drm-kmod vmwgfx.ko Crashes system

[Kevin Oberman]

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 8:45 AM Jacob Meadows <jardows at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> I saw that drm-kmod installs vmwgfx.ko.  I thought this would be nice to
> enable 3d acceleration in my VMWare player VM, but every time I load it,
> the virtual machine freezes.
>
> I have tried putting a line in the rc.conf like for the amdgpu.ko, and
> directly loading via kldload.  I have tried with the VM setting 3d
> acceleration on and off.  I have tried with 12.0-RELEASE, 13-CURRENT, and
> now 12.1-RC1.  The crazy thing is I cannot find any errors recorded
> /var/log/messages, simply some information about the driver loading, then
> nothing and the system locks up.
>
> I am having a hard time finding any documentation regarding this driver.
> Is it designed to work with VMWare player, or perhaps it is for ESXi only?
>

Check the mtime on /boot/kernel/kernel and /boot/modules/vmwgfx.ko. Since
this module is installed by a port, not the base system, it is critical
that it be in sync with the kernel. Have you rebuilt your drm kmod port
port since your kernel was last built? It's really critical that kernel
modules be in sync with the kernel. It is also possible that it needs to be
in sync with the currently installed vmware.
--
Kevin Oberman, Part time kid herder and retired Network Engineer
E-mail: rkoberman at gmail.com
PGP Fingerprint: D03FB98AFA78E3B78C1694B318AB39EF1B055683