VMWare Workstation 8 did not see any USB devices, only BT dongle

Question

No errors reported, just no devices available. With 7.1.4 there was no problems, Virtualbox works well too.
Is it my installation's personal bug or known issue?
System is Arch x86_64 on Asus Rampage II motherboard (Intel X58/ICH10R).
Last edited by pekmop1024 (2011-09-26 10:46:31)

Answer 1

You probably had some problem with your installation, I have this:
$ ls -l /etc/rc.d/vmware*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Sep 18 22:09 /etc/rc.d/vmware -> /etc/init.d/vmware
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2653 Sep 18 22:09 /etc/rc.d/vmware-USBArbitrator
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 37 Sep 18 22:09 /etc/rc.d/vmware-workstation-server -> /etc/init.d/vmware-workstation-server
But if you want, were is my [vmware-USBArbitrator]:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Copyright 1998-2010 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.
# This script manages the VMware USB Arbitrator service
# VMWARE_INIT_INFO
# Load bootstrapper info
. /etc/vmware/bootstrap
# This defines echo_success() and echo_failure() on RedHat
if [ -r "$INITSCRIPTDIR"'/functions' ]; then
. "$INITSCRIPTDIR"'/functions'
fi
vmware_failed() {
if [ "`type -t 'echo_failure' 2>/dev/null`" = 'function' ]; then
echo_failure
else
echo -n "$rc_failed"
fi
vmware_success() {
if [ "`type -t 'echo_success' 2>/dev/null`" = 'function' ]; then
echo_success
else
echo -n "$rc_done"
fi
# Execute a macro
vmware_exec() {
local msg="$1" # IN
local func="$2" # IN
shift 2
# On Caldera 2.2, SIGHUP is sent to all our children when this script exits
# I wanted to use shopt -u huponexit instead but their bash version
# 1.14.7(1) is too old
# Ksh does not recognize the SIG prefix in front of a signal name
if [ "$VMWARE_DEBUG" = 'yes' ]; then
(trap '' HUP; "$func" "$@")
else
(trap '' HUP; "$func" "$@") >/dev/null 2>&1
fi
if [ "$?" -gt 0 ]; then
vmware_failed
echo
return 1
fi
vmware_success
echo
return 0
# Start the virtual machine USB Arbitrator service
vmwareStartUSBArbitrator() {
# The executable checks for already running instances, so it
# is safe to just run it.
"$BINDIR"/vmware-usbarbitrator
# Stop the virtual machine USB Arbitrator service
vmwareStopUSBArbitrator() {
# Find the running process
# grep instead of pgrep... Turns out to be more reliable. pgrep
# would return extranneous results.
pid=`pgrep -f "$BINDIR"/vmware-usbarbitrator`
# If it is not running
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
# PID was found, stop it.
kill $pid
return 0
else
# No process found.
return 0
fi
vmwareService() {
case "$1" in
start)
vmware_exec 'VMware USB Arbitrator' vmwareStartUSBArbitrator
exitcode=$(($exitcode + $?))
if [ "$exitcode" -gt 0 ]; then
exit 1
fi
stop)
vmware_exec 'VMware USB Arbitrator' vmwareStopUSBArbitrator
exitcode=$(($exitcode + $?))
if [ "$exitcode" -gt 0 ]; then
exit 1
fi
restart)
"$SCRIPTNAME" stop && "$SCRIPTNAME" start
echo "Usage: $BASENAME {start|stop|restart}"
exit 1
esac
SCRIPTNAME="$0"
BASENAME=`basename "$SCRIPTNAME"`
# Check permissions
if [ "`id -ur`" != '0' ]; then
echo 'Error: you must be root.'
echo
exit 1
fi
vmwareService "$1"
exit 0
Copy it to your system and test, probably will solve your problem.