Workstation Pro 16.2.0 freeze on 30 minutes

[stefanobiggi]

I have installed this morning the new version but using a virtual machine (windows 10 pro with DELPHI RAD STUDIO) it freeze after 20/30 minutes. After it's impossible to do anything. The only way is to restart the PC and loose my work.

This evening i reinstall the old version. This version is unusable.

[AH40]

Just to add another user that stays at version 16.1.2 because of that problem. Tried every 16.2 version (16.2.0, 16.2.1, 16.2.2) -> not usable.

My hardware is a Intel Core i9-9900K, 4x16GB Ram, Chipset Intel H370 if that matters.

I use workstation since version 5.0 (something around 17 years), it had sometimes a single release that had problems, but that product quality (or absent of) is new to me.

[versat]

Since there is no fix although I am in contact with the support since November, i finally decided to downgrade to 16.1.2.
According to the support this is totally simple and no challenge.
So I made sure that all VMs are set to be hardware compatible to 16.x and then successfully uninstalled VMWare Workstation 16.2.2.
Since several hours I am trying now to get 16.1.2 installed without success.
I followed the steps from several KB articles ( https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1308 https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1031302 ) and ran the VMware_Install_Cleaner.exe after uninstalling every VMWare product.

And still the 16.1.2 installer says "This product installer does not support downgrades".

So it seems like you have to be a bit lucky to get it uninstalled successfully so you can install an older version.
Lets see what (and when) the support can help here.

[AH40]

Luckily that was no problem in all 3 times. I have not done something special, only leave application data on uninstall.

I do all my work in VMs, if I had no functioning Workstation I had to switch to something else. But so my windows 11 tests are on hold.

[versat]

Finally I have managed to install 16.1.2.

It turns out that the KB ( https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1308 ) for cleaning up the mess that the setup tools from VMWare leave on the system is totally outdated.

The registry keys for version 16 have changed, thus I did not find them and thought everything is fine.

[rdelmont]

I'd like to share my experience. I bought the workstation 16 pro license last summer and I immediately noticed the guests freezing issues with two different laptops, both with 8th gen Intel processor (MSI Raider GE63 with i7 8750H and Lenovo X1 with i7 8650U - both with SSDs, lot of space, and 32GB and 16GB of RAM respectively), first one with WIN 10 + 11 and the second one with WIN 10 enterprise. So annoying it was I decided to downgrade to workstation pro 15.7 almost immediately, where I got no more issues.

No matter if I tried workstation pro 16.1 and 16.2, problem persisted: after loosing focus to the VM to go back to desktop, VM got frozen forcing me to close workstation pro and all related processes.

A couple of days ago I just got a new laptop in replacement of the Lenovo X1. New laptop has a 11th-gen Intel i7 CPU; aside for that, the config is almost identical to the old one (SSD, RAM etc.). I gave it another try to workstation pro 16.2 and.... taaa-dah! No more problems.

I'll leave to you any comment 🙂

[AH40]

Over the weekend I gave Workstation 16.2 another try: First I checked my Bios and found the TPM disabled. I enabled it and installed Windows 11 on my host computer. Then I installed Workstation 16.2.2 again. After some time I had a crash on one VM but not so massive as in my previous tests, I could kill Workstation and start it again.

Today I worked the whole day with Workstation 16.2.2 without one crash or freeze.

[MrTom0]

Upgraded to v16.2.2 about a week ago. Just started using it today and my Win 10 VM kept locking up. I couldn't power it down. I had to kill the task. Then I couldn't power the VM back up until I restarted 4 of the VMware services, maybe just one since I never tried to narrow it down. But then it would lock up again shortly after using it.

Easily uninstalled v16.2.2, rebooted, then installed v16.1.2 and now it's back to stable again. So something in one of those services gets locked up.

[AH40]

After working 4 days without problems, I had 4 days with a freeze every day, today after only 2hours of work. That is not usable, so I reverted back to version 16.1.2. Whats wrong with that version?

[callen_v1]

Yep. Freezing here too.  Let's go VMware. Been a pretty long time now. 

[Hondy]

After the downgrade everything works again without problems...

[jf12345]

Did anyone try 16.2.3? The release note do not mention the issue we have been facing.

[MalDong]

In vmware Workstation 16.2.3, it is currently working without any problem.
It stopped only once, but there was no problem with continuous use.

[versat]

In the ticket that I have opened last year regarding this issue the support wrote recently:

"Thank you for your patience.

We are glad to inform you that unrecoverable error: Exception 0xc0000005 (access violation) issue has been resolved. Kindly, upgrade the VMware Workstation to the latest version of VMware Workstation 16.2.3."

I have not yet tried 16.2.3. I need a reliable system and I will wait a bit and see if this version is really stable now.

[AH40]

I have not yet tried version 16.2.3 but I have hope that it's better.

In the release notes is an resolved issue "Workstation hangs while copying files from the host to the guest operating system" and I had one or two hangs while trying to copy files, one time a really large list.

[jf12345]

I have been using 16.2.3 and I can confirm the freezing problem has been resolved.

[AH40]

I have now intensively worked with version 16.2.3 under Windows 10 and Windows 11 and had no single freeze. So I'm happy with that version.

[zvumtpshme]

I signed up on this site just for purpose of saying THANK YOU guys for trying the new version and sharing your results.  It is ridiculous that such a large company didn't care about VM freeze issues in multiple releases of this extremely popular product.  VMware Workstation Pro 16.2 freeze bug fix is to upgrade to 16.2.3!  Finally.  I had downgraded because of your excellent advice earlier and have been using the older 6.1.2 version for months now.  It was not convenient.  Thank you again!

[szplaypiano]

Now it works even for me.

Finally....

[pnakashian]

Spoiler

I'm still have freezes even with 16.2.3,     however  if I start vmware fresh,  and boot guest ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS  fresh

no issues all day.      At the end of the day when I suspend the guest vmware  then I hibernate my computer and wake it the next day,  freezes come back,    shutting down guest and closing vmware completely next day and   starting fresh seems to do the trick.

[ModenUnicorn]

I had a similar issue even on VMWare 16.2.3

For me it seems that the cause was the fact that vmware per default stored my VM files in my OneDrive which caused OneDrive and VMWare to wrestle over control for the vm disk files which at the end of the day caused my entire system to freeze.

Lessons learned: don't put your VMDisks into OneDrive (duh!)