Accès to shared folders causes crash

[KajBorge]

Hi

I just did a clean install of Mac OS El Capitan on my MBP early 2011. I then installed Fusion and installed Win10 as guest OS. Fusion then was updated to latest version (8.5). I use Delphi for programming, so I installed Delphi XE3 on the Win 10 OS.

I shared a couple of folders from my host OS (mac OS) to the guest OS (win 10).  When I use the cursor (inside file explorer on Windows) to access the shared folders, I get a random error that varies from a small delay of few seconds, to total freeze and crash of Fusion.

When I programmatically from Delphi try to look up the contents of a shared folder, I consistently get a crash.

The "crash" starts with Fusion (win 10) becoming unresponsive, i.e. in the activity monitor on my Mac OS, Fusion is marked as unresponsive. At the same time, my keyboard stops working for my Mac OS, while trackpad still works fine in the mac OS.

After a while Fusion shuts down. Now I cannot even restart fusion, and need to restart the MacOS in order to start up Fusion.

Can anyone please help with this problem ?

[wila]

Hi,

IIRC there was a report here in the forums not so long ago that a shortcut in a shared desktop folder could cause a crash.

FWIW I have XE3 here on Win7 and that works fine.

--

Wil

[KajBorge]

Hi Wila

Yes I have read that thread. But my problem seems to be unrelated. At least, when I try to programmatically access a specific folder that only contains *.DCM (DICOM) files, the system crash appears.

By the way I also try several times to reinstall the Tools without any effect.

Kaj

[wila]

Hi Kaj,

DICOM files?

Oh dear.. I worked on something with Delphi and DICOM files too (orthodontic software), we ended up going for STL files in the end.

It might be Windows 10 specific, I have a copy of that XE3 machine in Win10, but no time to test atm.

For reinstalling VMware tools, don't use "reinstall"/"repair" options, they usually do not fix problems.

Instead use uninstall from your Windows 10 control panel, reboot, install VMware Tools, reboot.

Other things to take into account is software like antivirus. Down here I usually exclude shared folders from antivirus software.

Does that help?

--

Wil

[KajBorge]

Hi Wila

Your idea worked (somewhat). I turned off my antivirus (Sophos) on the host OS and the crash disappeared. Turned antivirus back on, and same problem.

So this is obviously caused by some incompatibility between Fusion and Sophos antivirus. Removing the shared folders from the virus protection of Sophos is not an option for me. An alternative could be telling Sophos to allow everything that Fusion does - but so far I have not been able to achieve this. Any ideas ?

I also find it strange that if there is a problem between Sophos and Fusion, the problem only appears sometimes and to different severities when I manually click around the folders. But the error always causes a crash when the folder inspection is done programmatically.

[wila · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Ah sorry that I have not explained myself much.

The suggestion I made to exclude shared folders was to exclude them from antivirus software running in the guest OS.

The reasoning behind that was that the shared folders are already protected by antivirus at the host OS.

So if you also run antivirus in the guest OS, you might want to check that part.

If none of that helps, then the most likely workaround is to use another method for sharing files such as using SMB file shares.

--

Wil

[Darcyz]

Hi KajBorge

Welcome to Fusion Community.

Try to reproduce your issue

1.install the Sopho-endpoint in host

2.set the share folder and scan the folder in the host

3.Access the folder via Guest VM

It can work fine, is there any special step I lost?

Or there are some other product I need to install as the follow screenshot

Regards

[wila]

Hi,

Not the OP as you know

He sees the problem when working with DICOM files. Quite often when working with that type of file it means there are a lot of files in many folders.

So make sure that the shared folder you are testing with contains a lot of files.

Maybe even better if you test with DICOM files.

See for example the following link for a site with images to test with:

http://www.osirix-viewer.com/resources/dicom-image-library/

KayBorge if you have more details, please let DarcyZ know as it is a VMware employee trying to reproduce your issue.

--

Wil

[Darcyz]

Hi wila

I have added some example files from

http://www.osirix-viewer.com/resources/dicom-image-library/http://www.osirix-viewer.com/resources/dicom-image-library/

Test with DICOM files , there are more than 10GB file in the share folder.

Host start to scan share folder and try to access from guest this folder, still cannot reproduce the issue.

@KajBorgeKajBorge

I think need to hear more details on what the problem from you, is there any different between us?

Regards

[KajBorge]

Hi again

I apologise for my late response.

I have now followed Wila's suggestion and excluded the shared folders from the virus protection (Windows Defender) on the guest OS (Win10). The crash has now disappeared.

Remember also that that crash also disappeared when I disabled the virus protection on the host OS (Sophos on OSX El Capitan)

So in conclusion, the crash happened when two virus scanners were both activated, protecting the same folders at the same time. Possibly, they both blocked each other resulting in a halting system.

Thank you again for all your help

[wila]

Great to hear you found the root cause and a proper solution!

This is valuable feedback, thanks for letting us know.

--

Wil