VMware Player refuses to launch on 16.04 (VMware modules cannot compile into kernel)

Question

I have been using VMware Player for a long time on 14.04. I updated to 16.04 about 3 months ago. Now I am trying to launch VMware Player for the first time since the upgrade, and it refuses to launch! I double click the shortcut on my launcher, then the program tries to launch as usual by appeaing in the bottom taskbar with a message "Starting VMware Player", and after a few seconds it simply disappears with no error!

I tried the following with no change:

1. I reinstalled a slightly newer version. From version 6 to 7 (VMware-Player-7.1.2-2780323.x86_64.bundle)

2. I found this post vmware error after upgrade to ubuntu 16.04 and disabled secure boot in bios.

3. I read this post VMware wont run in ubuntu 16.04 LTS (No Error msg even) and people are saying VMware Player sucks. But I have been using it for about 5 years on Ubuntu and have never had an issue up to now.

4. Of couse I ran the update just in case...

All info above is the original problem - I launch VMplayer and it does not launch with no error message or any dialogue boxes. Everything below is the current problem where I have a bunch of errors with compiling modules and loading them into the kernel after trying some terminal commands

5. I found this post VMware won't work after Ubuntu Upgrade. I ran export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libglibmm-2.4.so.1/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH and it looked like it was about to start... i was asked to update the kernel, I enter the password

   and the process fails with this message:

   (vmware-gksu:4905): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",
   (vmware-gksu:4905): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",
   Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
   

6. using the comments in vmware player on ubuntu 15.10 I ran echo /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libglibmm-2.4.so.1 | sudo tee -a /etc/ld.so.conf.d/LD_LIBRARY_PATH.conf and sudo ldconfig. Also I ran sudo apt-get install libcanberra-gtk*

after trying all those commands, when I type vmplayer at the terminal I am asked for a password to compile the kernel, and once that process launches it fails. Image below gives you a gist of what I am seeing.

The contents of the terminal after vmplayer can be found here: https://paste.ubuntu.com/24246599/

The contents of the error log can be found here: https://paste.ubuntu.com/24246694/

My high level questions is how do I get VMware Player version 6 or 7 to work with 16.04?

I am sure it's important to mention that the post in the second ordered list above suggested running sudo modprobe vmnet. I am not sure what information this command is providing, but here it is: modprobe: FATAL: Module vmnet not found in directory /lib/modules/4.4.0-66-generic

Any suggestions or advice are much appriciated!

Solution

I'm having a similar problem with vmware player 12.5.6. I can compile vmmon and vmnet (you need to install build-essential and linux-headers-generic). However they won't load into the kernel. vmware suggests turning off safe boot (which I already had disabled) or signing the modules (which makes no difference, as I'm not running secure boot or UEFI). If you want try that, see the answer here: vmware error after upgrade to ubuntu 16.04

To answer your basic question, you can find vmware player 7 here: https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/7_0|PLAYER-714|product_downloads

First you'll need to uninstall your current vmware player:

sudo vmware-installer -u vmware-player

After you install vmware player 7.*, you need to add a line to your .bashrc in order to get vmplayer to start:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libglibmm-2.4.so.1/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

which came from this answer: VMware won't work after Ubuntu Upgrade

Still having my issue with vmmon not loading into the kernel though... but at least vmplayer starts.

Comments

[Mike]

@DavidFoerster Hi David, thanks for putting a link to the pastie service. I pasted everything the terminal spewed after typing vmplayer there, along with the error log.

[David Foerster]

Which command did you run to start the build process of the VMware kernel module(s)?

[Mike]

@DavidFoerster I type vmplayer and I am automatically prompted to compile and load VMware modules into the kernel. If I am misunderstanding your question and you are asking which commands I typed to be prompted (as my original problem the VMplayer would simply not launch), they are detailed in number 5 and 6 in the post. Please let me know if I can run any commands or provide any type of information. Thank you for your help.

[Mike]

thanks for the suggestion, but I am really set on making ver. 6 or ver. 7 work. I move my VM across many PCs and if I use the VM in ver. 12.5, I may not be able to use in in another machine that uses ver. 6. I'll try your suggestion with Ver. 6

[dajavex71]

Vmware.com statement on open-vm-tools, I should have included this earlier. Likely the open-vm-tools, may already be installed, and the provided link may offer assistance in other areas. Good lock.