This article helps you to resolve USB connectivity issues to the virtual machines.

NOTE: The article is relevant only to users who are running 10.13 or higher, Fusion 8 and above on their MAC Systems.

Symptoms:
USB device is not being detected by the virtual machine.

When a USB device is connected to the Host MAC machine, the device will not show up in Virtual Machine > Settings > USB & Bluetooth

After the upgrading Fusion or the macOS to High Sierra, user does not receive prompt to "Connect to Mac" or "Connect to Windows."

VMware Fusion 11.x
VMware Fusion 10.x
VMware Fusion Pro 11.x
VMware Fusion 12.x
VMware Fusion Pro 12.x
VMware Fusion Pro 10.x

This issue occurs because starting from macOS 10.13, Apple requires 3rd Party Kernel extensions to be manually enabled.

To resolve this issue:

1. Check if VMware USB arbitration services are running on the Mac.
    To Check the above, Launch Activity Monitor (Make sure "All Processes" option is selected from Activity Monitor view > All Processes)
    Search for the process "vmware-usb arbitrator", if the process is running, then please follow the article "Unable to connect a USB device to a virtual machine (2118442)"
    If the "vmware-usb arbitrator" is not running follow to the next step.

2 . Make sure Fusion application is running, go to the Host Mac > System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General > You will notice an error similar to the following:

“System software from vendor “VMware, Inc.” was blocked from loading.” with option to click on “Allow”.

From there, click on "Allow."

NOTE:  You need will need admin privileges to allow the application.

If you have remotely connected to the Host Mac, you will not be able to click on "Allow", you need to have physical access to the host Mac.

3. Quit Fusion then relaunch the Fusion application and try to boot or Resume the Virtual Machine.

4. Run "First Aid" to check and repair any File System Errors, if the above steps do not fix the issue.
To Run "First Aid" by going to Applications > UTILITIES FOLDER > Disk Utility, now click on RUN
Now Restart Fusion and restart or resume the Virtual Machine.

5. Manually uninstall Fusion by following steps below:

Drag the application bundle from the Applications folder to the Trash.

Also ensure that you delete these additional files and folders, if they are present:

Note: Depending on the environment, some of these files may not be present. Some files may exist only if VMware Fusion 3 was originally installed on a machine that was later upgraded to VMware Fusion 4.x and later.

• /Library/Application Support/VMware
• /Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion
• /Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion
• ~/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion
• ~/Library/Caches/com.vmware.fusion
• ~/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.LSSharedFileList.plist
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.LSSharedFileList.plist.lockfile
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.plist
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.plist.lockfile
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionDaemon.plist
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionDaemon.plist.lockfile
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionStartMenu.plist
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionStartMenu.plist.lockfile

Note: The Library folder inside your user directory is hidden by default. To access your Library folder:

1. Click the Finder icon.
2. While pressing the Option key, click the Go menu. This reveals your Library folder.

Now Re-install Fusion and follow Step 2. If the issue persists, please proceed to next step.

6. Follow the Step 5, manually Uninstall Fusion and then execute the below commands in Terminal window on Mac Host

NOTE : Download a fresh copy of Fusion from https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/fusion-evaluation.html

     xattr -l ~/Downloads/VMware-Fusion-10.0.0-6665085.dmg

     xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ~/Downloads/VMware-Fusion-10.0.0-6665085.dmg

Re-install Fusion and try to launch Virtual Machine.

Impact/Risks:
USB Devices will not get detected by the virtual machines.