“Your computer restarted because of a problem. Press a key or wait a few seconds to continue starting up” is a common error in macOS. If you get this error on Mac computers like MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and iMac, several solutions are available on the internet to solve it.
In this guide, we will look for the potential reasons and solutions to fix this problem for macOS virtual machines in VMware. We published several guides to install macOS (like Big Sur) in the VMware workstation on Windows 10/11 computers. You can apply the below solutions for these virtual machines.
The Reason for Your computer restarted because of a problem with macOS VM
You may get this error after installing a fresh macOS on VMware, importing a working VM from other sources (like a different host or Internet) or even while switching on an existing VM that worked well before.
The main cause for this error is that the macOS guest virtual machine support in the VMware workstation is not available or removed. We can’t install or use macOS VM on Windows computers without modifying a few VMware program files. There is a tool called macOS unlocker to do this job.
Here are the possible scenarios:
- The VMware workstation is not patched with the macOS unlocker to allow macOS virtual machine guest support.
- You updated the VMware workstation program on your computer, so the patched/modified files got updated/replaced. In this case, the macOS unlocker patch you did earlier is no longer valid.
The Solution:
Simply execute the latest macOS unlocker as mentioned in this guide.
Make sure that the unlocker tool supports your host Operating System (like Windows 11 or Windows 10) and the VMware workstation version such as ver 15, 16 etc.
After executing, you can confirm the macOS guest VM support by going to the settings of the existing VM or creating a new VM.
Once it is confirmed, power on the troubled macOS virtual machine which used to give “Your computer restarted because of a problem” error without booting. If the VM configuration and OS installation are correct, the guest machine will boot without issues.
Here is the VM that gave the error earlier but booted successfully after executing the macOS unlocker.
