VMware Workstation 17.6 - unrecoverable error: (svga) svga Exception 0xc0000005

[Andrew McLaren]

Hi all, I've been running 17.5 for ages and never had any problems. Today I upgraded to 17.6. Several VMs continue to work okay. But my Domain Controller VM (which is kind of critical, and never had a problem on 17.5 or 17.52), crashes with an exception in svga every time I try to start it.

Has anyone else seen this? And does anyone know of a solution?

Windows Server 2022 guest on Windows 11 host

2024-09-03T12:08:27.742Z In(05) mks SWBWindow: Number of MKSWindows changed: 1 rendering MKSWindow(s) of total 2.
2024-09-03T12:08:27.742Z In(05) mks SWBWindow: Window 0 Defined: src screenId=-1, src xywh(0, 0, 640, 480) dest xywh(0, 0, 640, 480) pixelScale=1, flags=0x6
2024-09-03T12:08:27.750Z In(05) mks DX11BasicResourceSharedAllocateResources: LOCAL     budget 31901M usage     4M avail 16078M res     0M
2024-09-03T12:08:27.750Z In(05) mks DX11BasicResourceSharedAllocateResources: NON-LOCAL budget     0M usage     0M avail     0M res     0M
2024-09-03T12:08:27.750Z Wa(03) mks DX11BasicResourceSharedAllocateResources: hr=E_INVALIDARG
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga ----Win32 exception detected, exceptionCode 0xc0000005 (access violation)----
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga ExceptionAddress 0x7ff6dc6a9865 eflags 0x00010206
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga rwFlags 0 badAddr 0
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga rax 0x4916cfea4465 rbx 0x213e3ff6f00 rcx 0
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga rdx 0x4916cfea4465 rsi 0x21380f1ec80 rdi 0x213e3fd1c60
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga r8 0xc9b3fff910 r9 0x21380f9bd60 r10 0xffedb8bf32e
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga r11 0x404010000400 r12 0 r13 0x1
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga r14 0 r15 0x3
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga rip 0x7ff6dc6a9865 rsp 0xc9b3fff8c0 rbp 0x1
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga LastBranchToRip 0 LastBranchFromRip 0
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga LastExceptionToRip 0 LastExceptionFromRip 0
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga The following data was delivered with the exception:
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga  -- 0
2024-09-03T12:08:27.755Z Wa(03) svga  -- 0

[Hockeychap]

Afternoon Andrew,

Am having the same issue on both Windows and Linux guests after the 17.6 upgrade. 

In all cases there are SVGA exceptions in vmware.log

And I haven't found a workaround that consistently works (sometimes specifying the number of monitors and display size works)

Regs

Justin

[Dhairya Tomar]

@Andrew McLaren We have faced similar issue internally and ticket has been raised, relevant team is looking into the same.

Request you to restart the Host machine and add below parameters in the vmx file of the affected VM and check if the issue still persists:

mks.dx11.allowUnsupportedDevices = "TRUE"
mks.enableVulkanRenderer = "FALSE"
mks.enableDX12Renderer = "FALSE"

[Hockeychap]

@Dairya Tomar - have added your entries. Still hanging on both windows and linux guests.

[Andrew McLaren]

Many thanks @Dhairya Tomar - good to know that others are seeing the same problem.

I had to roll back to 17.52, just to continue working. On this earlier version I have no problems at all, everything started working again perfectly.
I'll see if I can run up 17.6 in a test environment, and try the settings you mentioned.

[Dhairya Tomar]

@Hockeychap- Request you to share support bundle of the affected VMs.

[Hockeychap]

@Dhairya Tomar 

Sorry I have rolled the host back  to 17.5.2 as I have  some client work to finish and can't wait for a fix.

The guest OSes that I had a problem with are :

1) Archlinux

2) Windows 10

3) Oracle Linux

I've attached the most recent log from the windows and Oracle guests.

Hope this helps.

Justin

Loaded

[Naz Keleshian]

I am the same issue as well after upgrading to 17.6.  I was able to confirm the VMware SVGA driver that is included with guest tools breaks it.  Performing a custom install of guest tools and excluding the video driver worked for me.

[Pavel Kulaga]

Hi all, I have same problem on two PC`s after update to v. 17.6.0. All "old" VM unable start with error messages about Svga. Unable create new VM, nothing.

2024-09-04T15:01:22.465Z In(05) svga Msg_Post: Error

2024-09-04T15:01:22.465Z In(05) svga [msg.log.error.unrecoverable] VMware Player unrecoverable error: (svga)

2024-09-04T15:01:22.465Z In(05)+ svga Exception 0xc0000005 (access violation) has occurred.

3D graphics is disable.

- NB Lenovo T14 Gen 4 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1335U, 16 GB RAM...

- PC GIGABYTE Z490 GAMING X, i5-10600K, 64GB RAM...

After return to v. 17.5.2 all VM works again.

[silverbios]

It's the same issue with ESXi, Photon OS, or vCSA VMs on my VMware Workstation 17.6. However, the workaround seems a bit strange to me! I have to enable 'Accelerate 3D graphics' or add the line mks.enable3d = "TRUE" to the vmx file of each VM, even for those that VMware states do not support 3D acceleration in the guest OS. This is the only way for the VMs to start without hanging.

[DarthTater]

I had the same issue and discovered that under Edit --> Preferences --> Display I needed to uncheck the box for "Allow hardware acceleration for all virtual machines consoles".  It 17.6 it seems to be trying to force hardware acceleration on every VM instead of honoring if you have selected the "Accelerate 3D graphics" display option on each individual VM.

In other words, disable hardware acceleration at the top VMware Workstation preferences level and then just have it enabled for the individual VMs that require it.  This resolved the issue for me.

[dajhorn]

Per @silverbios, the kludge is enabling 3D acceleration on all affected guests.

I was getting this error on all virtual machines, even new virtual machines, after upgrading to VMware Workstation 17.6.0 build-24238078 on a Windows 11 23H2 host.

[dajhorn]

Even with the SVGA kludge, VMware Workstation 17.6 is corrupting video output in non-accelerated guests like Windows 98.  And 17.6 randomly stutters and hangs.

Reverting to VMware Workstation 17.5.2 fixes everything.  Seems like the 17.6 release is a dud.

[Anil Nambiar]

Can you try disabling Edit => Preferences => Display => Graphics => Allow hardware acceleration for all virtual machine consoles and see if that fixes the issue? You can try this workaround instead of adding mks.enable3d = "TRUE" to the vmx file.

[Dhairya Tomar]

@Andrew McLaren Can you try disabling Edit => Preferences => Display => Graphics => Allow hardware acceleration for the affected VM from VM > Settings->Hardware->Display and let us know your observations.

[LordKiRon]

Have same issue too only with Linux (Debian 11,x x64) guest, Windows VMs start OK.

The "funny" part is that Linux has no UI at all, getting the error before not just UI starts but I think even before kernel starts, seems like VMWare BIOS tries to do something and crashes.

As for "Edit --> Preferences --> Display" it was unchecked to start with .

Also some people suggested to change mks.enable3d = "TRUE" to "FALSE" in .vmx file. But I did not had it there at all, adding mks.enable3d = "FALSE" did not helped.

One observation although, the problem happened twice with VMware 17.5 (that was working fine before) , that's was actually the reason for me to upgrade to 17.6 , that's why remember.

My suspicion that it started not due 17.6 update , but due some Windows 11 23H2 update on my host .  Kind of suspect KB5041585 as it was installed about the time I started to get issues , but can't be sure, it can be NVIDIA driver (I have GeForce RTX4070) or something else .

One more thing - I am not running  Windows Hyper-V on host (disabled) as it prevents running docker inside my guest VMs , maybe related.

From log:

---------------------------

2024-09-12T22:10:47.144Z In(05) mks MKSControlMgr: connected
2024-09-12T22:10:47.157Z In(05) svga SWBScreen: Screen 0 Defined: xywh(0, 0, 640, 480) flags=0x3
2024-09-12T22:10:47.160Z In(05) mks MKS-VMDB: VMDB requested a screenshot
2024-09-12T22:10:47.163Z In(05) svga MKSScreenShotMgr: Taking a screenshot
2024-09-12T22:10:47.183Z In(05) mks SWBWindow: Number of MKSWindows changed: 0 rendering MKSWindow(s) of total 1.
2024-09-12T22:10:47.183Z In(05) mks SWBWindow: Window 1 Defined: src screenId=-1, src xywh(0, 0, 640, 480) dest xywh(0, 0, 640, 480) pixelScale=1, flags=0x8
2024-09-12T22:10:47.183Z In(05) mks MKS-HWinMux: Backend Switch Queued
2024-09-12T22:10:47.184Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: Enumerating adapter 0
2024-09-12T22:10:47.184Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: `NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070` vendor=0x10de device=0x2786 revision=161
2024-09-12T22:10:47.184Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: video=12011MB system=0MB shared=32722MB
2024-09-12T22:10:47.184Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: LOCAL     budget 11243M usage     9M avail  5749M res     0M
2024-09-12T22:10:47.184Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: NON-LOCAL budget 31954M usage     3M avail 16105M res     0M
2024-09-12T22:10:47.213Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: Using device unknown; adapter `NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070`
2024-09-12T22:10:47.213Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: Enumerating adapter 1
2024-09-12T22:10:47.213Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: `Microsoft Basic Render Driver` vendor=0x1414 device=0x008c revision=0
2024-09-12T22:10:47.213Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: video=0MB system=0MB shared=32722MB
2024-09-12T22:10:47.213Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: LOCAL     budget 31954M usage     0M avail 16105M res     0M
2024-09-12T22:10:47.214Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: NON-LOCAL budget     0M usage     0M avail     0M res     0M
2024-09-12T22:10:47.216Z In(05) mks DXGIPresentation: NVIDIA driver version 561.09 (branch r560_88)
2024-09-12T22:10:47.217Z In(05) mks MKS-HWinMux: Started DXGI presentation backend.
2024-09-12T22:10:47.219Z In(05) mks SWBWindow: Number of MKSWindows changed: 1 rendering MKSWindow(s) of total 2.
2024-09-12T22:10:47.219Z In(05) mks SWBWindow: Window 0 Defined: src screenId=-1, src xywh(0, 0, 640, 480) dest xywh(0, 0, 640, 480) pixelScale=1, flags=0x6
2024-09-12T22:10:47.223Z In(05) mks DX11BasicResourceSharedAllocateResources: LOCAL     budget 11243M usage    16M avail  5749M res     0M
2024-09-12T22:10:47.223Z In(05) mks DX11BasicResourceSharedAllocateResources: NON-LOCAL budget 31954M usage     4M avail 16105M res     0M
2024-09-12T22:10:47.223Z Wa(03) mks DX11BasicResourceSharedAllocateResources: hr=E_INVALIDARG
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga ----Win32 exception detected, exceptionCode 0xc0000005 (access violation)----
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga ExceptionAddress 0x7ff706999865 eflags 0x00010206
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga rwFlags 0 badAddr 0
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga rax 0x15df248ba0d8 rbx 0x15f811b3370 rcx 0
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga rdx 0x15df248ba0d8 rsi 0x15f810c7760 rdi 0x15fbf5e3f30
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga r8 0x30a4dff840 r9 0x15f811b01c0 r10 0xffee0d1d32e
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga r11 0x404010000400 r12 0 r13 0x1
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga r14 0 r15 0x3
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga rip 0x7ff706999865 rsp 0x30a4dff7f0 rbp 0x1
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga LastBranchToRip 0 LastBranchFromRip 0
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga LastExceptionToRip 0 LastExceptionFromRip 0
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga The following data was delivered with the exception:
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga  -- 0
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z Wa(03) svga  -- 0
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z In(05) svga CoreDump: Minidump file Q:\Virtual Machines\Debian 11.x 64-bit\vmware-vmx.dmp exists. Rotating ...
2024-09-12T22:10:47.227Z In(05) svga CoreDump: Current max dump count is 5.
2024-09-12T22:10:47.228Z Wa(03) svga CoreDump: Writing minidump to Q:\Virtual Machines\Debian 11.x 64-bit\vmware-vmx.dmp
2024-09-12T22:10:47.231Z In(05) vcpu-0 SVGA: Registering MemSpace at 0xe8000000(0x0) and 0xfe000000(0x0)
2024-09-12T22:10:47.231Z In(05) vcpu-0 SVGA: FIFO is already mapped
2024-09-12T22:10:47.239Z In(05) vcpu-0 SVGA: Unregistering MemSpace at 0xe8000000(0xe8000000) and 0xfe000000(0xfe000000)
2024-09-12T22:10:47.239Z In(05) vcpu-0 SVGA: FIFO is already mapped
2024-09-12T22:10:47.336Z In(05) svga CoreDump: including module base 0x0x7ff706740000 size 0x0x01c0a000