VMWare Workstation 16 Pro + Ubuntu 22.04.1 - VM unresponsive with high CPU

[ki81]

Hi All,

I've recently installed VMWare and Ubuntu on a new Windows 10 laptop and I'm finding that after a period of time the VM consistently becomes unresponsive and CPU usage spikes to 100%. If I suspend and awaken the VM it works for a period before the problem reoccurs.

How do I go about solving this?

[atc0005]

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@anders_o wrote:

At the moment it seems I just need to edit the following value to "10" to prevent my Ubuntu VM from hanging:

virtualHW.version = "10"

Has anyone else tried this?

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I upgraded my Workstation installation to v17 from v16 to see if that would resolve the issue. It did not.

Previously (since Sept 2022), I could get about 23 minutes of uptime for a Linux VM before it had soft CPU lockups. Then with the open-vm-tools update some weeks back I got a little longer, closer to 40 minutes.

If I rebooted the host first after resuming from hibernation I could run a Linux VM as long as I wanted without issue.

Downgrading the virtual hardware version to v10 seems to have resolved the issue for me; I've got a Linux VM that has been running for 6 hours and 22 minutes without issue.

Host details (from System Information app):

System Model Latitude 5411
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10850H CPU @ 2.70GHz, 2712 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Version 10.0.19044 Build 19044
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. 1.18.0, 10/3/2022

I'm also using WSL2, so Virtual Machine Platform is enabled.

[anders_o]

I finished my testing, and anything above vHW version 10 will hang my Ubuntu test VMs after 15-60 minutes of running. But version 10 works flawlessly, which is awesome!

[noxware]

test this

powercfg /powerthrottling disable /path "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\x64\vmware-vmx.exe"

it works perfectly for me .Host windows 11 prof. alder lake core i7.

now my vm´s are 4 to 5 imes faster!

[noxware]

test this

powercfg /powerthrottling disable /path "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\x64\vmware-vmx.exe"

it works perfectly for me .Host windows 11 prof. alder lake core i7.

now my vm´s are 4 to 5 imes faster!

[atc0005]

Hi @noxware, 

Are you suggesting to disable power throttling to resolve the soft CPU lockup issues instead of adjusting the virtual hardware version?

[mmalmahdi]

Thx noxware

Works great, I was about to reformat the laptop.

I have 20 VMs before this fix most of it freeze.

Thanks

[anders_o]

I tried the "powercfg /powerthrottling disable.." suggested by @noxware above, and it unfortunately did not help against Linux VMs hanging after a while.

Lowering the vHW version as described in my previous posts is still the only thing that has worked for me.

I'm running Windows 10 21H1, 19043.2364 and have to run the Hyper-V components since some Windows security features rely on it.

(EDIT): I had these problems on WS 16 (never tried 16.2.5, though) and on WS 17.0.0 and the current 17.0.1.

[cb831]

Just so it is not forgotten:

The fix above apparently is the only one viable for VMWare 17, however I still run flawlessly on latest 16 update as I wrote above:

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After latest Workstation Pro upgrade to 16.2.5.build-20904516 3-4 weeks ago, I have had an Ubuntu 22.04 VM running constantly without seeing the issue.

Host: Windows 10 22H2 19045.2486
My virtualHW.version = "19"

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[entw_ana-u]

I have the same version, but the problem still remains.

BUT: I am running a laptop, and if i restart my laptop the issue is gone, as long as no sleep or hibernation is activated.

After hibernation/sleep, i have to reboot my machine, and everything is working fine....

[DaveH3]

The powercfg fix worked for me too with WS 17.0.1 and Windows Version 20H2 OS build 19042.2486.

Was working OK for me before January then stopped recently. OS Updates and VMWare Tool updates made no difference.

Was getting "NMI watchdog: BUG: soft lockup"

Had to upgrade from WS 15.5 because of all the MS Updates in Win 10 with Hyper-V for security (or so I thought, may have been the power management)

Life saver!

[KevPearce]

I've also been suffering from the 'cpu stuck' problem with Linux based VMs in VMware Workstation (16 and 17). The only fix I found that worked was to disable power throttling at the Windows level for VMware Workstation application, using this command:

powercfg /powerthrottling disable /path "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\x64\vmware-vmx.exe"

I hope this can help others as I struggled for this issue for months!!!

[atc0005]

@KevPearce wrote:

I've also been suffering from the 'cpu stuck' problem with Linux based VMs in VMware Workstation (16 and 17). The only fix I found that worked was to disable power throttling at the Windows level for VMware Workstation application, using this command:

powercfg /powerthrottling disable /path "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\x64\vmware-vmx.exe"

I hope this can help others as I struggled for this issue for months!!!

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Is this a Windows 10 or Windows 11 system?

Did you run the command as an administrator, or non-admin user?

Did you also change the virtual hardware version for Linux VMs?

Does this allow you to hibernate your system and resume without your VMs locking up?

[atc0005]

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@entw_ana-u wrote:

I have the same version, but the problem still remains.

BUT: I am running a laptop, and if i restart my laptop the issue is gone, as long as no sleep or hibernation is activated.

After hibernation/sleep, i have to reboot my machine, and everything is working fine....

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Does lowering the virtual hardware version to 10 work for you? Your situation matches mine exactly and lowering the virtual hardware version to 10 allows me to hibernate the laptop, resume and then successfully power on & run Linux VMs for hours without issue.

If I have the virtual hardware level at anything higher than 10 the Linux VMs lockup (time ranging between 23 and 45 minutes). If I restart the host OS then Linux VMs are unaffected at any virtual hardware level.

[entw_ana-u]

I am running win 10 21H2 host and WS 16.2.5

The solution with disable power throttling did not work for me.

Also the solution with the virtual hardware version was not applicable. My host was going to change graphics settings and hang up with a blue screen. Maybe i did something wrong.... But all i did was editing the virtualHW.version = "10" in the vmx file.

[KevPearce]

Is this a Windows 10 or Windows 11 system?

Win 10

Did you run the command as an administrator, or non-admin user?

As admin.

Did you also change the virtual hardware version for Linux VMs?

No, I have multiple v16 as well as v10 but it was the v16's that had the issue.

Does this allow you to hibernate your system and resume without your VMs locking up?

Yes. I hibernate overnight every day and they all come back up fine now once I applied the powercfg change.

[mboekhold]

Hi,

The powercfg trick does not work for me either.

• Windows 10 22H2
• Ran powercfg from CMD prompt as Non-Admin
• Did not change virtualHW.version level of VM (it's version 19 now)

[radamstw]

I was having this issue on Workstation 17.0.1 running on Win 10.0.19043 and a rancher/k3os linux (based on Ubuntu 20.04). 
It would run for about 15 minutes, then freeze up.

I tried disabling all Hyper-V features plus Credential Guard and nothing really seemed to work. 

It seems to be working now after I did the following:

• Ran powercfg
• Changed virtual hardware to 10.x 

We'll see if after I reboot if the "fix" is retained. 

[anders_o]

I got the following advice from VMware Support (see below). It didn't prevent the Linux VM from hanging on the first attempt, but I think I should try to shut down and start up my host OS fully to perform a fair test of it.

Kindly follow the below steps and let us know if it helps to improve the situation

Disable fast start up from host machine

-Right-click the Start button.
-Click Search.
-Type Control Panel and hit Enter on your keyboard.
-Click Power Options.
-Click Choose what the power buttons do.
-Click Change settings that are currently unavailable.
-Click Turn on fast startup (recommended) so that the checkmark disappears.
-Click Save changes.

[anders_o]

Now I got the following thing to add in the .vmx file:

cpuid.1.ecx="----:---0:----:----:----:----:----:----"

I tried adding it, and it seemed to work: My VM didn't freeze despite running it for several hours, hibernating my host OS etc.

Those of you who still have the problem, can you try changing the virtualHW.version back to "20" or whatever was your original value, recreate the original problem with the hang/freeze, and then try the cpuid.. line in your .vmx?

I'm on Workstation version 17.0.2 build-21581411 now, by the way.

[mjmenger]

After several hours, this appeared to be the solution I required. 

Thanks very much