VMware Player "Bridged" networking no longer works - host=win8.1 guest=Mint 17 Linux

Question

Basic background tech info:

1. Host: Windows 8.1
2. Guest: Linux Mint 17
3. VMWare Player version: 6.0.3 build-1895310
4. Host hardware: ASUS Laptop with broadcomm wifi chipset

In the past (earlier versions of Linux Mint, and earlier versions of VMWare Player), I could switch networking between NAT and Bridged, and both would work as expected. I settled on NAT. Recently, I had need to switch to Bridged, and the guest Linux OS failed to connect. Switch back to NAT, and everything reconnects and works fine.

I've updated VMWare Tools in the guest OS, with no effect. Alas, I don't know which Mint upgrade, or VMWare Player upgrade broke the functionality, or when.

Variations of this question seem to crop up frequently, but none of the questions I've read here on Superuser seem to directly address, or offer a fix for, this problem.

Happy to provide logfiles or other info to help debug the issue. Just let me know what you need. Since I can use NAT as a work-around, this isn't urgent. However, I'd like to understand what's wrong and fix it.

Thanks.

Answer 1

There is another, not so 'brutal' approach to fixing this. This has bit me more than once. Go to the VMWare Virtual Network Editor, and in the VMNet Information section for "Bridged", pull the drop down "Bridged to:" and change from Automatic to your physical adapter name. This allows both VMWare and VirtualBox to play together on the same host. (I'm surprised that VMWare does not detect this where the host has more than 1 VM application installed)

Answer 2

Found a solution for my version of the problem. Hope it helps someone else.

Previously, I had been using VirtualBox. Switching over to VMWare (using NAT) worked just fine, but VirtualBox had left a host-only adapter in Windows Networking, which was (silently) making "bridged" mode in VMWare not work.

I hit a similar issue installing "boot2docker" (which uses VirtualBox) on an other machine which had VMWare working, which then stopped after installing "boot2docker". Diagnosis of that led me to VirtualBox being the culprit.

SOLUTON:

On the windows host, go to Networking Connections, and "disable" any VirtualBox network entries there. Your "Bridged" VMWare connections will start working again.

Answer 3

You don't have to disable the VirtualBox adapters in Windows. You can fix this within VMWare Player directly. Go into your VM Network settings, select Bridged, and then click the Configure Adapters button. Uncheck "VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter".

This will fix your problem and leave the VirtualBox adapters functional in Windows so that you can use both VB and VMWare on the same system without having to constantly switch settings.

Answer 4

I found that in VMware Player, there is no network editor. However, you can specify which adapter to bridge to, and that resolved the problem for me. In the screen below, both adapters were selected. De-select the Hyper-V, leaving only the physical adapter.

Answer 5

The only thing that fixed my connection was to add another network adapter (NAT) on top of the existing one.

Manage -> Virtual Machine Settings -> Add -> Network Adapter -> Finish.

Answer 6

On my installation it was an installation of npcap (with wireshark) on the host that broke the virtual connections. Going into vmware network config and disabling the npcap adapter for the vm restored the connection

Answer 7

Thanks to JesseM reply, i went to check the adapters but the virtual box was already deactivated. the WSL was the culprit. For Anyone on newer windows 10 with WSL activated, the bridged network started to work fine as soon as i disabled the WSL Adapter in Networking Connections"

Answer 8

I would also like to mention in addition to these answers that host Firewall Particularly Firewall Clients/Software (in my case AVG Firewall) may interfere with the Bridge adapter for Vmware, try disabling the firewall software

Answer 9

I have a similiar problem, and it was caused by that I have 2 network card(eth/wifi) on my host and both connected to internet. When I disabled one, the problem was gone.

Answer 10

I was using a bridged connection for a Kubuntu VM. It suddenly stopped working, no idea why. I fixed it by entering the console command "nmcli networking on".

I have absolutely no idea why this worked.

Answer 11

In VMWare Workstation Player, I had to do two things:

1) In my Windows network adapter options, under Properties for the adapter I use to connect to the LAN, I had to make sure the VMWare Bridge Protocol box was checked.

2) In the VMWare Network Adapter settings, as others have mentioned, make sure the only adapter checked in Configure Adapters is the adapter you are using to connect to the LAN.

After doing those two things, I restarted my computer and then my VM and the network connected successfully. Hope this helps!

Answer 12

In my case it turned out to be a confused router, just needed to unplug/replug power. This after trying all of the above heh. I noticed going to the routers admin page wasn't working that's when I unplugged it and reboot, then bridged networking came back to life! so check that too...

Answer 13

i was facing the same issue, almost done the VMware repair, re-installation. and also restored the setting to default in virtual network editor, but same issue.

lastly i tried that, uninstalled the Bridged adaptor from Virtual network editor and reinstalled the same. and it started working,

Just make sure vm is not on while your making changes in virtual network editor.

i hope this works for you..

Answer 14

I had this issue too I tried everything related to disabling adapters, messing around with Virtual Network Editor, etc. But non worked. My setup:

• VMWare Workstation 15 Pro
• Host: Windows 10 Enterprise, version 1909
• Guest: Windows 2012 R2 Datacenter

SOLUTION:

I noticed that the result of ipconfig command on guest shows weird IP and netmask. So I tried to manually set the IPv4 options for the bridge adapter(Ethernet0) in control panel of the guest. Setting the right subnetmask, gateway and IP made it work.

Answer 15

As mentioned in the answer by @rob, in my case it was also the installation of npcap (that came with wireshark) on the host that caused the problem.

When I uninstalled npcap from the host, everything worked correctly again. However, I have to have npcap installed since I am using Wireshark. What finally solved it for me was to install npcap separately from Wireshark, using the standalone installer from Npcap's website. The important part was to make sure "Install Npcap in WinPcap API-compatible mode" was checked when installing npcap. After this, I can now use Wireshark and bridged networking is once again working on my VM.