VM goes to sleep and reports error: VMware Workstation Unrecoverable error: (svga)

Products

• VMware Workstation

Issue/Introduction

• Workstation experiencing delays and an error message VMware Workstation Unrecoverable error: (svga) appears when trying to take VMs out of sleep mode.
• Following Error message is observed on an error window:

  VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (mks)
 ISBRendererComm: Lost connection to mksSandbox (3796)
 A log file is available in "E:\<VM_Name>\vmware.log".
 You can request support.

• This issue occurs after the host computer remains idle for an extended period. The virtual machine becomes unresponsive and crashes, requiring VMware Workstation to be forcibly terminated via Task Manager or may require a reboot of the host system.
• Following snippets can be observed in the mksSandbox.log:

YYYY-MM-DDHH In(05) svga  Msg_Post: Error
YYYY-MM-DDHH In(05) svga  [msg.log.error.unrecoverable] VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (svga)
YYYY-MM-DDHH In(05)+ svga  Exception 0xc0000005 (access violation) has occurred.
YYYY-MM-DDHH In(05) svga  [msg.panic.requestSupport.withoutLog] You can request support.
YYYY-MM-DDHH In(05) svga  [msg.panic.requestSupport.vmSupport.windowsOrLinux]
YYYY-MM-DDHH In(05)+ svga  To collect data to submit to VMware support, choose "Collect Support Data" from the Help menu.
YYYY-MM-DDHH In(05)+ svga  You can also run the "vm-support" script in the Workstation folder directly.
YYYY-MM-DDHH In(05) svga  [msg.panic.response] We will respond on the basis of your support entitlement.
YYYY-MM-DDHH In(05) svga  ----------------------------------------
YYYY-MM-DDHH Wa(03) svga  VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (svga)
YYYY-MM-DDHH Wa(03)+ svga  Exception 0xc0000005 (access violation) has occurred.

Environment

VMware Workstation 17.6.3

Cause

MKS failed to load with an exception and takes down svga causing the virtual machine to crash.

Resolution

 To avoid virtual machine crashing due to virtual graphics, disable the use of DirectX 12 (DX12) for presenting the virtual machine's display output on the host system by adding the following value.

• Open file explorer on the host computer.
• Browse to the following directory: "C:\Users\[USER_NAME]\AppData\Roaming\VMware\"
• Edit  "preferences.ini" file using notepad.
• append the following line in to the "preferences.ini" configuration file and save the file. 

mks.enableDX12Presentation = "FALSE"