macOS VM won’t start, stuck in a boot loop

Recently, I upgraded VMWare workstation Pro from 17.0 to 17.5 and after that, my macOS Virtual machines stopped working. Every time I start the VMs, it restarts automatically in a loop.

I switched on other Windows-based VMs and they were switching ON just fine. I have fixed the issue by using the below steps:

STEP 1 – Check VMWARE.log file

  • VMWARE.log file is stored in the same folder where the other files of Virtual machine are stored. To find the location of Virtual machine, you can right-click on your VM from VM Workstation console and click on Settings.
  • Under Hardware tab, click on Hard-disk, and on the right-hand side find Disk file location. This is the location where your VM is stored, Go to that location.
STEP 1 – Check VMware.log file
  • You will find a file called vmware.log, open the file and check the logs.

You may file below errors in the file:

2023-10-20T16:54:42.194Z In(05) vcpu-5 SMC_Open: Unable to open MacHALDriver: 0x00000002.
2023-10-20T16:54:42.199Z In(05) vcpu-5 Chipset: The guest has requested that the virtual machine be hard reset.
2023-10-20T16:54:42.202Z In(05) vcpu-0 DEVICE: Resetting device 'ALL'.

2023-10-20T16:53:10.574Z In(05) vmx FeatureCompat: No EVC masks.
 Unable to open MacHALDriver: 0x00000002
Unable to open MacHALDriver: 0x00000002
2023-10-20T16:57:29.038Z In(05) vmx GuestRpcSendTimedOut: message to toolbox-dnd timed out.
2023-10-20T16:57:37.922Z In(05) vcpu-2 Chipset: The guest has requested that the virtual machine be hard reset.
2023-10-20T16:57:37.988Z In(05) vcpu-0 DEVICE: Resetting device 'ALL'.
GuestRpcSendTimedOut: message to toolbox-dnd timed out
GuestRpcSendTimedOut: message to toolbox-dnd timed out

STEP 2 – Update Unlocker for VMWARE Workstation

Download Unlocker for macOS VM
Download Unlocker for macOS VM
  • Right-click on this file and select Extract All. It will extract all the contents of zip file into a separate folder.
  • Make sure All VMs are powered off and VMWare Workstation is also closed.
  • Right-click command prompt and click run as administrator.
  • Change the folder location to the extracted folder location on command prompt
  • Execute Win-install.cmd script to fix this issue.
Execute win-install.cmd file
Execute win-install.cmd file
  • Launch the macOS VM again, this time it will boot up without any issues.

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