VMWare workstation 25H2U1 crashes on Fedora 44 KDE plasma

[AvgJW]

 Hi,

 Recently updated to fedora 44 (from 43) and noticed my windows 11 VM will crash the workstation GUI the moment the mouse becomes active within the VM.

I've seen other discussions mentioning x11 but I use wayland (not even xwayland) so not sure what the culprit is. I noticed the VM continues to run, it's just the GUI crashes. If I reopen workstation the VM is running but will crash out again if click within the vm desktop.

Anyone knwo the source of the issue?

If it matters, I was using workstation 25H2u1 OK on Fedora 43 KDE plasma

 I'm attaching a support bundle.

Within the fedora crashed process viewer I see these details..

PID: 14995 (vmware)

Signal: 6 (ABRT)

Timestamp: Wed 2026-05-06 10:57:26 EDT (34s ago)

Command Line: /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware

Executable: /usr/lib/vmware/bin/appLoader

Message: Process 14995 (vmware) of user 1000 dumped core.

Module libasound.so.2 from rpm alsa-lib-1.2.15.3-3.fc44.x86_64

Module libnss_myhostname.so.2 from rpm systemd-259.5-1.fc44.x86_64

Module liblzma.so.5 from rpm xz-5.8.2-2.fc44.x86_64

Module libxml2.so.2 from rpm libxml2-2.12.10-6.fc44.x86_64

Module libuuid.so.1 from rpm util-linux-2.41.4-7.fc44.x86_64

Module libdbus-1.so.3 without build-id.

Module libxcb-render.so.0 from rpm libxcb-1.17.0-7.fc44.x86_64

Module libcds.so without build-id.

Stack trace of thread 14995:

#0 0x00007fee7ec127fd syscall (libc.so.6 + 0xf57fd)

#1 0x00007fee7904c3e3 n/a (libvmwarebase.so + 0x24c3e3)

#2 0x00007fee7904c719 n/a (libvmwarebase.so + 0x24c719)

#3 0x00007fee78f51e43 Panic_Panic (libvmwarebase.so + 0x151e43)

#4 0x00007fee78f51edc Panic (libvmwarebase.so + 0x151edc)

#5 0x00007fee784f6f3e n/a (libvmwareui.so + 0x12f6f3e)

#6 0x00007fee7e26337b g_logv (libglib-2.0.so.0 + 0x6337b)

#7 0x00007fee7e263622 g_log (libglib-2.0.so.0 + 0x63622)

#8 0x00007fee7b84dc77 n/a (libgdk-3.so.0 + 0x4dc77)

#9 0x00007fee7b858090 n/a (libgdk-3.so.0 + 0x58090)

#10 0x00007fee7a45067d _XError (libX11.so.6 + 0x5067d)

#11 0x00007fee7a44be03 n/a (libX11.so.6 + 0x4be03)

#12 0x00007fee7a44d3d3 _XReply (libX11.so.6 + 0x4d3d3)

#13 0x00007fee7a4b8e78 n/a (libX11.so.6 + 0xb8e78)

#14 0x00007fee7a4b9d20 XkbGetMapChanges (libX11.so.6 + 0xb9d20)

#15 0x00007fee7a4b4c2b XRefreshKeyboardMapping (libX11.so.6 + 0xb4c2b)

#16 0x00007fee7b84eed8 n/a (libgdk-3.so.0 + 0x4eed8)

#17 0x00007fee7b854726 n/a (libgdk-3.so.0 + 0x54726)

#18 0x00007fee7b854255 n/a (libgdk-3.so.0 + 0x54255)

#19 0x00007fee7b825a89 gdk_display_get_event (libgdk-3.so.0 + 0x25a89)

#20 0x00007fee7b853d92 n/a (libgdk-3.so.0 + 0x53d92)

#21 0x00007fee7e25b974 g_main_context_dispatch (libglib-2.0.so.0 + 0x5b974)

#22 0x00007fee7e25bbe8 n/a (libglib-2.0.so.0 + 0x5bbe8)

#23 0x00007fee7e25beaa g_main_loop_run (libglib-2.0.so.0 + 0x5beaa)

#24 0x00007fee7be48075 gtk_main (libgtk-3.so.0 + 0x248075)

#25 0x00007fee7e7b9f0f main (libvmware.so + 0x1b9f0f)

#26 0x000056485563dac0 n/a (/usr/lib/vmware/bin/appLoader + 0x1cac0)

#27 0x0000564855639bc0 n/a (/usr/lib/vmware/bin/appLoader + 0x18bc0)

#28 0x00007fee7eb20681 __libc_start_call_main (libc.so.6 + 0x3681)

#29 0x00007fee7eb20798 __libc_start_main@@GLIBC_2.34 (libc.so.6 + 0x3798)

#30 0x000056485563a065 n/a (/usr/lib/vmware/bin/appLoader + 0x19065)

ELF object binary architecture: AMD x86-64

[AvgJW]

OK, had some positive results...

-I renamed the original libx11.so.6 found in /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libX11.so.6/

-My system's version of the same filename was found in /usr/lib64/ . There I found a symlink named libx11.so.6 that pointed to the file libx11.so.6.4.0 which lives in the same folder. I copied both guys into the vmware folder mentioned above.

 At this point, I launched workstation and, so far, it is not crashing....defintely lasting longer than earlier today. I plan to give it a more strenuous test tomorrow during my workday. I'll report back by end of tomorrow.  Thanks for poitning me in what seems to be the right direction.

FYI, I found this good ref for the package itself in Fedora 44...

 https://packages.fedoraproject.org/pkgs/libX11/libX11/fedora-44.html

[James Lin]

I'm guessing that this is the same as https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/discussion/sudden-ui-exit-on-arch-linux which was fixed in xkb.

I've seen other discussions mentioning x11 but I use wayland (not even xwayland) so not sure what the culprit is.

VMware Workstation still uses X11, not Wayland.

[AvgJW]

I went and looked at the xkb link James Lin mentioned and it seems to point to the package 'libx11'. I checked my systems and I do have libx11.x86_64 installed (ver 1.8.13) and I also see libx11.i686 (the 32 bit ver) is available but not installed. I would think vmware workstation would use the 64 bit library right?

[James Lin]

I would think vmware workstation would use the 64 bit library right?

Right.

Can you check /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libX11.so.6/ ?

Also see this comment: https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/discussion/vmware-workstation-crashes-when-i-tell-going-full-screen-andor-guest-machine-grabs-the-mouse#MainCopy_ctl06_ucMessageList_rptMessageList_DiscussionMessageListItem_6

[AvgJW]

Yep, that directory exists and has 1 file of the same name...

user@fedora:/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libX11.so.6$ ls -l
total 1444
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1476768 May  5 21:46 libX11.so.6

[James Lin]

Yep, that directory exists and has 1 file of the same name...

And, as indicated by the comment I linked to earlier, does clobbering that file with your system version (which you say is 1.8.13) help?

[AvgJW]

Just to be certain, how would I clobber it? Shall I rename libx11.so.6 to force vmware to use the system-installed one? If not, how would I go about testing it?

[James Lin]

Just to be certain, how would I clobber it? Shall I rename libx11.so.6 to force vmware to use the system-installed one? If not, how woudl I go about testing it?

I don't know offhand if renaming it will force usage of the system installed version, although I think it should.  If not, then try making a backup copy of /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libX11.so.6/libX11.so.6 and then replacing the original with a symlink to /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 .

As for testing it, you just need to check if you still encounter the original crash you reported.

[AvgJW]

Just a final update,

  Thanks to James Lin for pointing me in the right direction. I was able to test the VM extensively today and it is stable. Copying that file over did the trick.

muchas gracias...