vmware / vmplayer : unable to initialize installer database

[techAdmin]

On one system, my newly installed vmware player 2.5.x fails to start.

Error message is:

:: Quote ::

unable to initialize installer database

This report has the same issue with no resolution: [link]

Tried this method: [link]

:: Quote ::

It should build/install the modules when you try to start up if they're not available. If that doesn't work for whatever reason you can try running:
vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

which yields the same result:

:: Code ::

vmware-modconfig --console --install-all
Unable to initialize installer database.

some Arch linux hints here: [link]

Start as root, using sux? Failed, same error.

and some more hints, might be the eth interfaces have changed: [link]

[techAdmin]

Solution found: After some reading and thinking, I realized that the problem lies in changing something in your system between installs, then vmware, in the new version 2.5 and greater, fails to reconfigure it.

I was afraid things wouldn't work perfectly with the new bundle installer, and sure enough, it's trying to be too clever for its own good.

Luckily, the solution is quite easy, first, uninstall vmware, then: rm -rf /etc/vmware

Then reinstall vmware, or vmplayer, and the problem should be gone.

This removes the old vmware configuration information, and when vmware starts up again, it isn't trying to use a corrupted database, it makes a new one.

Obviously, vmware installer itself should do this, but if it did, this wouldn't be a case of too clever, yet not clever enough.

Anyway, I'm posting this in hopes that it will help others who hit the same annoying issue.

I'll also add this to the installer svmi, but that's only for Debian users, this information should help others who hit the same issue.