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 VMWARE workstation breaks after Kernel upgrade

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Thomas Patko's profile image
Thomas Patko posted Oct 02, 2025 06:43 PM

I am curious if anyone else has had the situation that they had a working installation of VMWARE workstation 17.6.4 for Linux that broke after performing normal maintenance updates on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS which included updating to Kernel Linux 6.16.3.  This is exactly what happened for me and I am unable to successfully run the VMware kernel module updater after this happened.  Before this update both Windows 10 and Windows 11 guests were working normally in all respects.  Some screenshots and OS information are below.  Is there a resolution for this issue possible either with the current 17.6.4 build or else with an upcoming 17.6.5 version?

I look forward to any assistance which may be possible.

# System Details Report
---

## Report details
- **Date generated:**                              2025-10-02 15:41:21

## Hardware Information:
- **Hardware Model:**                              System76 Thelio
- **Memory:**                                      64.0 GiB
- **Processor:**                                   AMD Ryzen™ 9 9950X × 32
- **Graphics:**                                    NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 4060 Ti
- **Graphics 1:**                                  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
- **Disk Capacity:**                               8.0 TB

## Software Information:
- **Firmware Version:**                            3024
- **OS Name:**                                     Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS
- **OS Build:**                                    (null)
- **OS Type:**                                     64-bit
- **GNOME Version:**                               46
- **Windowing System:**                            X11
- **Kernel Version:**                              Linux 6.16.3-76061603-generic

Technogeezer's profile image
External Moderator Technogeezer  Best Answer

I saw the pull request in my repo. I'm wondering if this is a Canonical (or Debian)-specific thing because I'm not seeing this on Fedora 42 with gcc15.2.1.

Most of the proposed patches are already present in the latest commits to the workstation-17.6.4 branch. If you pulled the w17.6.4 tag, that's the wrong commit to pull. That tag is the unmodified kernel module sources from 17.6.4 and it's not surprising that those modules still have issues. The use of the tag is consistent with mkubecek's repository to denote the unmodified sources from the Workstation release.

I should have provided better instructions to download the modules. The sequence that will get you the latest commits on the repo is:

git clone https://github.com/Technogeezer50/vmware-host-modules.git
cd vmware-host-modules

# Check out the latest commit to the workstation-17.6.4 branch

git checkout workstation-17.6.4

# Now you can go ahead and make the modules

make

# If module compilation is successful, install the new modules

sudo make install
sudo systemctl stop vmware
sudo systemctl start vmware

# The modules should now be installed and working,.
# It's up to you at this point if you want to tar up the updated module sources and copy them to
# the /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source directory per the instructions in the INSTALL file so that Workstation can
# recompile them for you the next time the kernel changes. If you don't do this, you will need to run the following each time
# the kernel is updated:

make clean
make
sudo make install
sudo systemctl stop vmware
sudo systemctl start vmware

I'll review the pull request that I've seen on the GItHub repo and test it out on both Fedora and Ubuntu. If they check out, I'll merge them.

Thanks for the heads-up!

- Paul

Steven_Hirsch's profile image
Steven_Hirsch

I think this is a known issue by now and seems specific to changes in the module build system introduced by Canonical / Ubuntu.  The various workarounds out there on GitHub don't save the day this time.  I had to boot the previous kernel (6.12.x) to recover functionality.  It would be helpful if Broadcom issued a public tech note on the problem since every Ubuntu / Kubuntu Vmware host will have tripped over it.

Technogeezer's profile image
External Moderator Technogeezer

It’s not specific to Ubuntu/Canonical. Any distro using kernel 6.16 or later will have this issue of the VMware 17.6.4 kernel modules not compiling.

I have a forked GitHub repository of mkubecek’s vmware-host-modules that has been updated for Workstation 17.6.4 and kernel 6.16.x. They’re the ones that I use on Fedora 42 and kernel 6.16.3 and later. See if they work for you.

https://github.com/Technogeezer50/vmware-host-modules/tree/workstation-17.6.4

Steven_Hirsch's profile image
Steven_Hirsch

I - FINALLY - have things working under 6.16.3.  What I did:

  1. Cloned a copy of Technogeezer's Git project and checked out the 'w17.6.4' tag.  An attempted build failed with the age-old kernel-config.h header missing error.  Huh?
  2. Noticed a pull request from 'Ed' that appeared to address the objtool errors.  Cloned a copy of Ed's repository, checked out 'w17.6.4' and that also failed.  (Reaction not suitable for family viewing)
  3. Finally, downloaded the three updated files in Ed's pull request and replaced the preexisting ones of the same names in Technogeezer's project.  That finally built and things are working.

The problem is that Ed's changes needed to be applied against the w17.6.4 branch (tag) from Technogeezer.  Obvious when you think about it, but probably a fatal obstacle to those without a software background.  

Lastly, why does Broadcom make it so bloody difficult to find this community forum?  I always end up going in circles for a while before drilling into the correct place.  There isn't a single mention of 'workstation' in the main community page.

To save others a bunch of grief, here's a step by step:

  1. Clone Ed's repository: 
    git clone https://github.com/Ed42/vmware-host-modules.git
  2. Change into the new directory and checkout the appropriate branch:
    git checkout w17.6.4
  3. Download the attached patch and unzip it.  Copy the unzipped file to the root of the vmware-host-modules directory and apply it:
    patch -p1 < kernel-6.16.3-patch.diff
  4. Build and install: 
    make
    sudo make install
  5. Restart vmware services and enjoy:
    sudo /etc/init.d/vmware restart

Once Technogeezer merges Eds patch none of these gyrations should be necessary.  For extra credit Broadcom might consider keeping up with kernel changes themselves.  

Technogeezer's profile image
External Moderator Technogeezer

I have merged the changes that fix this issue into my workstation-17.6.4 branch as it did not cause any other issues with Fedora and kernel 16.6.x. Pulling the latest commit to that branch should now include these fixes. 

The issue looks to be something that's highlighting a difference between Fedora's build system vs Debian/Ubuntu/Pop! OS family of distributions. Thanks to all for tracking this down and helping others.