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VMWare Workstation 12.5.9 throws segfault (error 14) on host Linux 4.16.12 kernel

Recently updated from openSuse 42.3 to openSuse 15.0, (kernel 4.16.12-3). Have been unable to open VMWare Workstation 12.5.9. The error message after reinstalling Workstation is,

"vmware-modconfi[4626]: segfault at 7950 ip 0000000000007950sp 00007ffd7597ee08 error 14 in apploader[55798bc03000+ad000]".

The computer is an older Intel Penryn that lacks the EPT feature required by Workstation 14 and above, thus my desire to make do with the older version of Workstation.

Solution

  • As root run, 

    sed -i '/export PRODUCT_NAME="VMware Workstation"/s/.*/&\nexport VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS="yes"/' /usr/bin/vmware

    This will fix the segfaulting. However at this point I was getting an, "GNU C Compiler (gcc) version 7.3.1 was not found" error message. The following resolved this,

    cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source
tar xvf vmnet.tar
tar xvf vmmon.tar
cd vmnet-only
make
cd ../vmmon-only
make
cd ..
cp vmmon.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/misc/vmmon.ko
cp vmnet.o /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/misc/vmnet.ko
depmod -a

    and finally,

    /etc/init.d/vmware restart

    Good luck. Please let me know if I've missed anything.

    June 30 edit: Above did not work on an openSuse LEAP 15.0 install that had been updated. Below works.

    As SU, do

    sed -i '/export PRODUCT_NAME="VMware Workstation"/s/.*/&\nexport VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS="yes"/' /usr/bin/vmware

    followed by,

     cd /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libfontconfig.so.1
 mv libfontconfig.so.1 libfontconfig.so.1.old
 ln -s /usr/lib64/libfontconfig.so.1

    August 4 edit: Following openSuse, update started getting "GNU C Compiler (gcc) version 7.3.1 was not found" error message again. Installing Kubecek's patch resolved this. To get this patch and install do the following as SU,

    wget https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules/archive/workstation-12.5.9.tar.gz
tar -xzf workstation-12.5.9.tar.gz
cd vmware-host-modules-workstation-12.5.9
make
make install

    Did a fresh install on another machine that had been updated. Required two additional steps after Workstation install.

    1.) sed -i '/export PRODUCT_NAME="VMware Workstation"/s/.*/&\nexport VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS="yes"/' /usr/bin/vmware

2.) wget https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules/archive/workstation-12.5.9.tar.gz
tar -xzf workstation-12.5.9.tar.gz
cd vmware-host-modules-workstation-12.5.9
make
make install

3.) cd /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libfontconfig.so.1
mv libfontconfig.so.1 libfontconfig.so.1.old
ln -s /usr/lib64/libfontconfig.so.1

    November 3 edit: Kernel update. Following worked as previously on 8/4. Kubecek's patch already in /home/user directory, therefore no download needed. As SU do,

    cd vmware-host-modules-workstation-12.5.9
make
make install

    then reboot.

    Stay tuned. Please let me know if I've missed anything. Thanks to Kubecek for his contribution and diligence.