Hi!
I'm observing sporadic crashes of single instances of vmware-workstation
guests if these use different graphics modes in fullscreen-mode.
I've installed VMware Workstation on top of a minimalistic Ubuntu as the only available application. Normally I am starting some five guests: Windows XP, Windows 7 (2x), Ubuntu 14.04, and pfSense:
vmrun -T ws start win7-guest1.vmx
vmrun -T ws start win7-guest2.vmx
vmrun -T ws start winxp-guest.vmx
vmrun -T ws start u1404-guest.vmx
vmrun -T ws start pfs-guest.vmx
Then, after these are up and running I am switching Workstation to full-screen-mode, switching from on guest to an other by pressing "ctrl-alt-right-arrow" and "ctrl-alt-left-arrow". This works for some time. Then, mostly while switching from a text-mode only VM to one with a graphical display the screen stays black. I can move the mouse. The keyboard seems dead.
Waiting for up to half an hour the overnext guest console is shown. Looking at the tabs, one VM vanished. It is shown in the library as running, but any attempt to reconnect it only gives the message that there is "no process to connect to".
If it was a windows guest I may sometimes connect via rdp, but mostly this guest is dead: no connection possible, no answers to ping. With linux in all cases I can connect to the guest by ssh. Trying a normal shutdown doesn't work indeed: I have to force it (using "halt -f" for example).
Trying to run (if the guest in question was win7-guest1) "vmrun stop win7-guest1.vmx" or "vmrun stop win7-guest1.vmx hard" times out with an error this guest doesn't seem to run. I have to kill the corresponding vmx-process sending it SIGHUP.
Doing a lot of testing it turned out this is related to different graphics modes. Even slight differences matter. Switching between two identical OS works seamlessly, while switching between Windows XP and Windows 7 doesn't. The same for Linux: switching between to Ubuntu 12.04.4 systems works seamless, while switching between an Ubuntu 12.04.4 and CentOS 6, both with X11 running doesn't. With text mode only systems the same mode is necessary if it shall work. Different modes do not work. In all cases: it is the system you are switching to which vanishes.
I can avoid these crashes, if I leave full-screen-mode, switch to the other guest, then reenable full-screen-mode. But this is annoying.
I am not sure I have found a bug with VMware Workstation or a bug with graphics, in tune partly crashing VMware Workstation processes. Any idea?