Network Bridge Mode Not Working Windows 11 Host

[da-Peter]

Hi guys,

It's been so far a pretty crazy way to get support from anyone. Well, to be honest, no support was given from VMware. Seems they don't care for the little guy anymore, just major corporations. Well maybe you guys can help me out.

Also you can install a demo of their products to see if they fit your needs but they don't want to give you any support until you bought it. But why would you buy something not working? That's a step i don't understand but it has become common in the world nowadays.

I installed the workstation 16 pro demo to see if i get it to do what i need and then buy a license.

Well installation worked fine but i can't get the bridged network to work at all.

It's not a guest OS issue, as i tried different versions of windows and Linux and none of them work with bridged network. However NAT seems to work all the time so far.

My host is windows 11 with the latest updates as of writing of this post.

I tried all the troubleshooting steps found here in the forum.

• Restarted vmnetbridge in Windows
• Deactivated firewall (Norton)
• Uninstalled VPN
• Reset to defaults in network editor
• Disabled all other network adapters in widows host.
• Specified eth0 instead of bridged connection
• Set the bridged connection to my wifi adapter on host instead of automatic

I think that's all the steps i did so far. Oh course rebooted guest and host numerous times and in-between changes.

I can't get it to work. I am using a brand new laptop. Only a few weeks old. Hardware to new for workstation 16? I also tried to connect to different WiFi networks as well but nothing.

I am at a loss here. Maybe you guys have more ideas. Would like to get it figured out before the evaluation period expires. If it works, i can buy a license. If not, i don't know what to do to troubleshoot.

Thanks in advance

[marco_shaw]

At one point, I had problems getting updates from the Internet if they were over 100MB (time out, fail, etc.).  Smaller files seemed to be fine.

Oddly, https://us.cnn.com almost never seems to fail for me.

[Jjersey63]

Same issue - updated to 17.0.1 and now my home assistant vm is not accessible - I need bridge mode to work.

[Jjersey63]

OK - so all of my vm's are stored in folders outside of the install path.  I uninstalled 17.0.1 and preserved the license and some other configuration setting when prompted.  I uninstalled 17.0.1 ad reinstalled 17.0.0 - when I launched workstation my VM's were there - I ensured "Bridge Mode" was what Home Assistant (HA) network was configured for and then started the vm.  When HA started it was on the correct network and all was well again.

This is definitely a bug in the later version and needs to be fixed.

[kstutsman]

I also was running into this, but was able to fix it in my case. For the record, downgrading to 17.0.0 did not fix it for me.

This may not apply to others, but in my case I am running VMware with Hyper-V compatibility. This was causing VMware to make the bridge connection connect to one of the Hyper-V virtual Ethernet devices I believe. In Workstation UI, go to Edit-> Virtual Network Editor, select VMnet0, and manually set which device it should bridge to. In my case because of Hyper-V, doesn't seem I can choose the actual Ethernet device, so I also had to go into Hyper-V manager and create a bridge network there which is what I selected in VMWare Workstation.

[symbols]

I also was only able to fix this after downgrading from 17.0.2 to 17.0.0

Here are the relevant details for me (giving generalities rather than specifics)

Adapter being bridged: Intel Wireless NIC
Host: Windows 11
Guest: Ubuntu 22.04

I tried unsuccessfully before downgrading:
- uninstalling VPN software from host
- ensuring bridge was set to only the specific adapter I wanted to use
- restarting vmnetbridge on the host

Downgrading immediately fixed the issue for me. This is unacceptable VMWare, do better.

[maf123sp]

I run into the same issue. Since VM Workstation 17 I had this issue almost daily.

From my view, this issue is related to the network devices, which are used for the VMnet connectors.

On my computer approximately 15 network adapters are registers - most of them are virtual network adapters and only 3 are physical. Some of the virtual network adapters can't work in vmware - like HypeV network adapters. Using the "Virtual network editor" I can control, which network adapter to use for bridged networking. With the right settings it works fine.

BUT - after a reboot, after updates (windows and vmware) these settings are lost and I run again into the networking issues. In fact - I have this problem on a daily base and it is a mess.

Please try to store the selection in a persistent way. 

Matthias

[arangaran]

It seems that there is a bug related to VMWare Workstation for windows 17.0.1 and onwards, as some others have said one solution is to install 17.0.0, so who knows what has been changed or what is broken, but it has something to do with linux guests because it seems that it works well with windows guests, if this is ever solved i really hope someone could post here with which version it has been solved.

[gbohn]

I'm disappointed that this hasn't been fixed after all this time.

Has anyone tried the 'Tech Preview' to see if its been fixed there?

At this rate, it could be that the next version of Vmware Workstation doesn't have this fixed either...

[DKFJGWW]

After hours of doing everything and I mean I tried all you tried over and over plus more.  I fell back and punted.  Resigned that a fix-forward is not in our control, and is all on vmware to remediate.  17.0.2 NG.  17.0.1 IDK.  Too bad.  It was a new license purchase and first time install.  Leaves a sour taste.  Would have expected someone at VM to have addressed this already.

[DKFJGWW]

Thank you for requesting support from VMware.
Your Support Request Number is 23467808810
Commit Time: 2023-10-04 12:00 EDT
Severity of Support Request: 2 - High

As a customer of Complimentary Support entitlement, you should be hearing from the team within 77 business hours.

More information on the Support SLAs can be found here.

[DKFJGWW]

VMware support responds today that it will hopefully be fixed in 17.0.3

[DKFJGWW]

Verified as fixed in 17.5, as per release notes and testing after upgrade.

[maf123sp]

I've found an easy solution f this issue.

It happens after each reboot of the host system and after system updates. Every time I run into the issue, that the bridge mode is not working anymore. In such cases I open the Virtual Network Editor, goto Change Settings and press Automatic settings.

Here all network adapters of the host are listed. This list also includes several virtual network adapters, which are not working properly as base devices for the bridge mode. in my case I deselect all HyperV adapters. At the end only 3 adapters are selected:

- notebook physical adapter

- docking station physical adapter

- WLAN adapter

After submitting the changes I have to de-connect and to re-connect the guest machine and everything is working fine.

Matthias