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VMware Fusion: graphics keep crashing

chucker23n1

chucker23n1

macrumors G3
Original poster
Dec 7, 2014
9,122
12,146
I've been using VMware Fusion to virtualize Windows 10 on a late-2013 MacBook Pro for years.

Around August, I started playing around with Windows 11. This mostly worked, but I frequently ran into a bug where WPF apps would crash. Event Viewer would show something like:

Application: devenv.exe
Framework Version: v4.0.30319
Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
Exception Info: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException
at System.Windows.Media.Composition.DUCE+Channel.SyncFlush()
at System.Windows.Interop.HwndTarget.UpdateWindowSettings(Boolean, System.Nullable`1<ChannelSet>)
at System.Windows.Interop.HwndTarget.UpdateWindowPos(IntPtr)
at System.Windows.Interop.HwndTarget.HandleMessage(MS.Internal.Interop.WindowMessage, IntPtr, IntPtr)
at System.Windows.Interop.HwndSource.HwndTargetFilterMessage(IntPtr, Int32, IntPtr, IntPtr, Boolean ByRef)
at MS.Win32.HwndWrapper.WndProc(IntPtr, Int32, IntPtr, IntPtr, Boolean ByRef)
at MS.Win32.HwndSubclass.DispatcherCallbackOperation(System.Object)
at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(System.Delegate, System.Object, Int32)
at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.TryCatchWhen(System.Object, System.Delegate, System.Object, Int32, System.Delegate)
at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.LegacyInvokeImpl(System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherPriority, System.TimeSpan, System.Delegate, System.Object, Int32)
at MS.Win32.HwndSubclass.SubclassWndProc(IntPtr, Int32, IntPtr, IntPtr)

In this case, that's Visual Studio, but another app where I've seen it is Fork. I think what's happening is that something about the graphics stack crashes hard. VMware's virtual GPU? macOS's Metal stack? I don't know. Probably not the latter, since I don't see anything wrong going on in macOS itself. In Windows, I see a sudden flicker of the entire screen to black, or sometimes the WPF app's main window reverting to a non-Aero style, before disappearing altogether. The kinds of signs that suggest "the GPU driver just crashed, and we're switching to software mode".

The thing is, I then installed a completely fresh Windows 10 VM because it wasn't a workable environment. And then the crashes started happening there, too!

What I find puzzling about this is that I find next to nothing about this on the Web, and that it seems to have started happening around August. Definitely before I upgraded to macOS 12 Monterey; I was on a non-beta Big Sur release. So that's not it. But I may have upgraded my VMware version at the time?
 
(I believe I've also tried disabling VMware 3d graphics acceleration before, but I'm not sure. Trying that now. Sigh.)

(edit)

Yep. Happens with that disabled, too.
 
Last edited:
Maybe, but 12.2 didn't come out until October, and its predecessor 12.1.2 in May, and I kind of feel it started happening before October.

Buuuuut! In September, they released a new VMware Tools version! Looks like a minor update, but one of the components that update apparently changes? The graphics card driver. Finally, a plausible explanation.

So, I'm trying to downgrade that. Fingers crossed and thanks for the pointer.
 
Downgrade succeeded. Important to put

Code: 
tools.upgrade.policy = "manual"

in the .vmx file, or else VMware Fusion will, without asking, re-upgrade. ?

Now, to see if this crash happens again in the coming hours…
 
…it just happened again, and I seem to be on the old driver version. Sigh.
 
Already on, alas.

1639410981750.png
 
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