ArcGIS Server print service crash when VMWare 12.5 is installed

Error Message

Customers have been reporting that ArcGIS Enterprise print services, default or custom, unexpectedly crash when VMWare Tools 12.5 is installed on the same machine as the ArcGIS Server component. When investigating, users may see the following messages in the ArcGIS Server logs:

• <Msg time="2024-10-30T13:51:40,397" type="SEVERE" code="9000" source="Rest" process="1360" thread="1" methodName="" machine="xyz.com" user="" admin="" requestID="18e643d2-02cd-46d1-89d4-9e1704a2c92a">Error performing execute operation Error handling service request :Could not service request.</Msg>
• <Msg time="2024-10-30T14:04:15,311" type="SEVERE" code="7551" source="Server" process="1360" thread="26" methodName="" machine=" xyz.com " user="" admin ="" requestID="a868451b-3ec3-4e7e-8d15-ba57d267ae2d">Instance of the service 'Test/ExportWebMap.GPServer' crashed. Please see if an error report was generated in 'D:\arcgisserver\logs\</Msg>
• <Msg time="2024-10-30T14:04:26,607" type="SEVERE" code="7553" source="Server" process="1360" thread="26" methodName="" machine=" xyz.com " user="" admin ="" requestID="a868451b-3ec3-4e7e-8d15-ba57d267ae2d">The containing process for 'Test/ExportWebMap' job 'j684cfa28396b441999c4e9b3130cf09c' has crashed.</Msg>

This knowledge article describes the nature of the error as well as two options to resolve it.

Cause

The cause of this issue is a known VMWare defect involving the vm3dgl64.dll file used by the OpenGL driver packaged with VMware Tools 12.5.0. Process Monitor logs report that vm3dgl64.dll receives many read requests from the ArcSOC.exe process that manages the PrintingTools service just before it crashes. vm3dgl64.dll is a commonly distributed library with VMWare tools that interfaces with many applications, including ArcGIS Server.

Solution or Workaround

There are two possible solutions for this issue:

• Roll back to VMWare Tools 12.4.5 until a newer version is released. As users report, this has been the most common and simplest solution to avoid the crash.
• Implement one of the workarounds developed by the owners of VMWare, Broadcom. The workarounds, as described in their knowledge base, include:
  • Disable the use of llvmpipe by adding this virtual machine config option to the VM's VMX file: guestinfo.svga.disableLLVMPipe=TRUE
  • Set a system environment variable SVGA_ALLOW_LLVMPIPE=0