VMware Player loses internet connectivity

This happens to me too. I did the following:

  1. I find the network adapter on the host which VMware Player is using (in Network Connections). In my case, it is named VMware Network Adapter VMnet8.

  2. Right-click on it then select Disable. I then wait for the Guest OS to report 'cable unplugged' from its taskbar (my guest is WinXP).

  3. Back in the host, right-click on the same adapter the select Enable. Wait for the guest taskbar no-connection icon to switch to the getting-an-ip-address animation, then after the IP address is allocated, test the connection.

My web access is restored with this method.


In my experience, if my host OS goes to sleep while the VM is running, I lose network connectivity from the guest OS, and the only way to resolve the situation is to reboot the host OS. However, I found that if I suspend the guest OS before the host goes to sleep, the problem never appears.


I tried a few of these solutions. Here is what worked for me with a Linux guest on a windows host:

  1. Open virtual machine settings
  2. Select the Network Adapter and click Remove
  3. Then Add... > Network Adapter > Finish > OK
  4. Then suspend the machine and resume it and it works again!

Better than restarting the host.