VM freezes after inactivity

[Anders Carlsson]

After upgrading from 17.5.2 to 17.6.0 I see a problem. I'm running VMware workstation with Ubuntu 24.04 image on Windows 11 and after some inactivity on the PC the Ubuntu GUI freezes and there is no way to get out of it other than "Restart Guest". The CPU load is not high, it just freezes.

I have no performance degradation when Ubuntu is accessible. Is this a known bug or can I avoid this by changing the settings? It is very annoying and unproductive to restart the VM 10 times per day..

[RDPetruska]

At least on an earlier version of Workstation, my various Linux VMs will freeze after a period of time.  I have found that suspending the guest and resuming it will work to unfreeze.  Sometimes the Workstation UI errors when trying to suspend the guest, and I have to close Workstation entirely (clicking the 'Suspend' button for running guests.  Again, upon restarting Workstation, and resuming the suspended guest, the guest works fine.

[StephanCanada]

Hi Anders,

It sounds like you are experiencing the issue that is already being discussed in the following thread:
https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/question/problem-with-176-update-on-ubuntu-2204

I got the same problem. The suggested patch in that thread did not work for me. I have uninstalled 17.6 and installed 17.5.2 again. Unfortunately, that version also requires patching of the two kernel modules, but at least the system does not get hung up anymore. I am hoping that Broadcom is working on a fix for 17.6 and the latest Linux kernel that is used by Ubuntu 22.04 & 24.04.

Yours,
Stephan

[1234VMWareUser]

I'm having this problem too. Workstation 16 Pro, 16.2.5. Tried disabling "Accelerate 3D Graphics" but it didn't help.

[Holovertizu]

i had the same issue, the solution that worked for me recently is by adding 

monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "TRUE"
monitor_control.disable_directexec = "TRUE"

to the .vmx file, the first line restricts the use of the "backdoor" communication channel that vmware uses to allow the guest OS to communicate directly with the hypervisor for certain operations and force the guest to use more traditional methods for communication.

the second line which disables direct execution forces vmware to use binary translation for all guest instructions these settings may ( and will ) lower the performance but who cares it worked especially if you interact with the machine through ssh.

[Peter Hine]

@Holovertizu

monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "TRUE" 

This breaks folder pass through unfortunately. I'll try the other one though.

Thanks

P

 

[Peter Hine]

OK, after rebuilding my VM, it still froze. I looked around at settings and found that the VM was set to suspend after fifteen minutes. I normally turn this and hibernate off, and just about every other power control too.

After a reboot, the machine is fine. I don't know what the change was that triggered the problem in the first place, but I had just done a update. Perhaps the VM O/S knew I was on a laptop and set suspend on - not sure.

openSuse 15.6

P

[Ian Forbes]

Most Linux distributions have enabled suspend after 15 minutes in order to comply with EU and US regulations like Energy Star. Our recommendation is to disable these. If you want to suspend the VM use the Workstation's suspend feature (the pause button).