How-To: getting VMware-server 2.0 beta MUI Remote Console to work with Firefox

1 minute read

Lately, I have been trying vmware-server 2.0 beta build 63231. It worked pretty well, but for the fact that the Remote Console to the VM was not working through the MUI.

This article will describe the step to take in order to get it working.

After the plugin was installed and Firefox restarted, when accessing to the Remote Console, the console was blank/black.

I first started launching firefox from the command line to get a bit more verbose output and I could see:

$ firefox
VMRC:GetPluginComponentPath: found plugin file: /home/user/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxx.default/extensions/[email protected]/plugins/np-vmware-vmrc-2.0.0-63231.so
VMRC:GetPluginComponentPath: loading plugin components from /home/user/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxx.default/extensions/[email protected]/plugins/vmware-vmrc-2.0.0-63231/
VMRC:StartMksViewer: forking legacy delegate instance
VMRC:StartMksViewer: executing /home/user/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxx.default/extensions/[email protected]/plugins/vmware-vmrc-2.0.0-63231/vmware-vmrc-legacy using fd 41 for communication
Warning: unknown mime-type for "--ipc" -- using "application/*"
Warning: unknown mime-type for "41" -- using "application/*"
Error: no such file "--ipc"
Error: no such file "41"
/home/user/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxx.default/extensions/[email protected]/plugins/vmware-vmrc-2.0.0-63231/lib/wrapper-gtk24.sh: 427: -: not found
/home/user/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxx.default/extensions/[email protected]/plugins/vmware-vmrc-2.0.0-63231/lib/wrapper-gtk24.sh: 427: -: not found
/home/user/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxx.default/extensions/[email protected]/plugins/vmware-vmrc-2.0.0-63231/lib/wrapper-gtk24.sh: 427: -: not found
/home/user/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxx.default/extensions/[email protected]/plugins/vmware-vmrc-2.0.0-63231/lib/wrapper-gtk24.sh: 427: -: not found
/home/user/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxx.default/extensions/[email protected]/plugins/vmware-vmrc-2.0.0-63231/bin/vmware-vmrc-legacy: symbol lookup error: /home/user/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxx.default/extensions/[email protected]/plugins/vmware-vmrc-2.0.0-63231/lib/libvmwareui.so.0/libvmwareui.so.0: undefined symbol: _ZN4view10FieldEntry15on_size_requestEP15_GtkRequisition

This remind me some other issues that happen with VMware product and could be resolve by setting up the environment variable VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK to yes.

I gave that a spin and it worked.

So, in order to get vmware-server 2.0 beta Remote Console MUI to work, you can start firefox with the following command:

$ VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK=yes firefox

And there you go, your remote console should be working.

Hope this helps, Happy new year!!!