled (i.e. set to TRUE) creates "Scoreboard" files containing performance information about the VM used for optimization and troubleshooting purposes. Fortunately, the Scoreboard Widget is not required to run the VM.

If you remove the the variable from the .vmx file, save the file, the VM will now start without issue.

[kasper]

Ok.   I remove it and the guests start.   But the reason the entry in the VMX file exists was to stop the logging and extraneous IO.    So if I remove it do I still get all this IO and logging?

[Don Kelloway]

The logging and extraneous IO should only occur if the "vmx.scoreboard.enabled" variable exists in the .vmx file and is set to "true".

If the variable does not exist exist in the .vmx file, there shouldn't be any logging or extraneous IO occurring.

[optic]

I agree with you that there should be no logging if that variable is not defined, meaning the default state should be FALSE. That would be my preference as well.

However, with Workstation 17.5.x, I can confirm this assumption was incorrect. I observed that when that variable was not defined, the scoreboard files would get created, implying that the default state was actually TRUE. I haven't tried 17.6 yet, but would expect this behavior to remain unchanged.

It's easy to verify this though: Just look for the presence of .scoreboard files in your vm folder (where the .vmx file resides).

I hope VMware can fix this, because most of my VMs explicitly set this variable to FALSE, so they likely won't run in 17.6. This looks like a regression to me.

[kasper]

Removed it.   Windows host.   Windows guest.  Scoreboard file and IO still created.

Did not try recreating the entire guest and new VMX file.   Would someone confirm

that they do not get this on guest?   Is it possible remove the scoreboard widget?